Being a Queen fan today... Guilty Pleasure or hardcore??!!

What sort of response do you guys get in this day in age when you mention Queen as your favorite band or ONE of your favorite bands.. Say especially to someone new.. Be it new friends/work mates or random people you meet...? Do you more often get a guilty expression on their faces or by the way they reply or do you get a surprise response such as "Queen are ok but..love John Deacons bass lines" and some high respect?

Here in NZ I have found that coming out as a "Queen fan/Queen is my favorite band" can be a unique and weird experience to say the least...
There are usually two main responses I get from people.. The most common one is the ???? look's on ones face with images of catchy 80s pop songs and Bohem Rhap going through their minds and by the way they respond, it is kind of like " oh cool, its nice to have a guilty pleasure" or "we play their GH in the rack we bring it out along with ABBA for a good laugh when we are drunk" and you end up spending a good half hour teaching them about how cool Queen and how Queen has influenced so many different artists etc etc etc...
And the other "very rare" response I get, one i get from friends or people who are knowledgeable about music who are either not too well tuned in on Queen. Where you end up having a good discussion with the help of some selected live video clips particularly from show's like the Rainbow, which ends up with them having a whole new perspective and respect for Queen and the individual talents of the members who make up Queen or people who listen to Queen but not enough to say they are their fav bands but often reply with the likes of "yeah? that's awesome! Queen are a great band I love Brian's unique solos", "that bassist whoever his name is... he has some sic bass lines" etc etc..
I have also found a deep respect and love towards Freddie Mercury and Queen amongst the Maori community!! They love singing and love Freddie and particularly they love singing Freddies version of the song Great Pretender. I have been to a few parties where that song comes up on the jukebox and the whole house erupt's into singing... Very impressive sight esp coming from.. you know, huge and imposing hard labour working people!!

Plenty of people I know recognise Queen's great importance and talent, but none have listened much beyond Greatest Hits I and II and Live Aid, as far as I know. I've definitely never been able to have a conversation with someone I know IRL about one of their actual albums, an individual band member, or anything like that.

Thankfully, I'm not acquainted with anybody who considers Queen and Abba the sort of thing to be enjoyed as 'guilty pleasures'.

In my experience the response is always "Oh that's cool that's the one with the guy with the mustache" Ive never had anything negative stated in response to me mentioning I like Queen so I guess in that regard Im fortunate

Once in a great while I'll meet someone older than me (I'm 37) and after telling them I love Queen they;ll say something like 'oh yeah, I had the Sheer Heart Attack album when I was a kid"...or even that they saw them live back in the 70s, but that's a rarity.....(I even once had a guy I worked with tell me he saw them in 71.......suuuuuuuuure you did....lol)

Most of the time, it's more like they think they're good, but they only know the few songs that get regularly played on the radio.........

I even played the whole A Night At The Opera album for one of my friends, who was a classic rock fan but really didnt know much about Queen........he was rather taken aback by The Prophets Song.......LOL

The King Of Rhye wrote

Once in a great while I'll meet someone older than me (I'm 37) and after telling them I love Queen they;ll say something like 'oh yeah, I had the Sheer Heart Attack album when I was a kid"...or even that they saw them live back in the 70s, but that's a rarity.....(I even once had a guy I worked with tell me he saw them in 71.......suuuuuuuuure you did....lol)

Most of the time, it's more like they think they're good, but they only know the few songs that get regularly played on the radio.........

I even played the whole A Night At The Opera album for one of my friends, who was a classic rock fan but really didnt know much about Queen........he was rather taken aback by The Prophets Song.......LOL

Haha same experience as myself with my mates....

I am 27..... BTW

I have played ANATO to my GF 23 and she fell in love with the album on her second or third play!!! and I remember showing my old flate mate's of 2008 (19-21 years of age) who were stoned... the video to The Prophets song.... They were both buzzing and tripping out ( a lot like how I became hooked to Pink Floyd four years ago) and they were like "dude! were they stoned of their faces when they wrote those songs?!" I have showed some of my work mates (big Foos/grunge/alt metal fans) the Rainbow and they were wondering where the fuck they have been and could totally understand how GNR and metallica label them as a influence on them

You listen to them? Fuck off.

I feel, most of the times, that Queen is a guilty pleasure and that I need to defend them. But I don't care, it's not the only band I listen to anymore. I just can't understand how people don't think Freddie Mercurys' voice is fantastic/the best(!), and that they don't want to check out some more songs than Bohemian Rhapsody and Another One Bites the Dust, everybody think they're good in some form. If I kinda like some songs by a band, I check them out, and it's so easy to do that today.

I have a Freddie Mercury mug at work, and nobody asks about it. They either don't even know who he is, or they don't give a shit.

People in general don't give a shit about much of anything rock-related anymore, really. This is no longer the age of rock stars. It's now the age of Facecrap, Twatter, Instashit and me, me, me.

Queen were never classed as a cool group until 12 years after Freddie passed away, before that many people including the press hated them.
Tv and radio gave Queen a hard ride as well by refusing to play there records and promo vids on tv.
Now Freddie is gone it annoys me when people now say "oh he was a showman and legend, but the thing here is Freddie was a showman and a legend in the 70s and 80s and
nobody bothered to notice.

[QUOTE] [b]gerry wrote:[/b]

Queen were never classed as a cool group until 12 years after Freddie passed away, before that many people including the press hated them.[/QUOTE]

I dont think thats quite right.......I remember right after Freddie's death and also the time of the Tribute, there was quite a bit of interest in Queen going around.....

[QUOTE] [b]gerry wrote:[/b]

Queen were never classed as a cool group until 12 years after Freddie passed away, before that many people including the press hated them.
Tv and radio gave Queen a hard ride as well by refusing to play there records and promo vids on tv.
Now Freddie is gone it annoys me when people now say "oh he was a showman and legend, but the thing here is Freddie was a showman and a legend in the 70s and 80s and
nobody bothered to notice.[/QUOTE]

You stood alone at every Queen concert as the only person to buy a ticket and the only person to buy their albums then!

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

You stood alone at every Queen concert as the only person to buy a ticket and the only person to buy their albums then![/QUOTE]

Too funny!

[QUOTE] [b]gerry wrote:[/b]

Queen were never classed as a cool group until 12 years after Freddie passed away...
[/QUOTE]

I suppose the 100,000 strong audience at Hyde Park in 1976 just showed up to heckle the band, and remind them how uncool they were?

You may mock but even Roger stated that Queen were never in vogue, sure there concerts always sold out but they were never
flavour of the month, and the press continued to slag them all off as well as Radio one refusing to put Queen on there playlist.

gerry wrote: [/b] You may mock but even Roger stated that Queen were never in vogue, sure there concerts always sold out but they were never
flavour of the month, and the press continued to slag them all off as well as Radio one refusing to put Queen on there playlist.[/QUOTE]

Then why did a 72,000 strong audience not entirely made up of queen fans clap and sing along at live aid? And if they were hated they would not have one the best band of the 80s award in 1989 or the contribution award the next year