The Doctor talks about You Don't Fool Me, again

[QUOTE] [b]Sheer Brass Neck wrote:[/b]

The other three seemed to be more forward thinking than Brian, and it probably irked him in the 80s. But they needed it to stay relevant.[/QUOTE]

But he did come up with Who Wants To Live Forever, which is unlike anything he'd come up with before.

Indeed, most of the big rock bands died off in the 80s for one reason or another. If they managed to hang around, they had to greatly change their sound to stay relevant. Look what happened to Chicago, Genesis and Yes.

[QUOTE] [b]Sebastian wrote:[/b]

He was not suppressed. [/QUOTE]

Yes he was.

Yes BM was suppressed, by producers and the direction that the band was taking. As has been said in the 80's they became followers and produced a lit of music that wad no different from a lot of other acts. Yes there were one or two songs on albums which leant them selves to the classic, though updated, Queen sound. It wasn't until Innuendo that they again produced a Queen album that was full of songs that really couldn't be anyone else.

Freddie's strong point, in the 80's, in the studio with Queen wasn't as a song writer, it was in his ability to push the others, particularly Brian into providing something better than he could do if left alone. It's the one thing missing in what BM does now, someone who will say do it again. In much the same way FM's song writing proved to be quite weak in many ways without the input of the other three. Mr Bad Guy now sounds, in a lot of ways like a bunch of demos recorded for a Queen album, even the guitarist he used was asked to play like BM. I'm not saying his singing wasn't good, it was, but the songs sound like as Queen songs they would have gone much further.

William Orbit might just be what BM needs to bring the best out of him, and the best out of what Freddie has left them to work with. A producer who isn't a yes man.

Rush hadn't made a solid record in 20 years until Nick Raskulinecz (yes, I had to copy/paste that) came along. Their last two records are amongst their very best work.

Clockwork Angels is amazing.

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]

Rush hadn't made a solid record in 20 years until Nick Raskulinecz (yes, I had to copy/paste that) came along. Their last two records are amongst their very best work.[/QUOTE]

I love Rush, but if you think clockwork Angels and Snakes and Arrows is as good as 2112 and Moving pictures you need you're ears checked!... they are pretty good Records though...better than the crap they put out in the 90's..The new album is not produced very well at all...

[QUOTE] [b]Vocal harmony wrote:[/b]

Yes BM was suppressed, by producers and the direction that the band was taking. As has been said in the 80's they became followers and produced a lit of music that wad no different from a lot of other acts. Yes there were one or two songs on albums which leant them selves to the classic, though updated, Queen sound. It wasn't until Innuendo that they again produced a Queen album that was full of songs that really couldn't be anyone else.

Freddie's strong point, in the 80's, in the studio with Queen wasn't as a song writer, it was in his ability to push the others, particularly Brian into providing something better than he could do if left alone. It's the one thing missing in what BM does now, someone who will say do it again. In much the same way FM's song writing proved to be quite weak in many ways without the input of the other three. Mr Bad Guy now sounds, in a lot of ways like a bunch of demos recorded for a Queen album, even the guitarist he used was asked to play like BM. I'm not saying his singing wasn't good, it was, but the songs sound like as Queen songs they would have gone much further.

William Orbit might just be what BM needs to bring the best out of him, and the best out of what Freddie has left them to work with. A producer who isn't a yes man. [/QUOTE]

I couldn't agree more with the above post. Exactly my thoughts.

[QUOTE] [b]mike hunt wrote:[/b]

[QUOTE] [b]The Real Wizard wrote:[/b]

Rush hadn't made a solid record in 20 years until Nick Raskulinecz (yes, I had to copy/paste that) came along. Their last two records are amongst their very best work.[/QUOTE]

I love Rush, but if you think clockwork Angels and Snakes and Arrows is as good as 2112 and Moving pictures you need you're ears checked!... they are pretty good Records though...better than the crap they put out in the 90's..The new album is not produced very well at all...[/QUOTE]

So many people in their 40s and 50s are stuck in the past and nothing will ever match it. The decision about a new record is made long before it is put on for the first time. But music is an emotional thing, as it tends to be a connecting agent like that. Music is associated perhaps with happier, youthful times in life, and the blinders go on.

There is no shortage of people who say "there is no good music today," but when you ask them to name new artists all they can mention is crap that's on the radio. They haven't bothered to look. I just saw Neko Case last night. Her best material is just as good as Joni Mitchell and Carole King in their prime.

"The end of art" arguments have been coming out of middle aged people for 150 years now. Even impressionistic art and romantic era composers were deemed by some to be unfit for public consumption.

Indeed, the last Rush record doesn't have a lot of poppy hooks to make it as memorable as Moving Pictures, but it is certainly a work of art unlike anything they've done in decades. That said, Wish Them Well and The Wreckers are just as hooky as anything they've done in the last 25 years. They still can write a good melody. Lifeson still has killer riffs - listen to the first minute of The Anarchist. And Peart's lyrics are as relevant as ever.

But I agree, the sound is far too compressed. I much prefer the more open sound of Snakes and Arrows.

"So many people in their 40s and 50s are stuck in the past and nothing will ever match it. The decision about a new record is made long before it is put on for the first time. But music is an emotional thing, as it tends to be a connecting agent like that. Music is associated perhaps with happier, youthful times in life, and the blinders go on."

