Jimmy Dean..."News Of The World" was my first Queen album, too! Only...I bought it as a new release in early '78! LOL
It's an awesome album...and remains a top 3 favorite to this day.
PrimeJiveUSA
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mike hunt
i think NOTW still sounds fresh to this day......In all honesty when i first heard the album I thought it was good, but not great. Now I see it as a truly great album. I still like the first 5 slightly better, but i have to say it's aged better than a lot of their albums.
Soundfreak
Very interesting topic with lots of good points!
I'm definitely generation 1 having heard "Keep yourself alive" when it was "Powerplay" on Radio Luxembourg on medium wave. I was totally into the "Sweet" by then and was amazed how similar they sounded (on medium wave!).
It's nothing I am particular proud of...it just happened.
I think it's great, that new generations have discovered the music and still do. But it sometimes drives me crazy when I read all this comparisons between songs of different eras like "Tie your Mother down" or "Body Language". It shows, that some people do not understand, where all the music is coming from. And they completely ignore the context of the times when it was created. Music was developing so fast in the late 60s/ early 70s and everyone was - unlike today - trying to find something new and original.
But besides the several generations there are two more groups I see in the Queen fan scene:
- Those who accept that the time does not stand still and who are open to changes and new ideas.
- And then there are those, who are "deadly conservative", glorify a past that has never existed and even want to forbid the remaining band members to do anything that does not fit into their fantasy of a perfect rock band.
And those obviously have never understood Queen at all. It was always about trying something new and also risky.
I'm definitely generation 1 having heard "Keep yourself alive" when it was "Powerplay" on Radio Luxembourg on medium wave. I was totally into the "Sweet" by then and was amazed how similar they sounded (on medium wave!).
It's nothing I am particular proud of...it just happened.
I think it's great, that new generations have discovered the music and still do. But it sometimes drives me crazy when I read all this comparisons between songs of different eras like "Tie your Mother down" or "Body Language". It shows, that some people do not understand, where all the music is coming from. And they completely ignore the context of the times when it was created. Music was developing so fast in the late 60s/ early 70s and everyone was - unlike today - trying to find something new and original.
But besides the several generations there are two more groups I see in the Queen fan scene:
- Those who accept that the time does not stand still and who are open to changes and new ideas.
- And then there are those, who are "deadly conservative", glorify a past that has never existed and even want to forbid the remaining band members to do anything that does not fit into their fantasy of a perfect rock band.
And those obviously have never understood Queen at all. It was always about trying something new and also risky.
GratefulFan
rhyeking wrote:
For a fascinating look at how the world changes and how each new generation perceives it, take a look at Beloit College's "Mindset Lists", published each year. For your convenience, here's the current one, for students who will graduate college in the Class of 2014 (having started in the Fall of 2010):
http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2014.php
=========================================
"66. Galileo is forgiven and welcome back into the Roman Catholic Church."
Ahhhahahah. We're so funny sometimes.
For a fascinating look at how the world changes and how each new generation perceives it, take a look at Beloit College's "Mindset Lists", published each year. For your convenience, here's the current one, for students who will graduate college in the Class of 2014 (having started in the Fall of 2010):
http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/2014.php
=========================================
"66. Galileo is forgiven and welcome back into the Roman Catholic Church."
Ahhhahahah. We're so funny sometimes.
GratefulFan
Soundfreak wrote:
And those obviously have never understood Queen at all. It was always about trying something new and also risky.
=============================
Which doesn't preclude people concluding "Huh. That didn't really work. I think I'll listen to Def Leppard instead." Comparing Queen to Queen (or considering Queen in a vacuum), and comparing Queen to people that broadly did what they were trying to do much better than they did in the 80's are two different things. I'm not convinced the generational aspects have as much to do with things as is being suggested. Great music is great music, and average music by a great band is still average music. I came to the entire catalogue relatively late because after an early fascination with NOTW through an older cousin, followed by being a freshly minted teenager when The Game hit in North America, they kind of disappeared in my AM Top 40 radio town after Body Language and Pressure. In theory, every album should have had an equal chance to become a musical staple for me. But I'm one of the many that draws a fundamental line between The Game and everything that came after it. I do believe the fundamental reason for that is the music.
And those obviously have never understood Queen at all. It was always about trying something new and also risky.
