Stone POLLd Crazy: The ILM Queen Poll Voting Thread (#68? in a series)

http://starling.rinet.ru/music/sleeves/zap_queen.jpg

so the hour has officially arrived. it's time to prepare for (ogre) battle, pit the ornamented anthems against the very deepest cuts (yes, this will mean blowing the dust of that mildewed Hot Space cassette), and pay tribute to one of the most fascinating four-pieces in history.

these are the nuts & bolts:

Ballot Part I (essential): rank your top 20 Queen tracks and send em right along. just the studio stuff please, no live cuts. solo Freddie, Roger & Brian is fair game, should you wish to vote for it. points will be allocated the good old-fashioned way.

Ballot Part I (essential): just for shits & giggles tell me your favourite Queen album. just the one please. i will award it a point and we'll see how this experiment pans out.

send your slightly mad ballot along to queenpolling AT gmail dot com

please refer any queries (or anything i might have glossed over) to this thread.

now get on yer bikes and ride!

and oh yes, the voting window will close on Monday, 21 September.

and to make an amendment, the second part of the Ballot (your album of choice) is in fact OPTIONAL, but you are most encouraged to contribute.

so much to rep for, but i'm going to lend some early love to Flick of the Wrist from Sheer Heart Attack. all the hallmarks of flamboyant, histrionic Queen with the chops and bite to back it up.

I hope this goes top twenty:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6QGP0OUaV4

had no idea that video existed. glad to know of it! as for the song, it's an infectious winner, strangely unlike regular Queen in a way, but still clearly in their hitting zone.

yeah, and yes it is number 68.

thanks for starting this charlie h, never did think we would see another poll on ILM.

my pleasure - more than happy to step up! i've run one of these before and it was a blast. would also be a shame to stop now we're 68 artists deep.

Fuck yeah! I've been waiting for this one!

can we vote for the Flash soundtrack tracks?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVNtNhzDN9k

I'm so tempted to make my ballot up entirely of deep cuts, although we'll see... narrowing it down to just twenty is going to be painful!

yes, Flash soundtrack tracks are fair game ! that's a particularly nice one.

x-post

was just wondering the other day if a queen poll had been done or if it was in the pipeline, stoked for this

been revisiting Queen I in a major way the last couple of days. I think in the past I found it a little bit too raw & indecisive in execution to successfully grapple with, lacking the polished guile of virtually everything that came after it, save possibly Queen II. but these exact same qualities are really clicking with me now, and I think it's actually all the better for its impulsive, straying nature.

I mean, this one really keeps you on your toes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEyfCog8A9k

oh man, so excited for an excuse to listen to loads of Queen

I, for one, am primed to spend some serious time with a bunch of the 80s records, and afford some of the deeper cuts the necessary mental headway to make their charms more readily known than ever before. looking forward to it, of course!

just listened to The Works in its entirety. solid all the way through, but idk, possibly undermined a little bit by its evenness? half the songs seem all too intent on earnestly appropriating their status as Big Stadium Rock Anthems from the very first note, as if the blockish guitar riffs & over-percolated vocals you hear upfront are enough to carry you along for the ride. the presumption kinda kills it for me.

maybe i just find it a little too conventional, the mighty Hammer to Fall notwithstanding. any ardent supporters of this album out there? would love to know your thoughts.

Yes, me! It's my favourite '80s Queen album. Why? Because there isn't a track that I ever feel like skipping on it, whereas there's definitely tracks that I would skip on other '80s Queen albums. Yeah, there's a lot of tracks on The Works that are going over old Queen styles, like 'It's A Hard Life', 'Hammer To Fall', 'Tear It Up', the "old time" style of 'Man On The Prowl' (they seem to have one of these on a lot of their albums), but tracks like those are also blended in with stuff that takes in just the right amount of New Wave influence without alienating Queen audiences: 'Radio Ga Ga', 'I Want To Break Free', even 'Machines' (which is lyrically corny as fuck, but I still wouldn't skip over it) ... 'Keep Passing The Open Windows' is an underrated track I think, and neat use of the middle 8 as the intro, which ends up becoming the most memorable part of the song.

It's great to see that the debut Queen album has been mentioned already, though, and it goes without saying that there is one track in particular that will be on my ballot without a shadow of a doubt: it begins with the letter 'L'.

you know, it's interesting you mention that The Works references old Queen styles since I was genuinely wondering earlier today if It's A Hard Life was a conscious reworking of Play The Game (with perhaps something of a less optimistic standpoint). hard not to spot the overt similarities between those songs.

yeah, Queen I will almost definitely be represented somewhere on my ballot.

Yeah... I think it's very difficult to say whether Mercury sat down at a piano and said "today, I'm going to write a song that mixes 'Play The Game' with the first half of 'Bohemian Rhapsody'", or whether the song just fell out of him like that... I mean, if you analyse it I guess you can hear elements of one or two Queen tracks in there, but at the same time it feels very naturally written. I love the track, for what it's worth, I think it's a great song, and I prefer it to 'Play The Game' for sure. Dare I say it, I prefer it to the overplayed 'Bohemian Rhapsody' too, which won't be on my ballot!

I am hugely tempted to vote for 'Jesus'

really intrigued to know which of the deeper cuts will go top 10/top 20. Liar? Love Of My Life? i'm not hugely familiar with the entire non-hits back catalogue just bits of it.

oh and if anyone hasn't seen the 2 hour 2-part BBC doc from a few years back, it's amazing and it's here in full.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mMbrHXjXlo

it can be hard to situate the merits of Bohemian Rhapsody when you know you've heard it 1000 times too many. but it was obviously a turning point in their writing, and yes i can hear bits of it in It's A Hard Life (along with Play The Game, of course).

