Were all four members really equal and essential?

That's just a load of cr*p. There really is no point arguing with you, as you'll just come up with nonsense like this and are blind to reason once you've made up your mind. Too bad you can't get over yourself, as idiocy like this detracts from your more reasonable contributions on other topics. The statistics speak practically for themselves, and everyone here can see it. Too bad you can't.

^^^ i didn't want to protract the argument - but Casper has (more or less) said what i was trying to convey

Sebastian are you really familiar with the term chief writter ? Its no way near to most prolific writter wich is true in freddies case but irrelevant to the coined term chief we are talking here.

[QUOTE] [b]thomasquinn 32989 wrote:[/b]

That's just a load of cr*p.[/QUOTE]

Of course it's not. You're more than welcome not to agree with my use of the term 'chief writer' to refer to Freddie, but that doesn't mean my reasons for it (namely, that he wrote more songs than Brian) are 'just a load of cr*p.'

[QUOTE] [b]thomasquinn 32989 wrote:[/b]

There really is no point arguing with you[/QUOTE]

Of course there is. Just because I don't agree with Brian being also a chief writer (I'd name him a 'deputy chief writer' but that sounds odd anyway) it doesn't mean there's no point arguing with me. I won't change your mind and you won't change mine, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

[QUOTE] [b]thomasquinn 32989 wrote:[/b]

you'll just come up with nonsense like this[/QUOTE]

It's not nonsense: Brian did write 3.5 songs on the first album, and Freddie did write more songs than Brian. That qualifies for me to consider him the band's chief writer.

[QUOTE] [b]thomasquinn 32989 wrote:[/b]

are blind to reason once you've made up your mind.[/QUOTE]

I'm not blind. I can see your point but I disagree. There's no set rule saying that a person must have written, say, 12.45% more than the other, to be considered a chief writer. The difference is subjective: for some people, Freddie would've needed to write, for instance, twice as much as Brian, to be considered 'chief' writer; for others, having written one song more would be enough. There's a difference between being blind to reason and simply disagreeing about reasons exposed and/or having reasons to come up with a different conclusion.

[QUOTE] [b]thomasquinn 32989 wrote:[/b]

Too bad you can't get over yourself[/QUOTE]

Of course I can. Just because I don't agree with your point it doesn't mean I can't get over myself.

[QUOTE] [b]thomasquinn 32989 wrote:[/b]

The statistics speak practically for themselves.[/QUOTE]

Not really, as statistics can be interpreted in different ways, as we just have.

[QUOTE] [b]thomasquinn 32989 wrote:[/b]

everyone here can see it.[/QUOTE]

There's no proof of that.

[QUOTE] [b]Stelios wrote:[/b]

Sebastian are you really familiar with the term chief writter ? Its no way near to most prolific writter wich is true in freddies case but irrelevant to the coined term chief we are talking here.[/QUOTE]

Now that you mention it, 'most prolific writer' is indeed a far better term. Still, 'chief' means 'primary', so adjudicating the informal and unofficial title of 'chief writer' to the person who wrote more songs than anyone else in the band is not a mistake, semantically or linguistically. It can, of course, be debated, whether the difference between him and Brian is enough to regard Freddie as the 'chief' or 'co-chief' writer, and both points of view are entirely acceptable.

The archive set will come out and we'll learn that John and Roger wrote hundreds of songs each in the early days that the band worked on, but that just didn't make the final cut for the albums.....we'll then be able to definitively label John and Roger as the most prolific writers...!! :-)

That'd be very interesting indeed.

All members were essential, Freddie and Brian were just a bit more equal ;-)

Freddie was very right when he - tongue-in-cheek - said that:
- he was not the leader but "perhaps the most important person in the band"
- the reason for their succes was his "charisma"

Freddie was an important ingredient in the early days that made them stand out. There's more to a band than just the music.

*I didn't read through the entire topic :-)

were all four members really equal and essential?

Well No.... but yes.

