Freddie Mercury - Freddie Mercury is always on Brian May's mind

Trust me, Brian can't win. Ever since Freddie died it's either been 'not enough Freddie!' or 'he's trotting Freddie out for his own purposes again!'.

Bollocks to the lot of it. Is he cashing in on the old fella by mentioning him in an interview? That's anyone's guess. But the actual fact of it is that he would be very unlikely to have a day where he didn't think of Freddie at least once. We don't seem to have those days, and we didn't even know the guy or work with him. That works out to be at least a 75% chance that he's not milking Freddie here.

Move along!

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]
You're kidding, right? Brian and Roger are exploiting Freddie if they use any of his compositions to keep the band in public consciousness?
The whole was greater than the sum of its parts. Sounds like you're a Freddie fan, not a Queen fan.

Should the remaining members of Pink Floyd not be allowed to profit from more records sold or some other avenue? How about Chicago? Led Zeppelin? These acts should all die simply because one of the key players died?

You are usually a pretty bright guy, but this is one of the dumbest things I've ever read.[/QUOTE]

no. i'm a queen fan. but i haven't liked anything since 1995. i am not against bands carrying on - it's their band, their name - their right to carry on. but at least do it with some dignity and class.

your argument doesn't hold up. le's take the two biggest comparators that YOU cite:
floyd? - ok - well they didn't have a frontman - in fact vocals and stage fronting was generally shared between waters and gilmour - depending on the songs. so it's easier for floyd to carry on with either.

zep? they have definitely NOT carried on. aside from one reunion concert in 2007 and a live aid appearance - they have not used the zep name for any gigs or new recordings.
in fact quote from Jimmy Page (Mojo - dec 2012 issue) re a possible tour or record:
"well if jason, john paul jones and i were playing afterwards then, sure, we were willing to go beyond the element of the O2. But we couldn't do anything that was a led zeppelin reunion unless the singer was there. quite clearly we're there, but he's not, so what's the point of playing games with it?"
and:-
"hey listen, if i was going out on my own i'd do led zeppelin material, but i'd do yardbirds too, but if we had come up with some kind of conccotion wtht the three remaining members we wouldnt call it led zeppelin would we?"

brian may could learn a lot from this.in a nutshell. those comments show dignity and class and a refusal to milk the cow in any crass way. liking zep much more these days than i ever did.

Some of the Plant Page stuff from the 90's really was a reunion in all but name. The omission of JPJ and Jason Bonham was probably just to try to avoid the topic, but in musical terms they were totally thinking 'reunion'.

I can totally see why they did it the way they did.

Brian constantly acknowledges Freddie when talking about anything he does with Queen material currently. Thats fair enough. He knows he cant artistically top what he did with Queen, and he knows a lot of that was down to Freddie.

[QUOTE] [b]brENsKi wrote:[/b]

your argument doesn't hold up. le's take the two biggest comparators that YOU cite:
floyd? - ok - well they didn't have a frontman - in fact vocals and stage fronting was generally shared between waters and gilmour - depending on the songs. so it's easier for floyd to carry on with either.

zep? they have definitely NOT carried on. aside from one reunion concert in 2007 and a live aid appearance - they have not used the zep name for any gigs or new recordings.
[/QUOTE]

Yes, fair play. But your argument was against Brian using Freddie's songs in the Queen musical, not creating new material or touring.

Just looking for some consistency here...

Fact is, we can't read thoughts. If Fred's always on Brian's mind, or if he isn't, that doesn't change anything, IMO.

I've heard and read him express this many times. Always on his mind, still part of the band. It's become a stock answer I think, sometimes given preemptively. I don't draw any conclusion from it at all other than the fact that it has to be a burden of sorts for an intelligent man to constantly have interviewers trolling for pat, emotional bits on Fred and feel torn between your duty to the memory of your friend and bandmate and the fact that it has been 20 years since he died. They benefit from that imposed sentimentality and lionizing of course, but all things considered I'm sure they'd rather have their friend and co-creator with them and their interviews to themselves.