Jesus has really been jumping out at me this last set of listens. it definitely encapsulates the spirit of that first album.

it is quite interesting to think about the deeper cuts that may/ may not appear. Queen II and Sheer Heart Attack could yield a few of them, i dare say.

thanks for posting that doco! i'd set to watching it now if i didn't have to be up in 5 hours.

My favourite part of 'Jesus' is the middle part, and yeah, that documentary is great and from what I remember, they touch upon the tensions that were in the band circa Hot Space a little bit as well.

As for deep cuts, I'm incredibly fond of this one, buried at the end of The Miracle...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNvzJ_dBHfQ

Also, there's a few selections from Jazz that I love that may or may not make it onto my ballot, always loved this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFtsWGaeAu0

I'll laugh my tits off if 'Mustapha' manages to place, although it'd be a pleasant surprise if it did.

really like Was It All Worth It. one of those nostalgic, almost ominously melancholy Queen tunes, the tone of which was increasingly prevalent on the final couple of albums.

couldn't help but get stuck into the documentary despite the late hour. interesting how much of an impact that initial Top of the Pops appearance had. the momentum started to gather much earlier than i thought.

... and yet they had no money for a long time.

Well, the band definitely knew during the making of The Miracle that Freddie was ill, and I don't think anyone involved knew just how long Freddie was going to be able to keep going for, so The Miracle could have easily have been the last Queen album. I've heard rumours that they titled the album The Miracle because it was a miracle that the album got made and completed, although I'm not sure how true that is - I have a feeling that the album was just titled after the song of the same name and nothing more than that. However, if you think of The Miracle being the "final" Queen album then 'Was It All Worth It' makes sense, not just as an album closer but a career closer too. That the band managed to carry on and make Innuendo was the real miracle, IMO... and that album ends with 'The Show Must Go On', which is equally as perfect as an album closer/career closer, IMO.

I've spent a lot of the day relistening to Queen tracks for this poll, and I cannot get over how sloppy a drummer Roger Taylor is. On any pre-NotW track where Freddie is not playing rhythmic piano, he'll just randomly come in super late with a snare hit or five on the 2 or 4, completely trashing the groove. I never liked the synthisized Queen tunes, but it's hard not to notice that John Deacon's bass playing just opens up when the band started playing to click tracks and drum machines.

my ballot's very Queen II heavy

there is definitely a heightened sense of sentimentality -- of mortality even -- about those last two (or three) albums that can make them sad to listen to.

interesting about Roger Taylor being a sloppy drummer. always sensed that he was never doing anything too flamboyant, that he didn't need to stretch himself too much given the innovations of Freddie and Brian, but it's still curious to hear that the tautness and discipline of the other members didn't strictly rub off on him.

i suspect my ballot will end up with several Queen II tracks as well.

x-post

I always liked the way Taylor mixed his snare hits with the opening of the hi-hat.. it sounds great on 'Brighton Rock' in particular.

I love Queen II, but it's likely that I'll only end up voting for maybe one or two tracks from it... I'm trying to represent my favourite Queen tracks throughout all the albums, and even though I think Side Two of Queen II is wonderful, I think it works better as one continuous piece of music rather than broken down into individual tracks for the most part.

Roger Taylor : the most underrated hard rock singer of the 1970s?

he definitely provides an interesting, spartan counterpoint to Freddie. he also sings lead on some excellent songs.

The sound of Taylor's drums is very 70s and cool, but Brighton Rock is also a good example of what I'm talking about -- May sets up one tempo and feel, and by the end of the verse, Taylor has slowed the whole thing down and it doesn't recover until he lays out after his fills. In the first guitar break, it sounds almost as if he decides to pick up his sticks at the moment they should be striking the snare.

woah, Dead On Time from Jazz is proving to be a gainful new discovery for me. Brian's main riff on that one is fierce!

also worth noting that i must have been sleeping on Spread Your Wings this whole time. what a song!

'Dead On Time' rules]! I've always felt that Jazz was one of the most underrated Queen albums of the '70s, and there's so many songs on there that I could vote for, 'Dead On Time' definitely being one of them. Love the thunderclap at the end and Freddie shouting "YOU'RE DEAD!"

'Spread Your Wings' easily one of my highlights of News Of The World, an album which I know that a lot of people like but is on the lower-half of the table for me.

In fact, I was just thinking... it'll be great to see which writer gets has the most songs place on the poll, I suspect either May or Mercury since they wrote the bulk of the Queen material, but I reckon there'll be a huge number of Deacon songs too.

i'm really coming round to News Of The World, i think. Fight From The Inside is another minor classic - an infectious Taylor rocker with an unremitting pulse. i also have a bit of a soft spot for All Dead, All Dead, which frankly a very weird song.

we're a few ballots deep already. keep them coming!

"Mustapha" is a song I've always loved from a so-so album.

Whoever votes for "We Will Rock You" will get reported to the FCC.

"we will rock you" is awesome as fuck and perfect as hell. i was thinking that it's a little odd to have it split from "we are the champions" but whatever.

yeah but I hate sports

Also "We Are the Champions" sounds like a nerd's lament, not a triumphalist anthem

shit's so triumphalist it's practically wagner

man when may's solo cuts in in 'we will rock you', fucking lightning bolt from the gods, maybe the most efficient solo ever in terms of effort vs force

WHOMP-WHOMP-BAP
WHOMP-WHOMP-BAP

seriously add a mosquito hum, a calliope, and some trenchant social commentary and you've got 'let's go all the way'

you mean "an Elvis Costello Spike tune"

ONE LUMP OR TWOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

https://i.vimeocdn.com/video/447768206_640.jpg

i do understand the argument that Rock You and Champions could be seen as the one entity, but i think it's radio sequencing as much as anything that feeds the idea that they're codependent. they are very different songs when taken apart, each with a rounded beginning, middle and end.

i do personally like Rock You, particularly its spareness and restraint. you know they could've laid it on thicker had they chosen. even though it's been tirelessly overplayed, i always enjoy hearing it because it's so taut and brief.

