Is Queen the most misunderstood Band?

Interesting. I don't remember that at all, but, you know, in those days...

 

to whatever they could write between their social engagements and drug habits, and whatever they thought would sell.

what the hell are you actually talking about? social engagements and drug habits, and whatever they thought would sell.
you don't know too much about queen then? actually you sound a little bitter towards them.
no one compares to the beatles, everyone knows that. surely no one thinks queen or anyone else is on par with the fab four?

the fact is, is that queen have gone down as one of the few elite bands in rock history, thats simply a fact whether you like them or not.
plenty of fellow musicians gush over them and have done for years. they are one of the genuine legends of rock music.
the whole world doesn't start and finish with america.
did they release crappy songs? yes. so did led zep. so did the beatles. whats new there then?
just because some of their songs aren't on the radio doesn't mean no one remembers those tunes. being played on the radio means nought. it is not a measure as to how great your music is/was. fans of the band remember the songs that weren't hits. hits aren't everything either.
all the criticizm of queen i'm reading is applicable to any band.
i do think that the way they were often over the top really irked some people who couldn't see past that. i think they thought they were serious!
plus of course the media absolutely loathed the band, so they were never cool. but so what?
they wrote some truly classic songs. had one of the greatest singers in the band. had one of the greatest guitarists in the band.
had four successful writers and were unique.
do i like everything they ever did, god no! there are a number of songs i hate with a passion! but then i feel the same way about some zeppelin and floyd songs too.

i honestly believe some people are too precious about bands like led zep, pink floyd, and other apparently 'serious' rock bands. musical snobs. thats thinking man's music, what is that song all about? what is the message?
mention a band like queen being in the same universe as those two[and others] and they start hyper-ventilating!
its only music. looke around, it's not THAT important!

 

Ironically, even though Hot Space and The Works have two "hard rock" tracks each, the featured hard rock tracks pale in comparison to the secondary album tracks. Dancer rocks so much harder than Put Out the Fire, and actually fits with the theme of the album. And Hammer to Fall is so overworked and muted that a throwaway like Tear It Up, well...tears it up.

It wasn't until the Highlander sessions that Brian was really allowed to let loose again, and Freddie remember that, yes, he could write a full on heavy track, like he used to. But even there, aside from One Vision, they still consciously went for the Pop. If not for the movie, who knows if there would have been anything, other than One Vision, to fill the "heavy" slot on the album.

Afterward, once everyone was on the same page with Freddie's illness, straight into whole-hog hard rock territory.

I'll freely admit that I do not have a lot of love for The Works, precisely because I find it to be calculated, not organic. Of course, most of their contemporaries also purposely went the pop chart route in the 80s, and didn't do anywhere close to as well.

 

Perhaps the hugest "180" of all is the way Staying Power sounded onstage, compared to the studio - it was freaking phenomenal!

 

THIS. We all liked the 1st 4 as well (very much) A Day At The Races was a bit of a let down, while News Of The World "rocked" it up a bit.
It's true that those albums are very much of their time and maybe not hearing them as they were released, changes one's assessment of them.
They were still great 'live' here on the tours for "Races" (with Thin Lizzy opening), "Jazz" and "The Game" (They played Maple Leaf Gardens twice and the CNE Grandstand once)
As far as I know, Queen never returned to Toronto after 1980.

 

Hot Space has some fantastic songs but I think the production is wimpy. Several of the songs from this album were done much better on stage. You're right about "Staying Power:. The most dramatic improvement to me is "Action This Day":

 

That was perhaps the strangest part about the album. The sudden musical change is one thing, but they were pretty adamant about recording techniques, etc., and that seemed to totally disappear.

I think Roger said, "Some members wanted the album to sound as if you'd just walked into a gay disco club, and I didn't."

 

Actually, I know quite a lot about Queen, mate. I was there from Seven Seas Of Rhye.

 

Is Queen the most misunderstood Band?

No.

 

Because the solo is so out of place and just wrong for the song it sits in. Incongruous seems a pretty good description to me. I always call it Brian's "frighten rabbit caught in car headlights" moment. Don't ask me why.

 

Because I didn't like the pop stylings they adopted? Because, at heart, I'm a rockist and felt put off by their synth heavy offerings? Because Radio Ga-Ga is a truly wretched song? Given that many of rock's top acts disbanded in around the time Queen went pop, just means I consider them a top band of the era I like. My top bands of the 80s for the most part weren't part of the 70s and visa versa.

 

They were so misunderstood, they only sold between 200 & 300 million albums.

 

They are misunderstood, however. Ask many fans who buy the greatest hits cd's about the 1st 3 albums; they know nothing of them for the most part.
How many people went to see Queen & Adam Lambert who bought "Sheer Heart Attack" when it was 1st released?
(probably no one)

 

I don't think they were.

 

I think Django raises a valid point. I was going to ask the OP where the heck he got his information from about the Queen camps. Any Queen fan I have known pretty much likes everything they recorded.
I think the numbers speak for themselves. You have your opinion but the sales evidence is much stronger than your examples to show they are far from misunderstood.

 

Maybe it's that they were to a degree misunderstood in America.

 

Nah. I don't suspect that. However, I will admit after Freddie was gone most fans I know fell off but that is crazy to even raise the post Freddie era....whatever that is. Every album they released at least went Gold in the US.

 

It's not Queen without Freddie. People like him are not replaceable.

 

Oh I think that there clearly are some more rock oriented fans who strongly prefer their older sound and not the 80s stuff so much. There are probably also some who think that their earlier stuff is amateurish. But I also think that's perfectly natural for any band with a lot of albums under their belt that has changed their sound over time, so I don't know if the "misunderstanding" is really that much more pronounced with Queen.

 

Better than anything on Mr. Bad Guy, that's for sure. Possibly one of Queen's best songs post 1980.

 

I bought Sheer Heart Attack when it was first released, having owned and liking the first two lps. The same with BOC's Secret Treaties, bought it on release because of owning and loving the first two BOC lps.

The first three Queen albums are the best, with the last album I bought being NOTW.

 

I was talking more about how they're critically viewed than commercially. If you want to talk commercially they're nowhere near the top in terms of sales.

 

It may rock harder live than on record...But it's missing both finesse and and anything particularly interesting or clever in the music department. Pretty dire no matter what genre it's arranged for.

 

Freddie could out sing Robert Plant there I said it.

 

Hey, it was always apparent to me!