Question about Jazz Album

Sebastian wrote:


Once they started playing it safe and just trying to do what they thought would sell or trying to do what other people were doing, they lost it. They were still creating quality music (because Queen at even 10% of their abilities were still really good) and they were still selling well in America (because even a 'failure' from a band of that calibre would still ship half a million, more than most struggling bands would even dream of) and consolidating their fame in Europe and Brazil and other territories, yet it was certainly not the same.

What a great post...I agree with every word of it.

"two band members, the producer, and probably a lot of the crew were (allegedly) coked out of their heads in this time period. That prob explains the production error"

The album would have been heard at various stages by lots of people before publication, not least Mr. Perfectionist Brian May. It has absolutely nothing to do with people's vices.

Look at the album cover ffs! :p

Holly2003 wrote:

At least two band members, the producer, and probably a lot of the crew were (allegedly) coked out of their heads in this time period.

I've only heard of Freddie using Coke...who was the other one?

Perhaps the one who was famously a party animal and who became a rock star partly to be able to have that sort of lifestyle.

Roger?

No, Daffy fucking Duck .....

John

mike hunt wrote: John

It's the quiet ones you have to worry about

Could've been both - Brian was clean, there's nothing to suspect the others were.

Sebastian wrote:

There were no songs 'like' Bo Rhap on the radio in 1975, and that didn't stop them.

Because the radio wasn't nearly as formulaic in 1975 as it was by the 80s, or even 1978. Things changed hugely in that period, on both sides of the Atlantic - there were no playlists in 1975, at least not in the form that they became in the 80s, where they were created purely for the purpose of maximizing advertising revenue as opposed to being a reflection of the variety of music available.

Risks could pan out in 75, but it was completely out of the question by 84. If you didn't conform, you weren't played, end of.


Excellent discussion here, btw !

dysan wrote:

The bass drum on Jealousy isn't a 'production' problem and not something anyone noticed or picked up on until it was reinstated on the 2011 reissue.....

I did! - always baffled me though as to whether it was an error or a choice.

As soon as the 2011 mix came out I also pointed out on Brian's Soapbox that Josh had missed one bass drum beat in the restore (and I'm confident it's a missed beat rather than Roger not playing it originally), he replied in a very rude and condescending manner, and then his post was removed a day or two later!

Heh. When mixing, you start with the drums - and they'll very usually have exactly the same mics on each part for the entire session. So I'd err to it being a mixing decision. A weird one, but it's highly unlikely they'd have for that one track the bass drum was on another track on the other end of the mixing desk. Unless they decided it was going to be overdubbed by, I dunno, a tuba parp on each beat. And that got accidently left out and the real bass drum was muted. But that said, someone would notice the tuba parp was missing.

So yeah, a conscious decision to mix it out.

The Real Wizard wrote:

Because the radio wasn't nearly as formulaic in 1975 as it was by the 80s, or even 1978... Risks could pan out in 75, but it was completely out of the question by 84. If you didn't conform, you weren't played, end of.

That's indeed a great point and one I hadn't thought of. Not to dismiss how valuable Bo Rhap was, but it seems that the whole 'everybody collectivelly begged them not to release it' might've been blown out of proportion to contribute to the myth, same as the 180 voices, being the first video, three solid weeks of recording, 16-track ... all of which have been all but debunked and all of which still stem from a fact which was initially true.

It was still a risk, of course, and a big risk at that, but not the massive 'against the grain' challenge it's often presented as by the media and the fans. 'Hey Jude' had set a precedent for a largely successful really long single, 'I'm Not in Love' had been No 1 earlier that year and it was also long and with plenty of overdubs (though that one they did edit for the single version).

So perhaps a song like 'Bo Rhap' had a chance of one in a thousand to top the charts in 1975, but in 1984 it would've been one in a million... add to it the fact Queen were still relatively unknown in '75 (they'd had a minor local hit and a medium-sized international one) so they hadn't been typecast yet.

cmsdrums wrote:

As soon as the 2011 mix came out I also pointed out on Brian's Soapbox that Josh had missed one bass drum beat in the restore (and I'm confident it's a missed beat rather than Roger not playing it originally), he replied in a very rude and condescending manner, and then his post was removed a day or two later!

I remember that and I resent not having printscreened that before they took it away. I don't think Brian had anything to do with it or even knew about it, but if that's the case then it shows again how some (not all) of the people who work for QP are simply unfit for that job in terms of basic human decency and manners. Prenter's been demonised for keeping Fred sheltered and deliberately filtering communication on both directions, but those who often pan him nowadays are surrounded by some people who are more or less doing the same thing.

dysan wrote:

So yeah, a conscious decision to mix it out.

The aforementioned rude response and swift removal of it back in 2011 contradicts that conclusion ... which doesn't mean you're wrong: most likely, the QP employee in question was wrong and perhaps one of the reasons why they had to delete it was that they were making a factual statement about the original mix, which they did not witness as they entered the Queen organisation much, much later.

IanR wrote:

No, Daffy fucking Duck .....

There's no need to be mean-spirited and rude. I have never read anywhere about Roger using drugs. The only interview I have seen him address the issue is one where he said he was "never one for drugs" and that he tried marijuana ONCE and it made him sick.