=============================
Which doesn't preclude people concluding "Huh. That didn't really work. I think I'll listen to Def Leppard instead." Comparing Queen to Queen (or considering Queen in a vacuum), and comparing Queen to people that broadly did what they were trying to do much better than they did in the 80's are two different things. I'm not convinced the generational aspects have as much to do with things as is being suggested. Great music is great music, and average music by a great band is still average music. I came to the entire catalogue relatively late because after an early fascination with NOTW through an older cousin, followed by being a freshly minted teenager when The Game hit in North America, they kind of disappeared in my AM Top 40 radio town after Body Language and Pressure. In theory, every album should have had an equal chance to become a musical staple for me. But I'm one of the many that draws a fundamental line between The Game and everything that came after it. I do believe the fundamental reason for that is the music.
Sheer Brass Neck
Every fans' opinion is a meaningful/worthless as the next's. I'm a first generation fan, who believes that every artist ever, with the exception of perhaps Picasso, has a time when they do their best work, when they are hungry and trying to make their mark in the world. For me, that's Queen from '73 to '78. They had great songs after that, mostly hit and miss albums, and grew bored after their monster success, which is human nature. Their early music revealed their hunger and had a vitality their later stuff lacked. My "time invested" as a fan means nothing other than I and others were there when it was happening, and you can't replace the feeling of something special happening as it happens. I can see Bohemian Rhapsody being a revelation in 2011 for a 15 year old. I can't see it as being as powerful as when it happened, and the world had never seen or heard anything close to it.
Back to Picasso, "Guernica" is an extremely powerful anti-war painting. I saw it for the first time last year. It was incredibly powerful, but I can't imagine it being more powerful for me as a free man traveling Europe at my leisure, than for someone who lived through the horror of the bombing seeing it for the first time. Same thing, I saw the power of music as a 17 year old when Queen played Toronto for NOTW, and the album wasn't yet released in Canada. Yet after the show, hundreds of people walked down Yonge Street chanting We will rock you, probably the only thing they could remember from a song they'd never heard. And a gigantic sound never before captured on record. If that touches someone today or in 1988 the way it did me and others, that's awesome, but it's hard to look at this stuff in a revisionist light. What was awesome is now routine in the world, and the thought of people chanting a song they'd never heard would probably seem quaint to a generation where a flash mob can get together and do things in a matter of minutes.
Back to Picasso, "Guernica" is an extremely powerful anti-war painting. I saw it for the first time last year. It was incredibly powerful, but I can't imagine it being more powerful for me as a free man traveling Europe at my leisure, than for someone who lived through the horror of the bombing seeing it for the first time. Same thing, I saw the power of music as a 17 year old when Queen played Toronto for NOTW, and the album wasn't yet released in Canada. Yet after the show, hundreds of people walked down Yonge Street chanting We will rock you, probably the only thing they could remember from a song they'd never heard. And a gigantic sound never before captured on record. If that touches someone today or in 1988 the way it did me and others, that's awesome, but it's hard to look at this stuff in a revisionist light. What was awesome is now routine in the world, and the thought of people chanting a song they'd never heard would probably seem quaint to a generation where a flash mob can get together and do things in a matter of minutes.
Soundfreak
@ Grateful Fan
I fully agree with you. There is no reason to like everything a band or an artist produces. That's not my point at all.
But I watch people complaining all the time "how could they do this...how could they do that....how could they do a musical...how could they work with Robbie Williams....how could they do an album like Hot Space....."
And those have never understood the band and their ambition of always trying new and also risky things.
I fully agree with you. There is no reason to like everything a band or an artist produces. That's not my point at all.
But I watch people complaining all the time "how could they do this...how could they do that....how could they do a musical...how could they work with Robbie Williams....how could they do an album like Hot Space....."
And those have never understood the band and their ambition of always trying new and also risky things.
Thistle
I was born in November '80 and can remember Queen II, SHA, GH1 and The Works being in my dad's LP collection, but I didn't actually start listening to them properly until MIH in '95. I suppose that makes me a 3rd gen fan! I wasn't really into music back then lol, so my music experience, and education, began with MIH....Queen captured my imagination instantaniously and, having set the bar so highly, I have struggled to find anything that even comes close in terms of class or the ability to drum up excitement. So I started with MIH and worked my way bacwards, dropping off at several stations where I thought I had found my favourite album or track. After claiming it to be a plethora of the possibilities, I have finally stopped, and stayed, at Queen II and MOTBQ!
Big Fat Fanny
Generation 1, I was 14 when Bo Rhap was first released which means I was lucky enough to see the "classic lineup" Queen live eleven times between 1976 and 1984. Here I am, still a fan 30-odd years later.