Roger's stance on dance music...

...seems rather contradictory.

He's gone on record numerous times citing how much he didn't advocate the musical direction they took with Hot Space, claiming how he didn't want the band's music sounding like a gay club. Fair enough, Rog, but wasn't it you that wrote the band's first disco number 'Fun It' in 1978? Going back a year earlier, he provided the band's first funk romp with 'Fight from the Inside'. In 1980, he protested against taping his drums when recording 'Dust' and didn't think much of the track itself. Later in the band's career, he contributed 'The Invisible Man' and 'You Don't Fool Me', two tracks firmly grounded in dance groove.

Not sure what Roger's beef was with dance music, when it evidently influenced his own contributions!

Fun It is not disco. It's more funk, actually. Not the same thing (a cow is not the same as a horse).

His complaint about Dust was that the drums were sounding very thin and dry, not the loop per se.

You Don't Fool Me is Fred + John.

Invisible Man, while dancey, is not disco, and it goes on a very different direction to Hot Space.

"'The Invisible Man' and 'You Don't Fool Me', two tracks firmly grounded in dance groove."

Eh? Pretty sure there isnt a nightclub on the planet that ever played these songs.

Fun It is more new wave than disco and Fight From The Inside is a rock song

>Eh? Pretty sure there isnt a nightclub on the planet that ever played these songs.

You Don't Fool Me get a dozen of awful remixes, be sure, nightclubs played them.

>Fight From The Inside is a rock song

It's a hard rock song.

I dont think you like Roger do you?

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Master marathon runner

master marathon runner wrote: I dont think you like Roger do you?

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Master marathon runner

I agree with the original poster.....And i do like roger,  he did write Teneament funster afterall.  maybe his dancy tracks wern't as disco as freds or johns, but songs like fun it,  Radio Ga Ga, Invisible man did have a dancy sound to them....He wasn't so innocent or the hard rocker he claims to be...In the 80's he wrote mosly Dance and new wave sounding songs....fight From The Inside I consider hard rock with a little funk.....

ole-the-first wrote: >Eh? Pretty sure there isnt a nightclub on the planet that ever played these songs.

You Don't Fool Me get a dozen of awful remixes, be sure, nightclubs played them.

Dance Clubs never played Fun It because the song sucks,  and was never a hit.....

There's no mystery here.

Roger wasn't a fan of mindless, repetitive, superficial fluff music played in clubs and discos, where it's about beats-per-minute and little else. That doesn't disqualify him from using the tool and techniques and trying to create some he felt was more interesting, that had some personality, edge and maybe a fraction more depth. Whether he succeeded is another debate altogether.

rhyeking wrote: There's no mystery here.

Roger wasn't a fan of mindless, repetitive, superficial fluff music played in clubs and discos, where it's about beats-per-minute and little else. That doesn't disqualify him from using the tool and techniques and trying to create some he felt was more interesting, that had some personality, edge and maybe a fraction more depth. Whether he succeeded is another debate altogether.

More depth?....you mean like 'Don't lose your head'?...if that's not a shallow dance song, I don't know what is!

Sebastian wrote: Fun It is not disco. It's more funk, actually. Not the same thing (a cow is not the same as a horse).

His complaint about Dust was that the drums were sounding very thin and dry, not the loop per se.

You Don't Fool Me is Fred + John.

Invisible Man, while dancey, is not disco, and it goes on a very different direction to Hot Space.
My friend, we could sit here forever debating if Fun It was disco or funk, but I'd prefer not to. The point is, it was clearly a dance-oriented track. In fact, on the topic of thin and dry drums, the drums on Fun It sound even thinner than they do on Dust. Actually, the less said about the drums on Jazz, the better!

And how does Invisible Man not go down the same path of Hot Space? How does it differ musically from a track like, say, Back Chat?

mooghead wrote: "'The Invisible Man' and 'You Don't Fool Me', two tracks firmly grounded in dance groove."

Eh? Pretty sure there isnt a nightclub on the planet that ever played these songs.
Why would you mistake dance groove with club play?

The Flash Danny Project wrote: mooghead wrote: "'The Invisible Man' and 'You Don't Fool Me', two tracks firmly grounded in dance groove."

Eh? Pretty sure there isnt a nightclub on the planet that ever played these songs.
Why would you mistake dance groove with club play?

How about Don't Lose your Head?....That's even more disco than Body Language!....good point,  Ivisible man is every bit as disco as Dancer,  Cool cat,  and Back Chat...

Roger did have a thing for Synthesizers and has produced dance/poppy stuff like Invisible Man (Which the demo sounds better with real drums and real bass ratehr than synths), Rain Must Fall, Radio Ga Ga and ADRRFMD, A Kind of Magic are as pop and lightweight as the dance crap Fred and John would write like the godawful Pain is so Close to Pleasure. The first Cross album has that synth meets rock blend like Machines and could be termed dance music by hairy old rockers like me.
As with his kiss and make up with Rolling Stone shows Im afraid RT has selected memory because he has produced 'dance' type tracks. Wheter that was the intent or he simply allowed John and perhaps Fred to make them more poppy with less guitar and real drums then who knows? I do think to be honest that it is Roger and Brian who kept Queen's metal/Hard rock edge otherwise Queen would have turned into a total pop band like genesis did without and guitars or real drums had John and Fred carried had their way from the mid 80's on. They alienated their hard rock fans as it was with hot space, had it not been for Roger but especially Brian I think they would have lost a lot of their original fans.