ABBA vs Queen

[QUOTE] [b]happystar wrote:[/b]

VH: You said "singles and there chart positions do not reflect on there prowess well i disagree with you there.
The singles chart did reflect which songs were popular and sold the most in the 70s and Freddie had more top 3 hits than any other band member. We are the champions (no2) "Somebody to Love" (no2)
"Bohemian Rhapsody" (no 1) "Killer Queen" (no2) "Crazy little thing called love" (no2) Which Puts Freddie as king songwriter in Queen by miles.[/QUOTE]

Yes because the singles were not always the best song on the album they came from, so didn't always reflect fully the depth of song writing or playing within the band. As I said Bo Rhap is perhaps the exception.

If that wasn't the case, all the albums would be full of substandard songs in support of the chosen single which really would be a marketing exercise.

[QUOTE] [b]happystar wrote:[/b]

Yes all 4 members are awesome as Queen as that was the winning formula, anything after that is really like putting a skoda engine in a rolls royce!
Freddie was the engine for Queen.[/QUOTE]

I see your point, but in the early 2000's VW bought Rolls Royce and Bentley. They also own Skoda. The Skoda range is built on VW machanics and sometime share the same body design and build.

Both Rolls and Bentley were effectively and arguably built with VW power plants, so Rolls and Skoda and Bentley for a long time were related. In about 2012ish Rolls was taken over by BMW.

Queen set out to be a commercial band. They wanted to be rock stars. They wanted fame, fortune, and money. Popular singles supported album sales and Fred's ability to write songs that connected with the public and became popular, successful singles was vital to the band's development and longevity. That is surely so obvious that the point doesn't need to be argued, and yet on and on we go :( Brian wrote great songs and I love virtually everything he did in the early days. Good Company is a work of genius. But without Fred's input Queen wouldn't have been successful. It's was Fred's voice, talent, image and ideas that got Queen up and running. It was his songs and singles that gave Queen the success they needed to keep on going.

ps we were talking earlier about the decline in Fred's song writing in the 1980s. But he was still better than Brian in that period. You can count the number of good songs Brian wrote for Queen after the 1970s on Homer Simpson's hands. And on Fred's deathbed he was still cranking out good songs. Apart from Delilah, which is pants, obviously, but still more interesting than Tear it Up or Still Burnin'. For fuck sake.

:)

VH: Disagree with you again, the singles had to be strong to pull in the listeners to want to buy the albums.
Many Queen singles had a duty to be catchy and get the attention of the public and many of them did. "I want to break free" "Radio ga ga" been two examples of that.

[QUOTE] [b]Holly2003 wrote:[/b]

ps we were talking earlier about the decline in Fred's song writing in the 1980s. But he was still better than Brian in that period. You can count the number of good songs Brian wrote for Queen after the 1970s on Homer Simpson's hands. And on Fred's deathbed he was still cranking out good songs. Apart from Delilah, which is pants, obviously, but still more interesting than Tear it Up or Still Burnin'. For fuck sake.

:)

[/QUOTE]

I agree Holly....Just because there was a decline in his writing doesn't mean his writing was worse than the others...Yea, I Want To Break Free And Ga Ga were the big hits, but my favorite song on the Works Is It's A Hard Life, which was his song...then Hammer to Fall by Brian....Ga Ga was 3rd....Keep passing The Open Windows then Break Free...so In my opinion Freddie had the better songs on The Works even though the big hits came from Roger and John. Break Free was only ok anyway......Is this The World Created? Is nice as well and was a Fred/Brian song. Tear It Up, Prowl were pretty bad though.

[QUOTE] [b]happystar wrote:[/b]

Real Wizard : if VH worked for the band then shame on him for slagging Freddies solo work and saying Lambert is better.
Us fans know the music is great where Freddie is concerned.
He is NOT a real ardent Queen fan he only worked for the band and one of Freddies slaves.
[/QUOTE]

The combination of logical fallacies and juvenile sports team mentality towards music is just shameful and pathetic. You are not very bright.

Looking forward to you posting a video of Freddie Mercury singing Who Wants To Live Forever live like the album version, the way Lambert does pretty much every night.

[QUOTE] [b]Holly2003 wrote:[/b]

ps we were talking earlier about the decline in Fred's song writing in the 1980s. But he was still better than Brian in that period. You can count the number of good songs Brian wrote for Queen after the 1970s on Homer Simpson's hands.[/QUOTE]

Perhaps. But he did write The Show Must Go On pretty much on his own, which forgives all the follies of the previous decade.

Who Wants To Live Forever is top notch too.

Most artists get a decade of creative peak if they're lucky. Anything good after 1981 with Queen was a bonus, and there was plenty of it.

Interesting little aside to the 'Freddie vs Brian' as the main creative force debate going on here, but in the latest instalment of 'Ask Phoebe', Peter Freestone states:

"While Freddie was quite capable of creating some of the beautiful harmonies recorded by Queen, Brian May was the acknowledged master, and he created some of the most well known pieces of Queen’s multi-layered vocals". By "acknowledged master" I am assuming he means within the band and their immediate musically creative circle,

As far as I can tell, Freestone only worked for Queen from 1979, which was around the time Fred became more interested in a stripped back sound e.g. CLTCL. So Freestone may be telling the truth from his perspective, but he wouldn't necessarily know who was primarily responsible for arranging multi-layered vocals in the early years. That said, if you listen to the multi-track of Brighton Rock and especially the "Oh rock of ages" choir, it's Brian's voice providing the most beautiful (and most complicated?) harmonies.

Exactly, and Freestone only oversaw their studio work from Flash onwards. Brian was/is magnificent (May-estic) at harmonies, but Frederick was as well.

^ excellent points.

I'll still choose 'Queen' for the best cover song Bohemian Rhapsody- The Mup

I believe ABBA is one of those groups like the Carpenters.

Back when I was growing up in the '60s/'70s hard rockers like myself who listened to bands like Queen, Zep, Deep Purple, Alice Cooper, etc actually liked music from the Carpenters, and ABBA, but would never been seen buying their music.

Of course now I don't really give a shit what anyone thinks about the music I like so I've really gotten to admire the songs that ABBA, and the Carpenters did as both groups had some really amazing [Karen Carpenter has the best female voice of all time IMO] female vocalist.

In having said that, I've can't really see a ABBA vs Queen as its almost like comparing apples to oranges.

IMO, ABBA wins for the pop songs, and Queen for the rock songs.

M-train: Yeah Abba & Carpenters are among my cd collection and i have a lot of cds from these two incredible bands.
Abba are the total opposite of Queen but because these two bands are well household names many like to compare the two.
Both have wrote incredible songs and in my opinion both are greater than the Beatles and Elvis.
Freddie can knock spots off Elvis with his amazing vocals and power performances on stage! Elvis has always been one of Americas biggest cons and so hyped for such little talent.