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]
[QUOTE] [b]brENsKi wrote:[/b]
your argument doesn't hold up. le's take the two biggest comparators that YOU cite:
floyd? - ok - well they didn't have a frontman - in fact vocals and stage fronting was generally shared between waters and gilmour - depending on the songs. so it's easier for floyd to carry on with either.
zep? they have definitely NOT carried on. aside from one reunion concert in 2007 and a live aid appearance - they have not used the zep name for any gigs or new recordings.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, fair play. But your argument was against Brian using Freddie's songs in the Queen musical, not creating new material or touring.
Just looking for some consistency here...[/QUOTE]

if you look at my original reply - i was stating that Brian is using freddie as a tool for anything he's promoting...
so i have been consistent.
FIRST REPLY: stop using his name as a walking advert for whatever he's promoting? if he had such courage in his own tour, there's be no need to name drop.
SECOND REPLY: and as for "not exploting freddie" how about he makes the musical without any freddie compositions in it - then see how many tickets he sells....
THIRD REPLY: i am not against bands carrying on - it's their band, their name - their right to carry on. but at least do it with some dignity and class.

like i said - look at zep's legacy (post bonham) and queen's (post mercury) ...no contest - and i'm not a zep fan

Thing is, I don't think Zeppelin (or Queen) have legacies really - not ones that didn't already exist at the time that the bands ceased to be.

Neither of them really did anything worth remembering in the time after they lost a member of the group. (I'm speaking as a member of the public and not a fan of the bands - I'm well aware of all of the stuff that each group has gotten up to since 1980/1991 respectively).

The Cosmos Rocks was neither here nor there, musically. No one (again, I speak of ordinary people) really gave a crap. There was this panic among fans that they were 'ruining Queen's legacy' by making it, and then it was released, and forgotten, and here we are. The band Queen that existed from 1973-1991 is not alterable by anything that comes after. That part of the book was already closed many years ago and is unimpeachable.

People who think the well is being poisoned by some easily-forgotten album a few years down the line have some serious insecurity issues that they need to deal with.

zep haven't got up to anything since 1980. that's my point. and i think Jimmy Page's point. 50% of the original zep want to continue, but because plant doesn't then 50% isn't enough...and that's with a drummer who's the original drummer's son.

queen too have 50% of original band wanting to carry on..and have.

i would suggest that zep's inaction (save liveaid and the O2) has maintained their status (as was) prior to bonham's death...whereas "half-queen" have continued to produce output of substandard quality - both as queen+ and queenminus.

consider the viewpoint of the outsider:
prior to the deaths let's say both bands had output that was 80/20 good bad
since the deaths zep still look 80/20
queen look more like 60/40

That'd be a valid point if the general public knew or cared about anything Queen has done post-1991. It just hasn't been good, bad, or noticeable enough. The Q+AL gigs are a great example. All of that hooplah on Queenzone, and all of the idiotic comments being posted by Lambert fans on the videos - what did it amount to?

I've basically forgotten about it already, and I'm one of the people who actually pays attention to it! It took this discussion to jog my memory.

Queen = dead duck.

couldn't agree more ^^^

which again makes the point about zep even more profound. definitely a case of "less is more"

i can still remember seeing the made In heaven album for the first time. (in 95), looking at the track listing and thinking "i had no idea that queen actually recorded these tracks,even in demo form"
imagine the disappointment of hearing the tracks and realising they'd lifted freddie's vocals from the masters of his own solo stuff and produced a queen "backing track"...nice as it sounded, it was a disappointment. that's where the rot started for me

Aww bless Brian, you know im very very proud of the four members in Queen, cos they helped me gt through my teenage years, particularly freddie.
i knew i was a gay man too, and freddie got me through all
the prejudice and homophobia i went through at school and later in life.
ive been an ardent Queen fan for 40 years, and always will be.
QUEEN is branded in my heart,
god bless you guys!

i'm happy that queen helped you. but i don't understand the relevance of your post to this thread

I still expected someone from QZ to make the comment that the rest of the statement from Brian was...

"I think about Freddie all the time..... i wish he had left us more songs. The well's pretty dry these days,.... i mean...damn"


but it never happened!...

Ah well. Yeah, you're probably partially right about an advantage to having used his name in an article etc.
But what are the chances he's gonna be asked about the Queen legacy in an interview anyways?

100% or 99%?

It's gonna come up naturally. Reporters will spice it up by using something like that as the lead in quote.

It happens with Michael Jackson every day and he's dead as well.

Just simply putting "MICHAEL JACKSON" in a headline or story, or any really dull reference... is a guaranteed automatic 200,000 hits to someone's page.

try it to market your next effort.
Say for instance... if you make a canned soup.

"Report: Chef had thoughts of MICHAEL JACKSON while PERFORMING his creative feat"

the misapplication of words can lead those keywords to figure prominently in ANY search engine