It's telling that 'We Will Rock You' and 'We Are The Champions' were sequenced back-to-back not just on the News Of The World album, but on the Greatest Hits album too. I can understand why folks have a hard time separating the two from each other.

I won't be voting for 'We Will Rock You', though.

i have never heard a rock station play just "Rock You" or just "Champions," it's always one and then the other. it's a great one-two punch, really.

xpost I didn't vote for it either, not because it isn't a great song, but because I based the ballot on what 20 Queen songs at this given juncture that I'd actually want to hear the most at this given time, and those have run their course with me. Had it been a 30 song ballot, though, they might have made it.

"Keep Yourself Alive" was one of my tops, as while I"m not a fan of the debut that much, it's such an energetic burst onto the scene to begin that album.

also threw in a vote for "Fairyfeller's Master Stroke" because the song is such silly, goofy fun. "Prophet's Song" is my current fav - that a capella "now I know" section always drives me gaga, I love it.

Night at the Opera is one of those albums which, despite it being my 2nd fav Queen album, it is moreso for the work as a whole than individual tracks, though there's no denying it has those too ("Death on Two Legs" is so great).

also love me some "Teo Torriatte" - such a beautiful ballad. still have strong memories of that as it's associated with the summer before I went to college for the first time, which is when I first heard DAy at the Races (kind of an undercooked album).

i actually enforced them being counted as one song on the classic rock poll (along with some other songs paired by airplay with "Heartbreaker/Living Loving Maid" and "Brain Damage/Eclipse"), but none of that stuff got enough votes to place. xp

waht

i'm not sure i'll vote for either but "you've brought me fame and fortune and everythingthat goes withit --- i thank you all" would be pretty high on my fave queen moments. doing "another one bites the dust" at karaoke and realizing he's barking out "mighty dusty!" would be on there also.

I hate to admit the fucking Mighty Ducks was the first time I heard "WATC". "We Will Rock You" I first heard at minor league soccer games (they piped in music over the loudspeakers -ew). never together until hearing the TMD soundtrack.

Eh, I can't say that I'm a huge fan of 'Teo Torriatte', really... I think there's a lot of great stuff on A Day At The Races, though, and I can't fault the production on it. I always thought placing 'You Take My Breath Away' as the second track on the album was a bit of a momentum-killer, though, and seemed quite an odd sequencing choice to me, especially after Sheer Heart Attack and A Night At The Opera were so impeccably put together in terms of track order.

outside of "Tie Your Mother Down", "You Take My Breath Away", and "Teo", I don't care for much of the rest, other than the okay-ish "White Man". Just seemed like such a step down from what preceded it.

YTMBA is a bit of a momentum kill but I love that piano part so much.

lobbying

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YYPNr_FOi4

also worth noting that i must have been sleeping on Spread Your Wings this whole time. what a song!

― charlie h, Thursday, September 10, 2015 12:58 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol yeah love that one, but I first came to it through the Blind Guardian cover version!

Have been waiting with bated breath for this poll.

So damn hard to narrow their barmy eclecticism down to 20 tracks! But I'm having fun trying.

I'm guessing 'Bo Rhap' will win the day, but 'Under Pressure' might come close? (And yes, I'll be voting for both of these tracks.) I'm open to being pleasantly surprised, though.

glad you're having fun working through the tracks, Wordy.

in my mind i always associated A Day At The Races as a fairly immediate companion piece to A Night At The Opera. it was quite a surprise to discover that it was not only stylistically different to its predecessor, but also of significantly lesser quality. there are still some excellent tracks, all things considered.

Father to Son is great. loose & adventurous with a really hazy mythical undercurrent, just how i like my early Queen.

Father to Son is crazy -- it starts off like the coda to some other, even grander prog tune. And the out-of-tune multitracked lead vocals are great.

I'm guessing 'Bo Rhap' will win the day...

I once heard MTV's Mark Goodman come out of a set by saying, "And that was Queen with what I call 'The Bo-Ho Rap,'" and I still haven't recovered to this day.

'Procession' to 'Father To Son' is a great intro to the album, although I'm still in two minds as to whether to vote for 'Father To Son' or not... 'Son & Daughter' on the other hand...

some genius/nutcase Queen fan has put the HD Live Aid footage to the original BBC-broadcast Stereo version of the audio and hoo boy is it amazing. much rawer than the polished version on the DVD/Blu Ray; full of feedback and crowd noise and squeaks and crunches.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A22oy8dFjqc

does anyone here love "Who needs you," as I do? My fave Deac-y tune.

ahh the hell with it! I don't fuck with these polls you guys get so torqued up about but these are my fave deep kuts…

"machines,"
"Some day Some Way"
"The prophet's Song"
"it's late"
"made in heaven" (not a deep cut, but Brian's one line at a time harmony stacking starting at 1:19 is DEVASTATING);
"princes of the Universe" (also not a deep cut but BERSERK), "Dancer,"
"Battle theme" and "hero" from Flash (FUCK YEAH rendered in song 20 years before Andrew WK)
"Long away"

Yeah, there's some great selections there, one or two which may make it onto my ballot :D

Prophet's Song has one of the best pre-choruses of all time

i almost voted for It's Late. plenty of great work from May there. it just drags on a little, that's all.

