"when i mention i'm a queen fan the respect for me goes through the roof. "
Cant say the same.... sometimes have to whisper it... just being honest. Maybe if Queen had stopped when they should have it would have been ok. But now they (B&R) are such prostitutes its embarrasing.
rhyeking · Member since
The reaction from people that I get when I tell them I'm Queen fan varies. Of course, I don't just walk around announcing it. If music comes up, I say (quite accurately) that I primarily like Classic Rock but I like a bit everything (except New Country). If asked for my favourite band, yes, my answer is Queen.
Classic Rock fans are like, "Right on. That's cool."
Those who appreciate music on a deeper level might say, "Yeah, Brian May kicks ass" or "Freddie Mercury was the shit!"
People who aren't fans of Classic Rock are kind of indifferent.
No one I've met these days ever slams the band.
I was in high school in the early '90s and Alternative was king. The worst I got from my peers was scorn from Pearl Jam, Tea Party and Nirvana fans, who thought I listened to old fogie music. I sort of got the last laugh when Kurt Cobain mentioned Freddie in his suicide note, but I was tactful enough not to point that out. Personally, I think that whole period of Alternative dates itself far worse than '60s and '70s rock. I caught the Alternapalooza episode of the Simpson recently and was like, "Man, who'd have thought that this would date so badly?" But it was pretty true of the time, kids were that withdrawn and apathetic. Since I was fairly happy and didn't hate the world, I gravitated to more optimistic music, Classic Rock, which never really took itself entirely seriously all the time. Anyway, it's come full circle and Classic Rock is respected again.
No one, outside of Queen fans, I've met know or care about splitting hairs between the Freddie and post-Freddie eras. It's only ever Queen fans who complain that Brian and Roger should stop what they're doing.
iron eagle · Member since
jim beach
HernanQueen · Member since
Hot Space
mike hunt · Member since
rhyeking wrote: The reaction from people that I get when I tell them I'm Queen fan varies. Of course, I don't just walk around announcing it. If music comes up, I say (quite accurately) that I primarily like Classic Rock but I like a bit everything (except New Country). If asked for my favourite band, yes, my answer is Queen.
Classic Rock fans are like, "Right on. That's cool."
Those who appreciate music on a deeper level might say, "Yeah, Brian May kicks ass" or "Freddie Mercury was the shit!"
People who aren't fans of Classic Rock are kind of indifferent.
No one I've met these days ever slams the band.
I was in high school in the early '90s and Alternative was king. The worst I got from my peers was scorn from Pearl Jam, Tea Party and Nirvana fans, who thought I listened to old fogie music. I sort of got the last laugh when Kurt Cobain mentioned Freddie in his suicide note, but I was tactful enough not to point that out. Personally, I think that whole period of Alternative dates itself far worse than '60s and '70s rock. I caught the Alternapalooza episode of the Simpson recently and was like, "Man, who'd have thought that this would date so badly?" But it was pretty true of the time, kids were that withdrawn and apathetic. Since I was fairly happy and didn't hate the world, I gravitated to more optimistic music, Classic Rock, which never really took itself entirely seriously all the time. Anyway, it's come full circle and Classic Rock is respected again.
No one, outside of Queen fans, I've met know or care about splitting hairs between the Freddie and post-Freddie eras. It's only ever Queen fans who complain that Brian and Roger should stop what they're doing.
Good point!....no one besides the die hard fans give a rats ass what Brian and roger do. Everyone knows that Queen ended in 1991. like everyone knows that the who ended when keith moon passed away. They could still sell tickets though.
rhyeking · Member since
Hmm...not quite what I said, Mike.
For the people I was referring too, casual fans, Queen is Queen, whether with Freddie or without. When informed some colleagues and friends that I an import of The Comsos Rocks, before its North American release, they wanted a copy immediately. I copied it for them and they liked it. It got a lot of play in the theatre during those shows when we weren't rehearsing.
AlbaNo1 · Member since
The band have made several questionable decisions which seem commercially led at times.For example Im not too sure about the ethics of the Made in Heaven LP. I consider the last proper Queen album to be Innuendo.
rhyeking · Member since
Made In Heaven was started almost immediately after Innuendo was finished, because Freddie wanted to record as much as he could, with the obvious end result of it being issued. I don't see what the problem is, ethically, with the band fulfilling his wish.
Releasing it wasn't done to capitalize on Freddie's death. Brian did as much as he could to distance himself from Queen after Freddie died, finishing Back To The Light and touring the world with it for a couple of years. Roger recorded Happiness?, a very personal album, far removed from the Queen-sound. After a period away, they all got back together and finished MIH, which affected Brian in such a way as he felt he needed to get some distance again and started doing all sorts of collaborations, guest-appearance and one-off projects, as well starting his Heroes cover album.
