Is Queen the biggest band of all time?

Great band, been a fan since day one, love them... but that's just me.
But also, not my No.1 / favourite / biggest / best band by a country mile - maybe in my Top 25.
Currently flavour of the month due to a well made, well marketed biopic that I personally find cringe worthy...


So that's a no from me...

 

I personally enjoy them more than these Big 5 (except maybe Pink Floyd).

 

Not in my opinion, no.

I'll just leave it at that. Apparently not liking Queen is a bannable offense 'round here.

 

I’m not big on Beatles or Queen, but I find it funny that the only argument Queen fans seem to have is their popularity. They know deep down inside that musically Queen doesn’t belong in the “big 5” groups of rock. Hot Space makes me cringe.

 

Honestly it applies to the Beatles too.

 

No.

 

Oh, The Beatles Fans are bu**hurt now...
Checkin’ in later...

 

Another point here - most of Queen fans worldwide are casual fans who never even heard the entire records, not to mention Hot Space. They know 10 or 20 big hits and Hot Space apart from Under Pressure has none. The same kind of folks who can name only one Pink Floyd song - We don't need no education or one Deep Purple song - da da da da da da da. But I'm talking about hundreds of millions people here.

 

Not even close.....

 

like right now? teenagers know who they are

 

Beatles aren't even in my top ten. Twenty, maybe. But no, that's not it.

 

I think we're seeing a generational shift here. As The Beatles/McCartney fans age, those who spent their formative years listening to Queen are beginning to chime in.

I have seen the future of The Steve Hoffman Forums, and its name is...

 

It’s an interacting statement: their casual fans know “only 10 or 20 big hits”. One flop album-which included a huge hit single- is hardly relevant.

Also interesting to see so many people hijacki g the thread with personal taste, views of musical quality etc which was not the question.

 

They're the most popular band from the classic rock era with young people today.

Overall, with all ages, it's probably the Beatles, with Led Zeppelin in 2nd place, and Pink Floyd in 3rd.

Rolling Stones are up there in the top 5, too.

The other spot is probably ... Queen.

 

There's no way to objectively quantify "biggest band of all time," so I'm sorry - opinions are what you're going to get when you ask this kind of question.

 

Your thread title needs to be 'Globally Popular' and not 'Best ' to reflect your requirement.

Maybe they are very popular in Russia at the moment.

EDIT : Now it's 'Biggest '. Very unclear about what that means.

You could have just told us they are very popular in Russia right now rather than try guessing what the world is doing.
India might have a popular Bollywood star etc.

 

That was one of my main points - no other band, except for maybe ABBA comes close to Queen in sheer number of casual fans worldwide. And while everyone on this planet loves dancing to ABBA tunes they don't have the same drama, life story, stadium singalong power and iconic "greatest showman/singer of all time" factor that Freddie (and the 3 other guys, what were their names again?) has.

 

With respect, it’s laughable to hear them mentioned in the same sentence as few or no hit wonders like Styx, Kansas or Journey.

There, that’s how many of these responses read to non-Americans.

More seriously, for example, when were Cheap Trick or Kansas etc Stadium headliners anywhere at any time, and where are any of those bands in the first sentence selling out large arenas as non-package deal headliners. Queen did all of this before the movie by the way.

Also The Who’s biggest US album sold only three million there and their live draw f lol off to quite a degree after their first few reunions.

Beatles, Zep, Stones, Floyd are the real discussion with Queen but it’s strange that people from one continent can’t even see a discussion.

 

Honestly, does it matter how big they were/are? I like some of Queen's music a LOT... but I still put them a long way behind Abba... and Tull.... and especially GENESIS.

Just listen to what you want, and don't worry about what other people like... works for me

 

No, I meant from music nerds’ point of view the only argument they have is their popularity. Just look at any Queen thread, their die hard fans only talk about how popular they are, they are bigger than The Beatles, they are more popular outside the US, blah blah blah. You will never see them comparing their discography to Beatles’, Stones’, Floyd’s, etc because they know they will never win the debate if they start talking about the music.

For the record, I’m not implying Queen sucks OR they didn’t made great music because it’s obvious they did. What I’m saying is that musically they weren’t as consistent or solid as the other bands.

 

Being the biggest band at any given time is not an indication of quality. If Queen is the current biggest band in the world - I'm happy. Nice that a really strong band with great musicianship & great songwriting is holding that honor at the moment. Especially satisfying because they haven't been a going concern for twenty plus years. Good for them. They deserve it.

But the biggest band of all time? No post on this thread has made a compelling argument yet.

 

I never said they were the best. I said biggest. I'm not even a fan. And yes, everyone I know and their GF's and their dogs went to see this godawful movie. One girl I met at a party said she saw it 6 times and she can't even explain why. A famous critic went viral when he claimed that Freddie has overtaken cats (!!!) on FB as the biggest "likes" magnet. And of course everyone now knows that Queen's performance on Live Aid is THE greatest rock performance of all time. You can probably guess what I think about all that!

 

that's perfectly fine. i prefer Queen to The Who but i still don't think they belong in the same league...influence, impact & most of all, quality of the catalog.

i've always been a big Oasis fan and yet, i never once thought they were the biggest band in the world even when Gallagher bros. were repeating it on daily basis.

if you want non-fans to like your favorite band, just explain why you like them personally & honestly, don't over-hype and STOP getting triggered everytime someone says otherwise.

 

As a massive Queen fan, I hate threads like this...it's just inviting people to crap on the band. I think we have everyone's thoughts on Queen by now...Let's try to keep that in mind going forward.

 

It's because Queen lost their popularity in America after The Game album.

A lot of Americans don't realise that Queen was at a Beatles level of popularity in the UK, Europe, Australia, etc. throughout the 80s and even more so when Freddie died.