Any "39" fans?

I'm guessing 'Bo Rhap' will win the day...

on ILM? i guess it'll slide into the top 5 but i can think of at least 2 or 3 songs that seem like far more likely poll winners around here.

Gonna spend some time revisiting the catalog before working on a ballot, but I have to put in a good word for "Drowse", which is the one Roger song I swear no one ever talks about.

nice slide guitar on Drowse! great vocal melody too. i'm of the opinion that Roger generally has a pretty good strike rate as far as the quality of his songs goes.

hopefully y'all are using your weekends to get a whole lot of listening in!

surely Drowse is about as close to psych as the band got.

listening to Teo Torriatte. kinda reminds me uncomfortably of The Living Years, what with the vainglorious choir and all.

"Drowse" is an inferior, nothing-at-stake version of the Who's "Cut My Hair".

i think it's quietly interesting and definitely a departure from their normal sound. small stakes, yes i'll agree with that.

My favourite version of 'We Will Rock You' (the 'slow/fast version' from the 1977 BBC session):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3Eknl6ER6I

Although ... maybe patching the original together with the segue and fast part of this would make for the ultimate?

^^ that does rock pretty hard.

on the topic of '39, yeah i really like it. it does become a bit earnest and Bill Joel-like once the vocals begin, however.

my favourite May-sung Queen song is probably Sail Away Sweet Sister.

heard this Axl tribute of sorts a long time before I knew it was a Queen song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntrZa3n0L_0

I don't 'mind 'Drowse', especially the change into the 'Out here on the street' section (I was going to call it a middle eight, but not sure whether it technically is?)

Never particularly been a fan of 'Teo Torriate'. It's grown on me a little over the years, but I still think it's a bit of a half-baked sing-song finale.

Not really a huge fan of '39' or 'Spread Your Wings' either. Both so-so in my book.

'Father to Son' though--now we're talking! Will definitely figure in my votes.

Am also trying to find a spot for 'Backchat', 'Keep Yourself Alive', 'Jesus', and 'Great King Rat', but as I said upthread, this top 20 thing is a tough undertaking! One thing that's surprised me a bit is how many tracks from the debut I'm considering voting for. Sure, the songs don't quite have the production values of later work, but they're generally packed with ideas, and still retain some magic after decades of listening.

And finally, a track that I don't think anyone's mentioned, which will definitely be right up there in my ballot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e4Odk-v3oU

I voted for the Seven Seas from Queen II, actually!

hell yeah, Great King Rat. could have easily voted for that one, but my appreciation & fondness for it is a little too recently cultivated and therefore susceptible to possible flux. agree that Queen I is killer.

Rhye is a stone cold classic. wonder whether I should make some kind of concession in the vote tabulation for the two different versions, or is it reasonable to assume most people are opting for the version on II?

lol I made sure to specify in mine for that reason.

I figure more people would vote for the one from II than I but dunno that one should assume that when tabulating!

I'm all about some Ogre Battle too....

Just to clarify, the video I linked to above is 'Seven Seas of Rhye' from Queen II. But I had been discussing the debut immediately before I linked to the video, so that was kinda confusing now that I think about it!

But yeah, I think it's probably safe to assume people would be voting for the Queen II version? I do love how the version on the debut rounds things off after 'Jesus' though--a nice bit of sequencing.

I have to confess that I dream of the alternate reality where Roger Taylor took the Genesis gig offer, Phil Collins joined queen as the singing drummer, and Genesis became the Prog band that couldn't play and Queen would have gone supernova.

wow that's an interesting idea

man Sheer Heart Attack is such a strange-sounding song. so muffled and strangled sounding in a way that must have been deliberate. the similarities between this song and Sister by Prince have been well documented, right?

All Dead, All Dead, is about May's cat he got as a young teenager, which I just learned and find heartbreaking.

Lobbying for this May tune: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5xBeuB01jc

Anybody like "In the Lap of the Gods"?

I loved the arena reprise too

Any "39" fans?

The world needs more skiffle songs with lyrics about time dilation.

Anyone like their novelty pastiche numbers? Bring Back That Leroy Brown, Seaside Rendezvous etc. Did they pretty much drop them after A Day At The Races (Crazy Little Thing Called Love excepted I guess)?

I looove Seaside and Lazing on a Sunday afternoon

yeah 39 is great. May has a wee moan that it wasn't a single in the Classic Albums show about A Night At The Opera

and THIS was surely a big surprise at the Freddie tribute show. he clearly loved it and the audience reaction when it starts up is killer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvpZuFX681o

I love 'Sail Away Sweet Sister', definitely one of my highlights of The Game, that.

Anyone like their novelty pastiche numbers? Bring Back That Leroy Brown, Seaside Rendezvous etc. Did they pretty much drop them after A Day At The Races (Crazy Little Thing Called Love excepted I guess)?

― めんどくさかった (Matt #2), Sunday, September 13, 2015 7:36 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

No, they carried on doing them for a while after. 'Sleeping On The Sidewalk', 'Dreamer's Ball', 'Man On The Prowl' etc.

One of my favourite Innuendo deep cuts...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b7kUc5RcMqc

Innuendo really is a huge step up after The Miracle, which i don't dislike but find very uneven.

Innuendo has a far more "serious" mood to it than The Miracle, and the band hadn't released an album with that kind of mood for quite some time, which I think is one of the reasons why fans rate it so highly. It's not without its flaws though: 'Delilah', the programmed drums on 'I Can't Live With You'. I think both Innuendo and The Miracle have their highlights, but The Works is the most "complete" late-period Queen album for me. A Kind Of Magic for me is one of their lesser albums.

