Is Mick Jagger the greatest frontman of all time?

I would disagree. In 1991, The Stones, Floyd, and Zep were still massive bands in the USA. Their songs were still all over album-rock radio, and had any of them mounted a US tour, the tour would have been sold out even at the football stadium level. The same could not be said of Queen at that time, not even close.

 

Elvis was the man that showed them all. He stated with words to the effect of... "one has to put on a show, or otherwise they can stay home and listen to your records"! And he showed them!

 

IMO, if we include "solo" acts in the frontman category, Elvis is clearly #1. Even ahead of James Brown and Prince. Or Frank Sinatra. Sure we can argue technicalities about voice and dancing and the like, but add it all up and Elvis is #1.

He was the most impactful cultural figure of the 20th century. Modern global mass-media culture flows from Elvis.

 

You're such an ignoramous. In large part, the reason the kids in the USA picked up on BR in WW is because massive sympathetic media coverage of Mercury's death created the context for that scene and usage to resonate in the culture. That's what happened here. Maybe not in the UK, but in the USA.

 

Everytime (a solo or band) front man is using the microphone and stand as a prop, phallic symbol, and or caressing it as if it were a girl. They are playing an Elvis! IMO.

 

I was in my late 20's in 91 and can say that Queen for me and my friends had been off the radar since Under Pressure was a hit. When Freddie announced he had AIDs and died shortly thereafter I remember the song "The Show Must Go On" getting massive play (a poignant, great farewell song) and yes there was favorable, sympathetic press at the time (I don't know how long this lasted). When Wayne's World was a hit a little later it really did invigorate interest in Queen -at least that seemed to be the case as Bohemian Rhapsody got massive airplay after that movie's success.

 

I bet Mick would get a kick out this thread

 

His ego needs no more stoking

 

comon guys
this Freddie Mercury "fanboy" thing
has become embarrassing

can't we wrap this up?

 

This whole Queen thing seems like something of a thread derailment.

 

That's because it is.

 

The only way to settle this (in a thread-relevant way) is to have Jagger do a stint as Queen's singer-du-jour. Maybe even John Deacon would come out of retirement to get in on that.

 

Guess so... he is pretty dang amazing...
BUT, I also remember James Brown and a few others too.

 

Jagger puts his all into a performance, even if it's an odd grandiose persona

Back to FM bashing

Stadium level popularity?
It was for Queen in England, S. America, Italy, France, Japan too
This isn't a stateside exclusive vaccum


Did any of these bands have new music that was registering with 20 year olds in 1990? No, not even close as you would say.

Were people throwing away their old copies of Sheer Heart Attack?

Did classic rock radio only play one or 5 queen songs during that time, maybe 10 Stones, Floyd and Zep songs?

I remember it being completely uncool in some circles to be caught liking Led Zeppelin in the 80s until the LZ MTV weekend and Crop Circle box set came out. Bloated and washed up too?

 

This aspect of the thread was stateside-exclusive. I had said that as of 1991, Queen was washed up in the USA. Someone ("Flako", maybe?) replied by saying the same was true of Zep, Floyd, and the Stones. So I explained that this wasn't the case: As of 1991, all of the latter three were receiving serious airplay on rock radio, and all of them could have sold out stadiums in the USA. Such was not the same for Queen.

 

There, stop
Resume thread elsewhere

 

Complete nonsense. WW was released less than three months after Mercury died. It was impossible for anyone, "kid" or otherwise, to be unaware of Mercury's death from AIDS, and the resulting large media coverage.

 

Now that is total BS and I say this having lived through it and witnessing first-hand the coverage of Freddie's death.

 

Yes, that anyone would say that Carr's death got anywhere near the same coverage in the USA's as Mercury's is beyond absurd, and shows the extent of their bias.

 

The Steel Wheels tour was a pretty hot ticket in my high school - Pink Floyd had just done a huge tour, selling out some pretty big stadiums, and would do another in a couple of years. And Led Zeppelin was certainly cool again by 1989-1990. So you are 100% wrong on that point. And yes, all three bands were all over classic rock radio and AOR radio, which was still going strong in 1990.

 

After the initial news reports, what sort of two month coverage was it?

We're talking about "sympathetic AIDS-related media" in regards to Freddie's death - two months of it. So what exactly was it? Various documentaries that no Queen fan knows of? Or... what? There wasn't enough news to get out of it other than Freddie's death, and the funeral shortly after (which was quite a private affair in all), so.... what are we talking about here?

 

I'm just calling-out BS as BS. I don't know about 2 months of sympathetic coverage, but I do know the immediate aftermath of Freddie's death resulted in many sympathetic news stories and new interest in his music, such as the post-death popularity of "The Show Must Go On".

 

I don't happen to buy that part myself. That'll probably be set straight by another member on that forum. But tbh, I didn't read into it anymore than a flippant exaggeration based on there being the initial news report and little more.
But still, I don't see any evidence of two months worth of "sympathetic AIDS-related media" in regards to Freddie. This is why I put the question out there on the Queenzone forum. If there is such a thing, they'll know about it, or have it archived.

But if they know of no such thing, that'll be because they're hiding it from Stephen J (even though it's me asking). He foresaw this! It couldn't possibly be anything else, such as two months worth of sympathetic media coverage never happening in the first place. But we'll see. Either way, Stephen's got himself covered. That's the most important thing here.

I've seen the initial news reports of Freddie's death from the U.S. It's rare that the news of someone dying or their death isn't sympathetic or somber.
But what were the sympathetic news stories about after the initial report? There's his death, the funeral, but then what?

The Show Must Go On only reached no.40 in the Mainstream U.S rock charts. It was released before Freddie's death: October 1991.

 

So you don't buy my own personal recollections from a time you don't remember in a country you never lived in? You can hopefully understand why I wont bother trying to enlighten you further.

 

So Jagger is the greatest of all-time, then, right?