Very true to a certain extent, but far more complicated than that. Music is very much a time and place thing. For instance, I heard We will rock you at a concert when I was 17 and it hadn't even been released yet. After the concert, people were singing the chorus to a song they'd heard for the first time, walking down Toronto's main street and it was incredibly powerful. During that concert, we had front row seats and Bohemian Rhapsody was a life changing moment. There was an energy that I'd never heard before, showmanship, imagination, you name it. Just now saw a quote about that tour and the author of a chapter in the book said "at the word "Beelzebub", all four men popped out of a door in the stage floor and joined live again for the heavy metal section, fireworks going off, dry ice pouring out, everyone going berserk, me in tears of excitement. It was one of the best live moments I've ever witnessed. Indeed, I was spoiled by seeing Queen play live before anyone else; for sheer exuberant theatricality, no one else has come close." So true about the concert, and that goes for music also. Queen and groups like the Beatles did a bit of everything, so my tastes became limited which is a real regret as I aged that I didn't listen to more artists catalogues.

"There is no shortage of people who say "there is no good music today," but when you ask them to name new artists all they can mention is crap that's on the radio. They haven't bothered to look."

It's unfortunate that the record and radio industry changed so much they ruined music in the process. I grew up in Southern Ontario and we had CHUM and CKOC which were pop formats. You'd here rock, motown, funk and soul, ballads from what is now MOR, reggae, you name it so were exposed to tons of sounds and genres. Now everything is segmented. Classic rock, modern rock, new music, it's like the world has to be told what to listen to and it's narrowed everyone's horizons.

Yup, can't disagree with you there.

40 years ago you didn't have to look for good music. It was readily available. The industry pumped profits into artist development. It was just a different time..

Just about anyone working in the business then will tell you in retrospect that it was a magical time, but nobody knew it then.

Actually, if you have a look at what was for sale 40 years ago, most of it was cr*p just like it is today. However, the same principle is at work here that makes us remember the past as more exciting than it was: forty years have passed, the dull mass has been edited out by our memories and we only remember the highs and the lows. You really need to look hard to find evidence of what the past (whether musically or otherwise) was 'really' like.

It IS absolutely true that a lot more was invested in a larger number of artists, though. Record companies have found that it is more profitable to hype one easily influenced nitwit (Justin Bieber) than spend time and effort on ten class acts that have minds of their own. On the other hand, it has never been easier for small labels to get off the ground and self-producing an album costs only a fraction of what it would have in, say, the 1970s.

Agree Thomas. I once read (may be off a bit) that there were 300 acts signed to all major labels in the 70s. So it was a closed shop in a sense but you got lable support. Today there could be 300 new releases in a day online. Easier to make music, harder to get it to an audience in a broader manner.

Indeed, most music was crap 40 years ago too.

But the question is - can the best music of today even remotely compare to the best music of 1974 ?

And is the best music of today available to virtually everyone to turned on the radio the way Zeppelin, Yes, Queen, Joni Mitchell, James Taylor and Aretha Franklin were then?

A hundred years from now, how many albums of the last 20 years will be in the prestigious group that we currently refer to as "classic albums" ?

Besides "OK Computer," anything else?

OK Computer was a funny one - I remember buying this at 17 when it was at number 1 and had loads of publicity, whilst also trying to get my first full time job (which happened to end up with me being as a human photocopying assistant! - but 15 years later I know it sounds corny but I am "Doin' Alright").

I remember putting my giant 1970s headphones on which were like cheese graters on my ears (but it was 1997 I think, so I look backdated) in my parents house (which incidentally is in the South East of England, it is not in Canada as Queenzone thinks) trying to absorb this album (OK Computer) - I was trying to like it desperately, but it took months.

That dork with the spoken voice on Happier Fitter.... still makes me shudder like a rudder. He starts saying something which is potentially OK to start with but the commitment is lost at the end in a sarcastic way like a true dork with a defeatist attitude. Karma Police passes just about. I like the music behind Air Crash but the message is dated and a bit dodgy now (a bit like the band name "Terrorvision") and this is the risk of being intentionally a greedy fucking jerk in the first place.

The reason I found it so hard to absorb OK Computer and brain wash myself into liking it was probably because there is a difference between musicians trying to desperately say "I am clever and desperate to sound different in a dorky way", and those musicians aiming to make a decent album in the first place who have something decent to say without a hidden agenda.

I think some of the Manic Street Preachers work is quite good. I like the Everything Must Go album - which is quite consistent. However it sounds a bit like the Manics has deliberately been marketed to smart girls studying English Literature / Language at A Level so their scrummy mummies let them attend their first proper concert because there always sounds like there is a hidden educational aspect in the Manics to me.

I agree about OK computer. I prefer "The Bends". Almost every song is excellent (from memory) and far more accessible than much of OK computer.
I think Radiohead were starting to go right up their own backsides by then and I didn't really enjoy it.

I love the Manics (my 90's band) I have (nearly) every Cd & single up to "This is my truth" and liked that they gained recognition for how great they were, but again the longer it went on, the more the albums meant less to me. The slide began from "This is my truth" and now I don't even buy their new albums. As with Radiohead they are trying too hard to say something.

Probably the only think that prevented Queen going that way was Freddie's illness, it gave focus and emotion to them in the later albums rather than them drifting into mediocrity.

(and er... the You don't fool me guitar is great!) [ON TOPIC]