I saw footage recently where Brian May mentioned that The Miracle is one of his favourite Queen songs. interesting choice as I find it to be a bit treacly, despite appreciating the sentiment/ celebration of life informing it.

Yeah, 'treacly' sums up 'The Miracle' (i.e. the song), I reckon. I was surprised when Brian said it was one of his favourites.

The programmed drums on 'I Can't Live With You' were replaced by Roger's drum track in the 'retake' released on Queen Rocks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgrrICRcQyY

(X-post)

i feel like a lot of musicians rate their more sentimental work more highly than others do. it makes sense, really, they probably wouldn't take a turn for the sappy in the first place if they didn't believe in it.

Anyone like their novelty pastiche numbers? Bring Back That Leroy Brown, Seaside Rendezvous etc. Did they pretty much drop them after A Day At The Races (Crazy Little Thing Called Love excepted I guess)?

― めんどくさかった (Matt #2), Monday, September 14, 2015 5:36 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Detractors might say that every Queen track qualifies as a novelty pastiche number! And in fact I'd say that a fair chunk of their catalogue can be appreciated in that vein; there's usually at least an element of tongue-in-cheek involved. But on the other hand, I agree with Turrican's point about the more 'serious' mood that pervades Innuendo ... or at least parts of the album (e.g. the title track, 'Don't Try So Hard' 'All God's People', 'Bijou', 'The Show Must Go On', etc.)

One of the things I've always loved about Queen is their ability to constantly shift moods across an album, or indeed within the space of a track. I can think of a lot of acts who can do 'bipolar' shifts from soft to loud, sad to joyful, or what have you, but not many acts can jump around within a palette of moods like Queen can. Critics and fans will often point to the band's willingness to dabble in many styles and make them their own, and the fact they had four talented songwriters. No doubt these factors overlap with and contribute to the multiplicity of moods in their work. But it's one thing to 'capture' a mood; it's something else to dance across and between moods, and to make this seem effortless--and for me this is what Queen can do when they're on song.

listening back to the albums now - "Jealousy" is such a nice little number

yes, all of that is very true, Wordy. at the same time, i can't help but think that Queen's final albums are characterised by a newfound investment in expressing the gravid authenticity of particular moods rather than the invention of mood for the sake of artistic leverage. this change, conscious or otherwise, lends some of the later stuff a kind of earnestness that i am still a little bit ambivalent about. i mean, a song like Bohemian Rhapsody has undeniably sad moments, but it's a cabaret-style sadness that is patently light-hearted at its core, therefore enabling the flippant and frequent shift of moods that is so emblematic of Queen at their most inspired. a song like The Miracle seems to be contained by its own moralism, not that i think the band weren't entitled to sing about moral issues, or that these themes weren't relevant to Freddie's plight in his last years.

yes, Jealousy is a tasty discovery for me also.

x-post

i feel like a lot of musicians rate their more sentimental work more highly than others do. it makes sense, really, they probably wouldn't take a turn for the sappy in the first place if they didn't believe in it.

― some dude, Tuesday, September 15, 2015 12:24 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes, I think you're probably right.

And I also agree with your points about the shift in the final albums, where there does seem to be more of an investment in authenticity (of mood), and an earnestness that tends to come with this. I'm happy to admit that 'Innuendo' (the song) can come across as earnest--but I still love it, whereas something like 'The Miracle' just makes me cringe for the most part. Not entirely sure where the difference lies, but I guess I can buy into the hope of 'Innuendo' when it's alloyed with the 'whatever will be, will be' attitude and the sheer beauty and complexity of the piece. Whereas 'The Miracle' seems forced; the hope seems closer to naivete and the wonder is oh-so-subtly underscored by those clichéd 'miraculous' synth lines.

In other news ... ballot sent!

thanks Wordy - received!

by the way: even if you're the most casual of Queen fans or not a fan per se at all, i urge you to cast a ballot. surely everybody knows and loves 20 Queen songs.

Thing is, I actually like 'The Miracle' ... it's got a great set of chord changes!

'Jealousy' also, in my humble opinion, is one of Queen's most underrated ballads... having said that, I think the majority of Jazz is underrated.

Jealousy is beautifully song. it's easy to lose sight of this at first due to the subtlety of the vocal line.

beautifully SUNG.

Another deep cut worthy of consideration...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaSB0M7iTpA

Also, I'm surprised we've got this far in the thread without anyone mentioning 'The March Of The Black Queen'(!)

That was in my top 3. Love everything about that glorious tune.

Really pleased to see Drowse, Father To Son, Jealousy and especially She Makes Me already being referenced, looking forward to a nice diverse result list.

I know I'll throw together my ballot in under four minutes at the last possible chance and don't feel like revisiting much of their albums atm, but what this thread already made me do is flick through some obscurities, b-sides and the unreleased stuff that popped up even on the official channels over the years. Especially Soul Brother would have been a nice touch on (the unfairly maligned) Hot Space, and there are several incredible live renditions of Hangman for which apparently not even an unreleased studio version exists.

Speaking of Hot Space, and while it's easy to see why it drew so much hate, I find myself playing this more often than any other album lately. Way more fun than the imo plodding and calculated The Works.
Back Chat could well make it on the ballot.

'Back Chat', 'Under Pressure' and 'Put Out The Fire' are probably the only songs from Hot Space that I'd consider for inclusion on my ballot (which I haven't put together yet, and will probably put together at the last minute) ... I've never liked 'Soul Brother', it's nothing more than a jam session with Freddie singing various Queen song titles really.