No, patently Freddie and Brian had more influence on the early albums and Queens initial success.
but yes... Each album would have sounded different if any one of them were replaced.

Brian was the "Chief" writer. After all, he wrote White Man...

If we skip 'Flash Gordon', we can divide the band's songwriting period (i.e., 'Made in Heaven' won't be included either as all but three of the songs were written in the 80's) in four:

Queen to Opera
Races to Game
Hot Space & The Works
Magic to Innuendo

Out of those four periods, the first and third have Freddie as the lead songwriter, the second is 50-50 Freddie and Brian (each wrote exactly 15 album tracks) and the fourth had a four-way split in terms of credits, but was also Freddie dominated.

Interesting to see that, indeed, the most commercially successful period, was the one that had two people sharing the driving seat... which might not be the best analogy considering Fred didn't drive but anyway...

[QUOTE] [b]ggo1 wrote:[/b]

Each album would have sounded different if any one of them were replaced.

[/QUOTE]

Well, of course! Not just the band members, but also engineers, external producers, roadies, people in charge of mastering, etc. But that's not the question.

A person's not the same if you amputate their arms, but that doesn't mean their arms carry the same importance as the heart, brain or lungs.

[QUOTE] [b]Sebastian wrote:[/b]
If we skip 'Flash Gordon', we can divide the band's songwriting period (i.e., 'Made in Heaven' won't be included either as all but three of the songs were written in the 80's) in four: [/QUOTE]

(whoa there!!!)
i'm going to jump in here before Casper.

Sebastian, ANYONE can win ANY argument by excluding data and grouping the remaining data to suit their argument.
exclusion of TWO albums? grouping albums into segments of time that ensure your data looks "better"?... sheesh!!!

over to you Casper

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

Sebastian, ANYONE can win ANY argument by excluding data and grouping the remaining data to suit their argument.
exclusion of TWO albums? grouping albums into segments of time that ensure your data looks "better"?... sheesh!!!
[/QUOTE]

This is not about winning. It's not a competition.

I explained my reasons for excluding those two. Actually, if we included them, Fred would be even more of a dominant songwriter... but that'd be pointless; several things on 'Flash Gordon' are reprises, so they shouldn't count as separate compositions, and the majority of 'Made in Heaven' was written for other albums.

Those albums weren't excluded to 'win' any argument, they were excluded to establish timelines or groups you're more than welcome to agree or disagree with.

But yeah, if you want to include them results wouldn't change:

'Flash' is dominated by Brian (if we count tracks) and by Freddie (if we count compositions), so it fits the 1976 - 1980 era.

'Made in Heaven', either way you count it, is dominated by Freddie: if we only count the actual post-Innuendo creations, then we've got three songs, one of which is Freddie's, the other is Freddie's and John's, the other is Freddie's and Brian's. So Fred's the chief songwriter. If we count everything on 'Made in Heaven', then there are, in total, 5 by Freddie (4 + 2/2), 1 by Roger, 1.5 by John, 0.83 by Brian and whatever 'Let Me Live' stands for.

So it's not about modifying stats... by including those two 'albums,' Fred's would be even more the chief songwriter.

Some really good arguments and considerations here, which show that a short answer isn't adequate for the original question. In my opinion, however, Freddie was always going to be big - somehow, he would have become famous. He just had that much talent. He himself said that even if he lost all of his millions suddenly, he'd find a way of making them again. The man knew he was going to be huge. He had that rare kind of innate sparkle which most people don't have. So I think he was the most essential member. People always loved Freddie the most.

The other three I'd say were equally important in general terms, but not all equally important in musical terms. Roger was very important for his hit writing skills, Brian for his writing and guitar skills in general, and John for his marketing etc. skills. I think they could have been Queen without John though. They wouldn't have been as successful without Brian or Roger however.

So Freddie was most essential, followed by Brian and Roger on an equal footing, and then John.

You mention 'Queen', people immediately respond with 'Freddie Mercury'! So in my opinion, while all 4 members were essential for the success of the band, for the music they created, they were far from equal in terms of star quality.