How I began my Queen journey 20 years ago

[QUOTE] [b]Dubroc wrote:[/b]
I detest all conservatives....[/QUOTE]

I detest liberals and neo-cons and politicians in general, they are all the same and all buddy buddy but like to make fools of us all.

I'm happy to say that I came from one of Queen's biggest strongholds in the States (being Massachusetts which I moved back to this past March) so becoming a Queen fan was not a problem. When I went to South Carolina (where my older sister lives), Queen were (and still are) frowned upon in that redneck infested hole. Funny story when I bought Queen On Fire Live At the Bowl on CD the day of release, they had new releases out by Toby Keith, Shania Twain and Britney Spears at front display and I was saying "where the Hell is the new live Queen album" and some hick who worked there said "who gives a fuck about Queen" so I just ignored, went to the Queen section and there were about 10 to 20 copies so I nabbed one right there, paid for it, ran to the car and put the disc on in my car and said "what an inbred asshole, how dare he trash Queen, the blasphemer"). A few days later, went back to same Best Buy and bought another (well, my father paid for copy #2)! When I came back from nabbing copy #2 and put on my stereo system (my dad went to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting so I could blast Queen to 11 (I don't smoke nor drink nor drug (I'm allergic to all three and could trigger Autism into bad state)), I called one of my best friends here in Massachusetts, a woman I went to college with named Danielle (who was a dead ringer for Stacy Keibler at the time (but hotter) and I'm still friends with her today) and was about to leave a message when she called me right back from a wedding she was at (which was actually a country hoedown) and the first notes of "The Hero" from On Fire began when I answered and greeted her with a Freddie Mercury type greeting which caused her to laugh. Told her if I was up there, I'd sabotage the country music fans with Queen's bombastic rock and her response of "Terrence, you're too funny" made me laugh.

Always a story (all of which are TRUE, no BULLSHITTING FROM ME) when I acquired some of the albums I've owned over the years.

By all conservatives I didn't mean a political side. I meant conservative people who have strange opinions due to religion or other traditional old fashioned uprising.
It is still weird to me if you are in the "wrong state" beeing a Queenfan could be a problem.

I'm just glad to live in western Europe.

Over more than 30 years no-one ever made any negative comment to me about Freddie beeing gay. Some people just had other musical interests and maybe didn't like Queen. Well, I didn't like Micheal Jackson, Depeche Mode, Tears For Fears, Aha, and a lot of other bands...

I met a new fan a couple of months ago (14 y.o.) and she's now educating her friends about Queen.
I told her she should be proud to be a fan. She may be different to the rest of the kids only because she prefers older music. (I mean REAL music).

I considder myself a liberal person in the true meaning of the word liberal; beeing free of mind. I don't know much about American politics, but issues such as gay marriage aren't a problem in my country...

I'm going to attempt to remember the order of my Queen album purchases:

GH1 (parents LP collection '83 ish?)
Queen 1 (taped by a pal of my brothers for 50p '85)
Live Magic (tape - Christmas pressie '86)
NOTW (tape - WHSmiths in town)
ANATO (LP - WHSmiths in town)
Live Killers (tape - Woolworths in Carmarthen)
Jazz (tape - can't remember!)

Bugger. That takes us to about '88. I might even have NOTW and Live Magic the wrong way around. Add to that the AKOM 7" when it was released and I was aware of Radio Gaga and IWTBF at the time but never got them. I think my mum gave in not buying singles by the time AKOM came out. I'm pretty sure Staying Power was played a lot in the bars in a couple of french resorts around '83, but I only sussed that once I got HS.

Actually, LK and ANATO are the wrong way around too.

Thinking about it, I would never have wanted to listen to Flash if it wasn't for a promotion on the back of Weetabix for the film giving away cards with scenes from the film on it. I didn't see the film even until after I listened to the song. Curious.

Back to topic:

I only can remember my first few records.

The Game & News Of The World (for my 10th birthday)
Under Pressure - first 7" (Plato local recordstore)
ANATO (a relative bought it for me in London)
ADATR / Queen / Queen 2/ SHA I bought at Plato's who traded old records. Every record I got hold on I swapped for a Queen album.
Hot space (bought for my vacation by the lakes, to play in my Walkman).
Every other album I bought when it was released (till present day that is).

Interesting to see NOTW is quite early in people's lists - I guess the cool cover does it's job.

I remember those Weetabix cards! Oddly enough Flash was my first ever single. Might have been the first film I saw at the cinema. I remember getting my head down listening to the stereo in each speaker. But seeing as I must have been only 5 or so I didnt get into Queen proper until playing my mums Greatest Hits tape to test out a new ghetto blaster a few years later. I was spellbound by the opening of Bohemian Rhapsody.A Kind of Magic was the new record out at that point and would have been my first actual Queen purchase. Then I got everything - no idea of the order now but it would have been totally random. A great musical journey and education.