I think calling The Works "calculated" is a bit harsh, though. Yes, I guess there was a sense of Queen trying to win back their audience after they didn't take to what they were doing with Hot Space, but The Works is a mix of not only songs in recognisable past Queen styles, but also material that was undoubtedly influenced by what was going on at the time. I don't think they were consciously trying to ape any past Queen album with it, and it helps that the tracks on there that are recognisable as being styles that they'd touched upon before were good, even great songs.

One could argue that Hot Space was "calculated" in the sense that it was an attempt to build upon the audience that had fallen in love with 'Another One Bites The Dust'.

i do actually also find The Works to be a bit calculated, mainly due to some especially flashy playing from May that tends to shape a lot of the songs before you're able to properly sink your teeth into them.

i've been playing Hot Space quite a lot recently, though admittedly strictly with this Poll in mind. it has revealed itself to be an enjoyably unique experiment, the anomalies of which are flattered by perspective, which enables us to situate the album as an interesting deviation in the band's diverse overall picture. i can see why it might have been considered a disappointment at the time.

the results are starting to take interesting shape. i'm having a lot of fun with this - please keep your ballots coming!

I almost don't want to send one! I'd feel like the guy who goes into mock drafts and takes Tim Tebow* in the first round.

_________

* A much ballyhooed American football player who's handsome and Christian and has 10 million fans, but can't throw a ball to a receiver to save his life.

haha well you could submit a Queen ballot that's wall-to-wall radio staples and it would still be inspired, such is the unconventional nature of so many of their best-known tracks (the appeal lay so often in the sophistication of arrangement and performance rather than a strict adherence to anything overly formulaic), and the diversity in compositional outlook supplied by the input of four distinct songwriters.

kinda wishing i voted for Sheer Heart Attack (the song), because it's growing on me to the point that i can't stop playing it.

Does anyone have suggestions for tracks they rate from the solo records? I have this suspicion I'll be wasting my time on investigating Roger's albums in-depth...

Fun in Space is probably your best bet as far as Roger's albums go. Future Management is one of the highlights there.

favourite Freddie track is probably There Must Be More to Life than This.

never made it very far with Brian's solo records.

I've just drawn up my first draft of my ballot and now down to the difficult pruning/ranking stage, it's so difficult to put a list together of 20 tracks for a band that have 14 studio albums! I'm increasingly thinking that the "deep cuts" only route is the way to go...

Er, 15 studio albums, rather. I'll be very surprised if many of the songs on my ballot place.

agree that it was pretty daunting. i kind of had to bite the bullet at the expense of a lot of great songs.

these guys really had a huge volume of great songs.

without giving anything away, 1st place is a very close race at this early stage with no less than 4 songs vying for the top spot.

well, that's some great motivation to get my ballot done!

i would hope so! but at the same time, totally unnerstan' these things being last minute based on my experience running a previous poll, but also more tellingly voting in them (i don't think i've ever jumped in well ahead of the deadline).

you have the weekend and a bit to finalise your ballots and get them along ! remember: your votes have a good chance of shaking things up.

how many ballots in so far?

not so many just yet... about 16 or 17? probably not many for a band that everyone knows the songs by.

in other words: make sure you get a ballot in, everyone! :)

You Take My Breath Away is really kinda wonderful when you listen to it in the right mood.

love how the guitar line creeps in to sit on top of the piano melody towards the end of the song.

I remember in high school, wanting to sing that song as my Senior solo for our final choir concert. I played it for my dad and he was like -- "this? ain't nobody gonna know this song", so I went with Elton John's "Your Song".

I just love the haunting piano line.

I should have mine in within the next few hours or so :)

As long as we're talking about over-the-top Mercury ballads on Day at the Races, dig the "where the hell did that come from?" insane bass playing on Millionaire Waltz, which given the mix and Deacon's unexciting tone back then I had never noticed before.

Ballot sent!

I must have re-done that several times over and I'm still not quite satisfied with it, but it'll have to do - if it had been 30 songs instead of 20 it would have been so much easier!

Yeah, the bass playing on 'The Millionaire Waltz' is great... it's strange, but I often find Deacon gets overlooked as a bass player sometimes - there's some great playing throughout the Queen catalogue. Usually, when Deacon is discussed it's usually for his songwriting.

Having made my anti-Taylor position clear, I think a lot of the problem is that they were a terribly mismatched rhythm section -- and I suspect that Deacon spent a lot of time trying to keep out of Roger's way and keep things moving.

Deacon's approach varied from song to song, really... if it was a Freddie-composed piano song, more often than not he was trying to lock in with what Freddie was doing with his left hand on the low end of the piano, on the more riff-based songs like 'Ogre Battle' and 'Dragon Attack', of course he was doubling up with the riff, on his own material written in the funk style like 'Back Chat' and 'Another One Bites The Dust', the bass tended to be the lead instrument etc.

Although, on 'Liar', he does kinda get a bass solo!

Millionaire Waltz really does do some interesting things musically. really warming to a lot of Day At The Races, actually. it's not necessarily a very immediate album - it helps to spend a little time with it.

okay, so we're getting to crunch time in the voting! make sure you keep them coming in. i guess there's only around a day of voting left?

what time zone are you in, Charlie?

ballot sent!

thanks balls!

i live in Sydney, Australia, but am very flexible with the deadline/ other time zones etc.

by my lazy calculations, those in the States are probably settled in at work now, and those in the UK about to finish up for the day. perfect timing for all parties to throw together that last minute ballot!

I'm pretty excited about the forthcoming roll-out, actually... even if hardly any of my tracks place, I suspect I'll still be more than happy with what does, particularly if there's a few surprises there. It's also going to be interesting to compare people's ballots, as I'm sure that different locations are going to have different preferred Queen eras, and it's also going to be interesting to see how different Queen eras fare in the final results.

the spread of appreciation across different Queen eras is something i've really enjoyed noticing as the ballots have trickled in.

for those yet to vote: even at this late stage, it is within your power to influence the order of the highest-ranking songs through what you choose to include, but also what you don't choose to include.

