Death on Two Legs: A Financial Perspective

cmsdrums wrote:

matt z wrote:

Might also clear up whether IWTBF is about band life (Brian/Freddie) or family life.... whether his balls did/did not pop out at the Wembley gig, where his solo album is, and background singing.

I've often wondered whether 'If You Can't Beat Them' has a similar misunderstood message about life in the band....or I could just be reading far too much into it

Always regarded it as Deaky blowing off some steam. :D

Sebastian wrote:

Michael Jackson peaked at 24, ACDC peaked when the Youngs were 25 and 27, Led Zeppelin when their average age was 24, the Beatles released Sgt Pepper when two of them were 26 and two of them were 24.

In retrospect, yeah, they were on their way up, because we know how the story went. But it would've made as much sense to think that was their peak, as it could really go either way. There's a rumour somewhere that Freddie'd predicted 'Bo Rhap' would peak at No 3 in the charts; if that's true, then even he would've been pleasantly surprised to see it actually outsold 'Killer Queen.'

If you counted 1971 as Led Zeppelin's peak, then it was their 4th album, and before that Page had already established his name with The Yardbirds. The Beatles had 7 different albums before Sgt Pepper. Michael Jackson had been active in the career since his childhood. AC/DC in 1979 was at their 6th albums, and had played together for 6 years.
So all these examples have a long way climbing up before they reach the peak. It wouldn't be reasonable for Triden to think that Queen, only 3 albums at that moment, founded for 5 years, their career line had been up and up, had already attained their height. I don't need hindsight for that, it's just common sense. If you were a businessman (Freddie wasn't), would you so quickly drop this band?

You've got a point. It's not so much about age as it's about professional experience. In that sense, I guess you're right.

Anyone ever read Norman Sheffield's book? I must have missed hearing about that when it first came out, I didnt even know he had one until now.....

I guess he does say he sued Queen and the label, but it was settled out of court, which it what I had always heard....

However, doing a bit of searching about it, Brian wasnt really clear on the matter one way or the other on his own site, saying "decide how much of this you believe"

I did buy it and read it. It's interesting but obviously biased and many times inaccurate.

how on earth do you know what's inaccurate Seb. we've only heard one side of the story for years ( most of which you regularly argue is wrong/biased) now you read an alternate version and you say hat's wrong.

scallyuk wrote:

how on earth do you know what's inaccurate Seb

Because he claims 'Killer Queen' was a No 1, which it wasn't.

Because he also misses out some facts about The Beatles and others.

Because the book deals with a lot of aspects besides the whole 'Death on Two Legs' story and enters into territories that can be easily googled to confirm he's made, in fact, quite a few inaccurate claims.

That's how on earth I know it.

scallyuk wrote:

how on earth do you know what's inaccurate Seb. we've only heard one side of the story for years ( most of which you regularly argue is wrong/biased) now you read an alternate version and you say hat's wrong.

Considering Seb has spent years researching this topic and you have posted one comment with an intellectual deficiency of "you weren't there, so what do you know?", I'm inclined to go with Seb on this one and countless others.

If the "you weren't there, so what do you know?" mentality were to stand up, things like investigative history, archaeology and paleontology wouldn't exist.

Planetgurl wrote:

I would love to know why / who was behind the notorious (at the time) 'Queen Hype' double page spread in the middle of Melody Maker, written at the time of the release of SSOR and having an obvious side swipe at Trident. The band were incandescent with fury at the time in other interviews reported a few days later and of course at the time you just couldn't get hold of the physical source of this fury because it was published a week before. So it took YEARS for me to finally get hold of this article: what an eye-opener! I even sent a copy to the archive because they didn't have it either. They sent it over to Brian and I bet it gave him a chuckle. But it made a serious attempt to discredit Trident and band at the time.

Exactly which article is this? Has it been posted here?

The Real Wizard wrote:


Considering Seb has spent years researching this topic and you have posted one comment with an intellectual deficiency of "you weren't there, so what do you know?", I'm inclined to go with Seb on this one and countless others.

