Most Overlooked Queen Song?

Oscar J wrote:

Sebastian: I think you might be missing the significant difference between a song being "overlooked" and just "not well known". Overlooked usually means that it got a lot less exposure than it deserved. So - if you consider Good Company their second best song ever, and it's their (for example) 60th most well known song, then it's a very, very overlooked song indeed. Even though there are many Queen tracks that are even less in the public's consciousness (Party, Yeah, Flash Gordon tracks), they might not be considered as overlooked, simply because they aren't as good as Good Company.

While the term is certainly not a synonym of 'not well known,' it's not the same as 'proportionally underrated' either. Although, at the end of the day, it's about how you choose to interpret its meaning.

'Overlooked' means 'unnoticed,' and in that sense I don't think 'Good Company' was ignored. It comes up in biographies, reviews, documentaries, it's often mentioned as an example of a Queen gem and praised for its craftsmanship (e.g., here, on this thread). It's been remixed for surround, it's got an official video of some sort (made three decades after the fact but still), it's been included on the 'Making of' and its author has spoken in some sort of detail about how it was made. Its multitrack sheets have also been shown.

So, sure, on a 'how great the song is' vs 'how well known this song is' ratio, 'Good Company' might score higher than, say, 'Leaving Home Ain't Easy,' but on an 'is this song vastly ignored?' way, it's not. 'Leaving Home' is far more overlooked in my opinion. It doesn't make it better or anything, but it is, in my opinion, more fitting for the title of this thread.

HighWideandHandsome wrote:

Is there a song by the four lads that you've just forgotten existed at all, either because it was so mundane or because you hadn't listened to it in so long?

For example, yesterday I listened to the Rock in Rio performance of "It's a Hard Life", and it occurred to me that I hadn't heard that particular song in some time and had simply forgotten about it; not because of its averageness--quite the contrary, it's a masterpiece that I chastised myself for not listening to more often.

Or do you avoid this problem?

I would say the night comes down from the debut album it's a beautiful song and you hardly ever hear about despite being the earliest Queen song if you don't count the Larry lurex songs

HighWideandHandsome wrote:

Is there a song by the four lads that you've just forgotten existed at all, either because it was so mundane or because you hadn't listened to it in so long?

The entire Flash Gordon album. In honesty, I've really never listened to it. I've listened to 'Flash's Theme' a decent amount, but that was mostly on Greatest Hits - once I moved into deeper listening, I kind of forgot about it, since I never delved into the Flash Gordon album. I heard 'The Hero' on Live at the Bowl and then probably sought out the studio version at some point, out of interest. I've also heard 'The Wedding March' since I learned that it was a guitar orchestration much like Procession, A Day at the Races and God Save the Queen (though it proved to be not as interesting).

So this is all just my personal experience, but I do think it's pretty likely that the instrumental tracks on Flash Gordon are the least noticed, as they're almost never mentioned, even by fairly devout listeners on forums like this one.

Overlooked by who? Are we talking the casual person in the street who maybe is aware of a couple of hits, the casual fan who is aware of the hits and owns a few albums or a serious fan who owns every album and DVD. Or are we talking about the band members prospetive. For instance BM, in the past has sighted Long Away as being over looked. In each case the answer to the overlooked question will be very different