Stand by for one more.

Any other Americans can agree or disagree, but our relationship with this band is so weird. One of the biggest artists of the classic rock era, and yet, so many of their biggest "hits" were nothing in this country.

Here's a tweet I made last year when I was in Sydney:

http://i.imgur.com/tVo8mAk.png

I think I was talking about "The Show Must Go On" or something.

Yeah, I kinda expect US ballots to be quite The Game/Hot Space-heavy for some reason. It's strange, because here in the UK, I feel very safe in saying that if you asked various random people to name several Queen songs off the top of their head, they really wouldn't have much trouble doing so or have to think too hard about it.

Yeah, Queen in America was basically over after The Game. Even "Under Pressure" wasn't huge here (wiki says #29) -- I know that growing up, there was ZERO Queen played on classic rock radio after "Another One Bites the Dust", and even that was rare compared to pretty much any of their hits from the 70s. I think US fans didn't take to the band leaving behind their bombastic rock roots for pop and dance stuff. Remember, this was the country where "disco sucks".

(fact is, the first time I'd ever heard of Under Pressure was in a Vanilla Ice song...)

First video of the MTV era was for "Under Pressure", which was just buildings falling down and stuff.

"Radio Gaga" was ok, but when they got dressed up in drag for "I Want to Break Free," I guess U.S. viewers said, ok that's enough.

Seriously, I probably saw the video for "Bohemian Rhapsody" on MTV more times than any of the 80s songs, and this was even before Wayne's World.

Album rock stations in Baltimore and DC definitely played Under Pressure when it was new.

wait when are ballots due? i thought it was like end-of-day Monday, but tell me how much time i have and i'll make sure i get mine in

well, it got to #29, so I'm sure someone was playing it. However, I was only 8 when it came out -- when I started listening to classic rock in the late 80s, they didn't play it at all (or any other Queen post 1980). It wasn't until Innuendo came out that it ever occurred to me what new Queen music might actually sound like, as the local classic rock radio stations were making a big point to say the band was returning to its roots.

in relation to Pleasant Plains' comment about hearing Queen in a Sydney Aldi store: yes, growing up in that same city - and i imagine it might have been the same across the UK - Queen were definitely one of those few bands that became a part of your everyday consciousness without you even realising it. this was due in large part to the sheer number of hits, all of which served the purpose of making the repetitions of your day - the long car trips, the excursions to the supermarket - a little bit larger than life.

heading to bed shortly & happy to keep accepting ballots till i wake up (i'm on holidays, so that'll be a nice leisurely hour) or till Monday officially ends your time. honestly, no rush. my priority is to get as many more in as possible.

I can understand US audiences being a bit confused by the 'I Want To Break Free' video - it was a bit of a pisstake of the long-running UK soap Coronation Street, which I wouldn't expect Americans to be familiar with.

i imagine it might have been the same across the UK - Queen were definitely one of those few bands that became a part of your everyday consciousness without you even realising it

Yup, this is definitely OTM.

did Wayne's World bring about a bit of a Queen revival in the States?

for that one song, at least. what year did the Greatest Hits albums come out? sadly that's what most of the US casual fans know them from (not that it's not a great collection, jsut there's so much more they're missing out on)

i guess the release of Wayne's World also coincided with Freddie's death, which would have made the renewed interest more poignant.

Greatest Hits I was released in the early 80s, but it did get a huge amount of exposure in the early 90s, possibly simply because it was bundled alongside Greatest Hits II.

yeah i came of age in the early '90s so i don't have much of a concept of Queen's profile in the US before that but i remember it all as one big wave of publicity -- Freddie dying, Wayne's World, the giant tribute concert airing over and over on MTV. the 1981 Greatest Hits album (which was a huge staple in my house) was the only compilation in U.S. stores at the time, then they rush released a 'Classic Queen' comp in '92, both sold millions in the '90s.

interestingly none of this really seemed to lift the visibility of their later music. all the albums after The Game went gold in the U.S. but never platinum. i didn't even know Made In Heaven existed until fairly recently, i had no clue a posthumous album with Freddie vocals came out after Innuendo and sold millions around the world, and i was a pop music obsessive by '95.

agree, it all seemed to happen at once. And one other important thing -- Hollywood Records reissued all their 70s records a few weeks before Wayne's World came out. So, I within a very short time, I went from trying to get my friends to check out these records and (to me) obscure tracks like Bicycle Race and Don't Stop Me Now, to all of them singing the same praises, seemingly out of the blue.

yeah, and it was also ridiculously easy to devour each and every song from Greatest Hits, to the extent that even if you had no idea of the band's timeline or the history preceding your knowledge of the tracks, they still managed to take on an immediate sense of gravity & distinction in terms of your appreciation of them.

i knew about Made in Heaven at the time, but i routinely forget it exists. i think i meant to give it another shot for this poll, but never got round to it.

the title track of Made In Heaven is pretty cool imo

btw i made a playlist of my favorite Queen deep cuts last year, some songs very worth considering here:
http://narrowcast.blogspot.com/2014/03/deep-album-cuts-vol-14-queen.html

May says that even Freddie's death had nothing like the impact of Wayne's World. also the studio wanted Guns N Roses in the scene.

oh how long is it until ballot deadline day please??