It's precisely because Seb wasn't "there" that makes his research so flawed.
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"There" not meaning "with the band" but meaning "being part of 70's English culture. " otherwise he'd realise statements like

Because he claims 'Killer Queen' was a No 1, which it wasn't. "

are actually wrong. In the 70's aspiring musicians and managers had one bible - Melody Maker. Forget what was number one on the BBC charts, that was something we watched and laughed at (listen to Mott the Hoople's Saturday Gigs - "took the mick out of top of the pops, we play better than they do" )
Melody Maker was where it was at (man) and KQ was number one in Melody Makers charts. it's even in the Tremlett book Seb recently reviewed. but because he wasn't there Seb misses the nuances that those of us who WERE there understand. It's quite logical that Norman Sheffield, someone who WAS actively involved in the UK Music scene in the 70's would remember a band he "owned" being number one in the MM charts..

"Because he also misses out some facts about The Beatles and others. "
Omission isn't inaccuracy, things get left out for many reasons , Them being not relevant unimportant or not interesting to the person who is speaking all play a part.,

Because the book deals with a lot of aspects besides the whole 'Death on Two Legs' story and enters into territories that can be easily googled to confirm he's made, in fact, quite a few inaccurate claims.

Google is not always right. and neither is memory .
history is written by the victors.

scallyuk wrote:

It's precisely because Seb wasn't "there" that makes his research so flawed.

But claims by people who were there can and often are also flawed, precisely because they feel that, since they were there, they''re automatically infallible, which they aren't. As you state later on, memory's not always right.

Still, you raise an interesting point which is the word 'research,' and that's where I think there's a key difference: Norman's book was not a research book, it was an autobiography/defence/perspective from his stance. It was not meant to be a historical document and, as such, I concede it's not entirely fair for myself (or anybody else) to have bought it expecting a chronicle or a diary full of dates and facts.

In that sense, I agree to disagree with the definition of 'Number One' and concede I wasn't there. For all I know, maybe 'Killer Queen' was the 'Cheerleader' of its time. Perhaps ... no idea, since didn't exist back then. What I can research (even if google's not always right) is whether it topped the charts or not, but I admit it wasn't necessarily what Norman meant.

Tremlett's book says, 'a third single Killer Queen which brought them their first number one placing in the music paper charts,' which is more specific than what Norman said and is less prone to misunderstandings. And yeah, perhaps I'm too insistent with terminology, because claiming Netherlands were the best team in the '74 World Cup (which they probably were, and I'm willing to take the word of those who were there at face value) and claiming they won (which they didn't, and it's not just google stating so), is not the same thing.

scallyuk wrote:

Google is not always right. and neither is memory .
history is written by the victors.

That's very true. Norman Sheffield's memory wasn't always right, and that was my point.

scallyuk wrote:

It's precisely because Seb wasn't "there" that makes his research so flawed.

but because he wasn't there Seb misses the nuances that those of us who WERE there understand.

I see where you're coming from, but you're ultimately wrong - if you were right, then we should discount all historians, archaeologists and astronomers. Historians haven't been to the 18th century, archaeologists haven't been to the mesozoic era, and astronomers haven't been to Ceres.

I appreciate your stance, but it's not as black and white as you're making it out to be.

I wouldn't support your speculative math, Seb. But of course you're right overall. And you forgot to mention all the cancelled tour dates due to Brian's and Freddie's poor health which obviously had impact on record sales.

I don't think Trident & al were far off treating Queen as a mediocre investment in mid 1975. At the time, after three years of big promotion, the costly (in time more than money) recording of 3 improving-in-sales-but-not-exploding LPs and one unreleased single (the re-make of Keep Yourself Alive), and about 150 tour dates aroud the world, they were at best just a very expensive promise. To their eyes, Queen looked as nothing but a return of the investment, which in music business means losing money. What can be criticized about Trident is their lack of vision.

Bob: Archaeologists would've little to do in the Mesozoic, since what they study didn't exist until many millions of years later than that. But since you mention archaeology: the overwhelming majority of Egyptologists are neither Egyptian nor from the era they're studying, should that forbid them from even trying?

Obviously I agree with your point, although there's still an important difference: the amount of time, money, experience, peer-reviewed research, etc., involved in concluding whether the T-rex had feathers or not is way, way, way larger than that involved in establishing whether 'Bo Rhap' had 180 vocal overdubs or not. They do have parallels, though: even with a sound research, there are always those who are going to:

* Reject it on the grounds that the person presenting the conclusion wasn't there. (Indeed, we may never ever know what a T-rex actually looked like, and we may never ever know a lot of things about Queen).

* Equating 'not 100% error-proof conclusive research' with 'pure speculation and guesswork.'

* Simply believe what they want to believe and reject anything implying otherwise.

Bumped.