Freddie's estate acted quickly with the release of "The Freddie Mercury Album" and "The Great Pretender" in 1992, but they had nothing to do with Queen or Brian or Roger.
In 1991, Hollywood Records had already begun their promotional campaign of Queen in North America before Freddie died.
The only thing which used his death for an event was Tribute Concert. He deserved nothing less than "the biggest send off in history".
AlbaNo1 · Member since
I think Brian did benefit commercially from the slipstream of Freddies death moreso than Roger having previewed Too Much Love Will Kill You at the tribute concert. Plus Roger has always had solo stuff coming out. Brian only had the Star Fleet project before. The thing is Made In Heaven went double platinum or something. I stand to be corrected but I think it sold more than Innuendo and several other albums. I happened to own The Cross Shove It, Mr Bad Guy and also Back to the Light which had the original versions of plenty of the songs on Made In Heaven. How many of the people buying it knew the original existence of these songs. Freddie didnt have creative input from beginning to end on this album. I do actually like most of the songs but maybe an EP with Let Me Live, Mother Love, A Winters Tale and You Dont Fool Me might have been a better option integrity wise.
Sebastian · Member since
Exactly:
Making MIH was not unethical, as they did work very hard on it, and the result's marvellous.
Releasing MIH was not unethical, as it's a product that deserves being distributed.
Earning loads of dosh thanks to MIH was not unethical, as they never forced the public to buy the record.
Promoting MIH as a post-Innuendo album was unethical, IMO, as only three songs actually came from 1991, and for all the others Freddie's vocals and piano preceded the 90's, sometimes by almost a decade.
rhyeking · Member since
Brian had been working on his solo album since before 1988.
"Driven By You" had already been in Ford ads and was released as a single in 1991, with "Just One Life" as the B-side.
The coming of a solo album from Brian was known well before Freddie's death, where he talks about it during The Miracle-era interviews.
The DBY single was issued the day after Freddie's death, but planned long before that (as time and money are spent on pressing the singles, printing the sleeves and promoting it).
"Too Much Love Will Kill You" began as a Queen track from The Miracle. The earliest known demos, the Bell Boy Tape (1988), show the song more or less sounding as the Queen version would later. Brian changed the arrangement for Back To The Light. He didn't play it at the Tribute to advertise BTTL, he played it because it was a deeply personal song he was sharing at a very emotional event.
"Heaven For Everyone," by some accounts, was started by Queen during the Magic sessions. So, if that's true, it shares that distinction with TMLWKY, being originally a Queen song, that became a solo track, then a Queen song again.
Therefore, only the two Mr. Bad Guy tracks truly originate from a solo project.
Bands and artists *do* do that sort of thing, re-record songs done for other projects, be they solo or vice versa, all the time. The only thing Queen could not benefit from here was, as you say, having Freddie there from start to finish. There's nothing shameful in re-using an older vocal track because the singer died before new material could be recorded.
Sebastian · Member since
> There's nothing shameful in re-using an older vocal track because the singer died before new material could be recorded.
Indeed there's nothing. There is something shameful, though, in promoting such re-used stuff as if they were post-Innuendo, when most of them were things they'd rejected for previous albums. MIH is a wonderful work, but the way it was marketed was based on propaganda.
rhyeking · Member since
That would have been shameful, yes...if Brian and Roger had actually DONE that.
Every period interview I read found Brian and Roger pretty upfront about the nature and source of the material, that some new, some was old and some came from solo projects. In one interview in particular I remember, Brian talked about adding the "Ha ha ha....it's magic" and "I get so lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely yeah..." to the end of "Living On My Own" to give it a more spontaneous feel. Not exactly the words of a man trying to hide what the band had done.
Here's David Richards in 1995 specifically saying several tracks were older and several were Freddie solo works.
Though I'm not specifically aware of what Sebastian is referring to, it's certain that marketing can be quite distinct from published interviews, comments and reviews in third party publications. There's no way to know how many people would have accessed that information prior to purchase, but I would suspect it would be the minority. Marketing is about selling stuff, not frankness. Look at the rather embarrassing sleight of hand with the Muppets video for Absolute Greatest.
rhyeking · Member since
Queen Productions would have sent out different promotion packages to different outlets, like an electronic press kit to television media (MTV, MuchMusic, etc), print promotion to newspapers and magazines, promo samplers and album descriptions to radio and music magazines, all for advance review in anticipation of the album release and for as long as they wanted to carry the story for the days or weeks afterwards.
Some media would report solely from those, while others would get additional radio and television interviews, such as David Richards' for Rolling Stone. All the media I was privy to in Toronto at the time (television, radio, newspaper and magazines) made it no secret that some of the songs were originally from other projects.
It's possible and probable that other markets around the world didn't report on this, despite it being in their promo material.