My cassette copy of their greatest hits looked like this:

http://i.imgur.com/HweUd5A.jpg

Have no idea where I got that.

one of my very earliest pop culture memories, very earliest memories period was being a very very young child and staring at the cover of news of the world. at the time it was positively terrifying and mystifying to me, i remember i'd stare at the cover of physical graffiti also but that was more like playing w/ a pop up book, news of the world was something different altogether. 'another one bites the dust' was one of the first pop hits i was obsessed w/, it's kind of silly macho aspect was easy for a young boy to grip on to and then 'another one rides the bus' came out and i loved that as well. 'flash's theme' i loved as well, for some reason my mother wouldn't let me watch the movie (i can only assume because it was a deserved flop, she let me watch the jerk and halloween so it wasn't shielding my eyes from whatever), so that was the proxy i got and it served its purpose, probably outdid it. and then queen effectively disappeared for me. what at the time felt like forever later but in retrospect was only five years later 'a kind of magic' was a minor hit but i latched onto it, like running into an old friend. at this point also the local top 40 station played a countdown of the british charts show at the end of sunday nights i'd listen to as i went to sleep so i knew that queen were massive in england (though not as massive at the time as pet shop boys). a few years after that 'i want it all' came out and again our local top 40 station played it quite alot, far more than its chart showing. i also had acquaintances that always listened to queen when they cruised around cuz they were highlander dorks. so right before the tribute concert and wayne's world reestablished their legend in the us they'd still managed to maintain some position on the periphery, they hadn't completely disappeared like molly hatchet or something. what's interesting to me is how well that tribute did in reestablishing their legend. i hear nearly as wide a variety of their hits on classic rock and oldies radio as i do for zeppelin or ac/dc and tracks like 'i want to break free' and 'radio ga ga' that really did nothing in the us the first time around have been made revisionist hits similar to what has happened w/ 'don't stop believing' in the uk though not to the same magnitude.

sent in my ballot! 10 Freddie songwriting credits, 8 Brian, 5 John, 2 Roger.

http://i.imgur.com/iYYPy56.png

i remember when I was younger my preference was the bombast, genre-tourist Queen, but the older me gravitates towards the Queen rockers now.

excited for this rollout.

they were such a great hard rock band. i don't necessarily think isolating the different strains of their catalog would do it more justice than reveling in the variety, but a playlist of their hardest rockers would definitely be a load of fun.

i knew they rocked harder when they started out but i didn't realize how much, i think i first became aware of it reading hetfield talking about elektra approaching metallica to cover queen for rubaiyat and them thinking 'queen???' and then listening to the early stuff and thinking 'holy shit'.

yeah a few notes into "Brighton Rock" and it's like ....damn!

I always loved that even when May was playing heavy riffs, his guitar playing always had a melodic sensibility. not talking about his leads so much, as those are obviously iconic, but even those hard rock riffs he played were just earwormy on their own.

haha big fan of that Hetfield story.

if anyone else wants to throw in a ballot right at the final hurdle, now's your chance. anyone else still putting one together? pisces, Alfred?

thread inspired me to put on Sheer Heart Attack right now - the remaster!

ahh man I forgot how good Tenement Funster was!

Christ I'm gonna have regrets about not including more songs from this album on my ballot, tho to be fair I did include two.

this remaster is really clear too...

Sheer Heart Attack rocks very hard indeed. it's also a whole lot of fun - Queen had this wonderful, unique thing of never taking themselves 100% seriously, so that the joy you can extract from the songs is almost uninhibited if you want it to be.

I still giggle whenever I hear that slide whistle on "Fairy-Feller's Master Stroke" from Queen II.

word.

this poll is going to be a Top 39 by the way (in tribute, of course, to the song of the same name).

they were such a great hard rock band. i don't necessarily think isolating the different strains of their catalog would do it more justice than reveling in the variety, but a playlist of their hardest rockers would definitely be a load of fun.

― some dude, Tuesday, September 22, 2015 2:06 AM (13 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There's already a compilation out there which leans towards their more hard rock tracks, the imaginatively-titled Queen Rocks!

Sheer Heart Attack is a brilliant album, IMO... A Night At The Opera is considered the "classic", but I personally would rank Sheer Heart Attack above it. In a way, I wish you could vote for 'Tenement Funster'/'Flick Of The Wrist'/'Lily Of The Valley' as one song, because on the album those three songs flow together a form a kind of suite, although if we were to go down that route, then it would make voting for parts of Queen II, particularly the second side, such a ballache.

I wanna talk more about this when the results thread comes up and I can point to specific examples, but for me so many of their best early rockers are let down by sloppy, probably unplanned tempo changes. There are a couple of songs where Roger just comes in at a completely different tempo than Brian and/or John, and it takes a couple of bars for everyone to follow in line behind Roger's new (slower and thumping) tempo. This isn't a problem in the piano-led songs, rocking or not. But I'll make my case as the songs come up, and it doesn't stop me from replaying the stuff in my head with all problems edited out and loving it.

Didn't vote but looking forward to the results rollout immensely.

It's worth noting that there are a few songs on Sheer Heart Attack that Queen initially worked on without Brian May, because he was in hospital - I'm not sure which songs, but I'm assuming that 'Misfire' was one of them.

I wonder if his own Dear Friends was one

should be able to get this thing underway in a few hours...

]I wonder if his own Dear Friends was one

― Dominique, Wednesday, September 23, 2015 12:20 AM (11 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Nah, Brian was definitely involved in the recording of that one from the beginning - he plays piano on it, and aside from the vocals there's very little else!

Let's defend Freddie against the movie's bullshit.

While I'm at it, let me destroy this crap.

I can't find fault with any of your Freddie picks, aside from that 'My Melancholy Blues' does very little for me. 'We Are the Champions' and 'We Will Rock You' are both fucking classic, though!