John and Freddie

Togg wrote:

Interesting, of course it could well be the heavy parts of the album he hates, maybe the fact that it was a compromise and Brian and Roger forced a more 'traditional' Queen style for side 2??

I think that point's been misunderstood a lot. There's absolutely nothing to suggest John hated the traditional Queen style.

HS was not a two-camp battle between Maylor and Jeddie, it was the result of what the four of them were writing, but Fred more so than the others and John less so than the others. Let's see track by track:

* Staying Power: All John does there is play some staccato chords on rhythm guitar, which are quite subdued and only last a few seconds when you combine them. Most of the song is John-less and the bass isn't played by him.

* Dancer & Body Language: He's not even there.

* Back Chat: It wound up being different to the way he'd envisioned it.

* Action: He's probably not even there (some of the bass is synth-generated, and the rest sounds like Roger played it himself).

* Put Out the Fire & Las Palabras de Amor: Very subdued role, especially when compared to other songs by Brian of the same era (e.g. Dragon Attack and Sail Away Sweet Sister).

* Calling All Girls: Very subdued role, especially when compared to other songs by Roger of the same era (e.g. Coming Soon and Radio Ga Ga).

* Cool Cat: The only song where he possibly got his way. One out of eleven, mind!

* Under Pressure: A track he seemed to be quite fond of. But that'd still mean 9 songs out of 11 either didn't feature him or featured him very little or were not the way he would've wanted them to be, resulting in 81.82% of the album being NOT to his liking.

Let's contrast it with 'The Game':

* Play the Game: Excellent role, if underrated.

* Dragon Attack: Co-leading role, with a solo and all!

* Another One Bites the Dust: Leading role.

* Need Your Loving Tonight: Magnificent bass line and great acoustic guitar playing. Definitely a key role.

* Crazy Little Thing Called Love: Excellent role, quite important for the final product, and not too subdued.

* Rock It: Average role, neither too prominent nor too subdued.

* Don't Try Suicide: Important role, since sometimes his is the only instrument.

* Sail Away Sweet Sister: Key role, with even some sort of a solo in the end.

* Coming Soon: Interesting if underrated role, some nice ornaments here and there.

* Save Me: Excellent bass-line, beautiful and interesting.

Jeddie! Haha! Nice one.... Star Queen: The Return of the Jeddie :)

Sebastian wrote:

Togg wrote:

Interesting, of course it could well be the heavy parts of the album he hates, maybe the fact that it was a compromise and Brian and Roger forced a more 'traditional' Queen style for side 2??

I think that point's been misunderstood a lot. There's absolutely nothing to suggest John hated the traditional Queen style.

HS was not a two-camp battle between Maylor and Jeddie, it was the result of what the four of them were writing, but Fred more so than the others and John less so than the others. Let's see track by track:

* Staying Power: All John does there is play some staccato chords on rhythm guitar, which are quite subdued and only last a few seconds when you combine them. Most of the song is John-less and the bass isn't played by him.

* Dancer & Body Language: He's not even there.

* Back Chat: It wound up being different to the way he'd envisioned it.

* Action: He's probably not even there (some of the bass is synth-generated, and the rest sounds like Roger played it himself).

* Put Out the Fire & Las Palabras de Amor: Very subdued role, especially when compared to other songs by Brian of the same era (e.g. Dragon Attack and Sail Away Sweet Sister).

* Calling All Girls: Very subdued role, especially when compared to other songs by Roger of the same era (e.g. Coming Soon and Radio Ga Ga).

* Cool Cat: The only song where he possibly got his way. One out of eleven, mind!

* Under Pressure: A track he seemed to be quite fond of. But that'd still mean 9 songs out of 11 either didn't feature him or featured him very little or were not the way he would've wanted them to be, resulting in 81.82% of the album being NOT to his liking.

Let's contrast it with 'The Game':

* Play the Game: Excellent role, if underrated.

* Dragon Attack: Co-leading role, with a solo and all!

* Another One Bites the Dust: Leading role.

* Need Your Loving Tonight: Magnificent bass line and great acoustic guitar playing. Definitely a key role.

* Crazy Little Thing Called Love: Excellent role, quite important for the final product, and not too subdued.

* Rock It: Average role, neither too prominent nor too subdued.

* Don't Try Suicide: Important role, since sometimes his is the only instrument.

* Sail Away Sweet Sister: Key role, with even some sort of a solo in the end.

* Coming Soon: Interesting if underrated role, some nice ornaments here and there.

* Save Me: Excellent bass-line, beautiful and interesting.

Very interesting comparison which really brings out John's relatively very minor role in HS.

Costa86, re:

>Very interesting comparison which really brings out John's relatively very minor role in HS.

Which is all very weird given how incredibly he played the Hot Space tracks on stage. I've always been mystified as to why Brian or Roger would want anyone other than John to play bass on any Queen tracks; less so Brian given his control freak issues, but, CHRIST, it was the guy's job...........

Maybe its simply the fact that John didn't want to take too great a role in the train wreck that he saw coming and he just let the others get on with it.

^ same goes to reason's where Roger decided to play bass on the songs he wrote on Jazz and News of the World... be real interesting as to why he decided on that when John had been solid on Rogers songs for the previous albums...

There could be many reasons for that... perhaps Rog underestimated how important it was to be actually skilful as opposed to simply playing the right notes keeping the beat (that's perhaps 2% of what performing is about), perhaps he'd demo'd it that way and decided to keep it, perhaps ... perhaps ... perhaps... we'll probably never know, but well, there you have it.

I've always thought many of Roger's earlier songs were as close to solo affairs as he could get. Later on that became less true.

It's well documented Freddie was like an uncle to John's kids. In the Late 80's he & his family would often join Freddie & co on holiday.

^Really? Never read this before - the holiday bit

It's mentioned in the Rhys Thomas Freddie documentary from a few years ago.

Toozeup wrote:

It's mentioned in the Rhys Thomas Freddie documentary from a few years ago.

Where exactly?

I can't remember anything being said about it on that doco.

Roger was the one who joined John for holidays, not Fred.

I think I remember hearing it was Mack's kids that Freddie was like an uncle to, not John's

Yeah, that makes sense. Some people just wish John and Fred were BFF's and had given each other friendship rings and bracelets and had been involved in some sort of sacred secret oath ... but all evidence points at a far less romantic reality: they were colleagues who admired and respected each other's skills (just like any other combination: Brian/Fred, Brian/John, Brian/Rog, Fred/Rog, John/Rog) but they rarely, if ever, socialised outside of work (just like most of the other combinations).

Sebastian wrote:

I think Brian had the biggest ego in the group, by far.

I dunno - I never heard about Brian smashing mirrors over people's heads and telling them to pick them up the pieces.

I'm sure they all had their moments in one way or another.

dudeofqueen wrote:

Costa86, re:

>Very interesting comparison which really brings out John's relatively very minor role in HS.

Which is all very weird given how incredibly he played the Hot Space tracks on stage. I've always been mystified as to why Brian or Roger would want anyone other than John to play bass on any Queen tracks; less so Brian given his control freak issues, but, CHRIST, it was the guy's job...........

Maybe its simply the fact that John didn't want to take too great a role in the train wreck that he saw coming and he just let the others get on with it.

We also have to figure in that it was the 80s, and synth bass and drums were becoming a thing, to the chagrin of bassists and drummers everywhere.

It was a fad, so A&R guys were putting their noses in there trying to maximize revenue of product.

It wasn't 1974 anymore.