"News Of The World" surprises you? How could it?! It has "We Will Rock You" and "We Are The Champions". It totally makes sense far over any other release I would say other than some version of "Greatest Hits".

I'm a "greatest hits" fan that is just getting more serious in my appreciation of Queen, so my album list is short. :D

I discovered Queen in the 80s when I was in high school. I knew the famous songs, BoRhap, WWRY/WATC, and remember seeing music videos for I Want To Break Free and Radio Ga Ga on MuchMusic here in Canada. I liked the music but didn't find it special enough to buy the albums. (I was really into Duran Duran, Wham!, Culture Club and Michael Jackson at the time.)

In 1997 a friend introduced me to the Highlander TV show, which I became a huge fan of. I found the Highlander movie after that and LOVED the soundtrack. So my first album purchase was AKOM. I also bought GH1 and 2 so I could check out more of Queen's music.

I spent the next several months wearing out those three CDs. I don't remember how long after, but it wasn't more than a year, I bought my next Queen CD -- Made In Heaven, because it was the only CD where all of the songs were not duplicated on the other CDs I had. I loved MIH but I had no idea it was Queen's last album and no idea there was a hidden track on it. (I finally listened to the hidden track a couple months ago after finding out about it here! Haha.)

After that, I found other interests and stopped buying new music and following music in general. I still listened often to the CDs I already had though.

Fast forward to Sept. 2011, I saw Marc Martel's QE audition video and was amazed like most people, especially because STL was my favorite Queen song at the time. I started following the contest and chatting on YouTube with some other avid contest followers. One of them was a longtime Queen fan who often included interesting factoids and trivia about Queen in her commentary.

So I started hearing more Queen songs in a random way from looking up songs mentioned in YouTube comments then following related links as they interested me. After the QE contest ended, chatter on YouTube died off, so I started lurking here and at QOL to get a Queen fix.

May 2012 rolled around, I saw QE in Toronto, heard ITLOTG Revisited for the first time and loooooved it. Soon after that, I got the Sheer Heart Attack album on iTunes. I also got News of the World because, also being a scifi fan, it's the only Queen album cover I recognized and remembered from when I first saw it in the 80s. Haha.

Now I'm just about ready to buy my next pair of Queen albums. I'm leaning towards Hot Space (just to see what all the controversy is about haha) and Innuendo.

Gotta get ANATO and ADATR before Hot Space! I mean please! :)

Haha! Maybe ANATO, ADATR and Hot Space then. I'm just dying to hear Hot Space to see what the fuss is about. :P

One thing I learned from Sheer Heart Attack is that it's really worth listening to album tracks in order, at least for the first time. I already know a few songs from all of Queen's albums. I don't want to YouTube all the songs I don't know before buying an album because I want to still have some surprise and delight at hearing "new" Queen songs in the way they were intended.

On November 25th 1991 news reached our home Freddie had died.
That evening my parents decided to watch their previously recorded Live in Budapest tape.
Me and my brother watched with them.
Before that day I always assumed Freddie was the bad guy from Schwarzeneggers 'Commando' (mind you I was 10 at the time)
I can very much remember how many of the songs sounded familiar and during the next hour or so it dawned on me that this band (and Freddie) had provided a large part of the soundtrack to my life up to that point.
The (to me at this age) mystery surrounding Freddies death intrigued me endlessly and my fascination was born.

I started to listen to our only album we had; Greatest Hits II, at Christmas followed Greatest Hits I.

A friend of my brother had Innuendo and made a copy for me on cassette early 1992.

The first album my parents bought me was Queen II which I got on April 27th 1992. (absolutely great way to start!!)

Second album was Sheer Heart Attack which I got for having my wisdom teeth pulled. This was 1993. Listened to it front to back with headphones on.. astounding!

Friend of mine had gotten Queen I and Barcelona so I made copies on cassette.. also 1993

Jazz, Flash Gordon, The Game I bought in a second hand record store in Middelburg, Holland in 1993.

My Queen II CD had extra tracks (Hollywood) so I figured I'd best try to get all albums from Hollywood to get more bang for my bucks. Hence followed A Night at the Opera and A Day at the Races in 1994 from Hollywood.

By that time we had this huge music catalog at home from which I could order CD's. The first one of which would be News of the World. No Hollywood version though, but the new Digital Master Series in 1994.

That same friend now had A Kind Of Magic and The Game, so again I made a cassette copies.

Next I wanted to order either The Works or Hot Space from Hollywood. Unfortunately the music store only had Hot Space. This was in 1994. The Works soon followed.

Because of the three vinyl albums I owned I liked Jazz the best, I bought this on CD as well (Hollywood) early 1995.

Early December 1995 my dad had casually put on an unknown song from Queen to surprise me.. this was to be from Made In Heaven. I knew the album had not been released yet, however my dad had some connections and got a copy before it hit the stores.

Late December 1995 my dad went to Indonesia and bought The Miracle for me as a present.

...the rest of the story maybe some other time.