Suddenly, after non-availability in the UK for many years, all the record stores were flooded with USA copies of the "Mr Bad Guy" album, at which point my original 1985 CD with all the extended mixes on it became worthless :(
no question freddie was/is much bigger in the uk than he is in the states. From what I heard it was a huge story over there. The media trying to take pictures of a sick freddie any way they can. I wonder if freddie and michael would ever admit (if they were alive) that they wish they wern't famous.
I was 14 when he died and had been a fan for 4 years. I had the News of the World (tabloid!) delivered on the sunday morning with the headline "Freddie, Ive got AIDS"..........then at about 10:30pm there was a newsflash on ITV saying he had died. Then I sat crying with my mum for about 2 hours! The tabloids on the whole were very kind to Freddie, seeing as they had been hounding him for 2 years, there were pages and pages of tributes, I have virtually all of them still, but there were also the ones, like someone wrote before..."How many more Freddie"......making him out to be a murderer or something, which I chose to ignore!
The following morning, it was all over the tv breakfast shows and all over the papers. What we have got to remember is that back in 1991, there was nowhere near as much media coverage as there is these days - im sure if it had been Freddie who had died last thursday, he would be receiving just as much coverage as Jacko has had - maybe not on a global scale, but at least in the UK, Europe, South America and Asia. But for at least 2 weeks after he had died, the UK tabloids had some sort of story, and then of course the re-release of Bo Rhap. If we would have had downloads back then, im sure the charts would have been full of Queen songs.
Things were a lot different 18 years ago!
[QUOTE]
[b]mike hunt wrote: [/b]
no question freddie was/is much bigger in the uk than he is in the states. From what I heard it was a huge story over there. The media trying to take pictures of a sick freddie any way they can. I wonder if freddie and michael would ever admit (if they were alive) that they wish they wern't famous.[/QUOTE]
All the Media do that to try and get a story, (I think its worse in America), but the Media was worse with MJ than though. I think Freddie sort of Liked being famous Cos he Loved what he was doing & he sort of managed to keep his private life sepaerate, were as MJ was pushed into music & being famous from a young age thats probally why he had such a messed up life.....
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[b]ILoveQueen20 wrote: [/b]
[QUOTE]
[b]mike hunt wrote: [/b]
no question freddie was/is much bigger in the uk than he is in the states. From what I heard it was a huge story over there. The media trying to take pictures of a sick freddie any way they can. I wonder if freddie and michael would ever admit (if they were alive) that they wish they wern't famous.
[/QUOTE]
All the Media do that to try and get a story,
[/QUOTE]
Sorry... as someone working in the media, I just HAVE to respond to that...
Not ALL media do so, thank you very much.
TABLOID-press does so, decent press does not. It is a true pitty that especially the UK people have such a negative view on 'the' press - but that just comes down to the amount of tabloid press they have around. I'm happy to say that we have a much more decent atmosphere over here. The majority of the (written) press is still to be considered serious over here.
ANYWAY; of course Michael Jackson's death anno 2009 has a much larger coverage in all kinds of media.
But when Freddie died, the news was also everywhere. All printed media had publications, all tv and radio stations did something to rembember him. I remember hearing Queen everywhere, on every radio channel for weeks and weeks. And then indeed came the hits, so there was more and more.
On the day and week after Freddie died there was a lot on tv as well - in the Netherlands anyway.
I remember sitting sobbing next to the tv on one hand and the radio on the other hand, switching between the two with a stack of tapes on the table trying to record as much of it as possible. ;-)
All kinds of music programms like Countdown and Popformule played Queen exclusively, there were documentaries, concerts being broadcast (Montreal, Budapest) and of course MTV had quite some news coverage, documentaries (Magic years in high rotation), video's and several Queen-weekends.
But let's indeed not forget that media anno 2009 is much different then back then.
There was no 24 hour coverage in those days. CNN did not excist, there was no internet.
Also nowadays media are much much more hype-sensitive. (Or is it the public that is more hype-sensitive and the media responds to that wish??)
And, as also said before, when it comes to popularity and impact to popular music and society as a whole, MJ was certainly a level higher then Freddie or Queen.
[QUOTE]
[b]Jjeroen wrote: [/b]
Sorry... as someone working in the media, I just HAVE to respond to that...
Not ALL media do so, thank you very much.
TABLOID-press does so, decent press does not. It is a true pitty that especially the UK people have such a negative view on 'the' press - but that just comes down to the amount of tabloid press they have around. I'm happy to say that we have a much more decent atmosphere over here. The majority of the (written) press is still to be considered serious over here.
ANYWAY; of course Michael Jackson's death anno 2009 has a much larger coverage in all kinds of media.
But when Freddie died, the news was also everywhere. All printed media had publications, all tv and radio stations did something to rembember him. I remember hearing Queen everywhere, on every radio channel for weeks and weeks. And then indeed came the hits, so there was more and more.
On the day and week after Freddie died there was a lot on tv as well - in the Netherlands anyway.
I remember sitting sobbing next to the tv on one hand and the radio on the other hand, switching between the two with a stack of tapes on the table trying to record as much of it as possible. ;-)
All kinds of music programms like Countdown and Popformule played Queen exclusively, there were documentaries, concerts being broadcast (Montreal, Budapest) and of course MTV had quite some news coverage, documentaries (Magic years in high rotation), video's and several Queen-weekends.
But let's indeed not forget that media anno 2009 is much different then back then.
There was no 24 hour coverage in those days. CNN did not excist, there was no internet.
Also nowadays media are much much more hype-sensitive. (Or is it the public that is more hype-sensitive and the media responds to that wish??)
And, as also said before, when it comes to popularity and impact to popular music and society as a whole, MJ was certainly a level higher then Freddie or Queen.
[/QUOTE]
Arhhh!!!! Ok!, Ok! I was genreally talking about most media thats why i said all...I dont work in the media myself so I dont wnat to get to deep into this, Sure there are some decent newspapers... ect that you can trust
but it seems like the (bad) Media sees one pic and makes up headlines & articles they often use misleading titles too so dont have a go at me, I'm just saying what I think...
I don't think a mercury or plant will ever be as popular as a pop icon like michael jackson. Doesn't mean he's better though.
Honestly, here in the states, I don't recall hearing very much about Freddie's death at all, and, I recall being somewhat saddened by that fact. In my little world, Freddie, and, Queen, were as big as MJ. I grew up listening to both, though I do admit that Queen edged out MJ as my musical taste evolved.
I recall hearing very little on MTV(perhaps it was simply a matter of perspective. Could there ever have been enough, for this Queen fan? Perhaps not), or on the networks. And, what little I did hear involved jokes about Freddie,and negativity surrounding his sexual preference and the manner of his death.
I was actually relieved to learn, as the age of the internet expanded, that Freddie's passing got a great deal more attention in other countries. I felt he deserved it, though I don't suppose he cared as much as I did.
