Queen's best songwriter

Thats why Maylor are jealous til today

[QUOTE] [b]FunLovinCriminal wrote:[/b]

It was never about coming up with great art in Queen's case, but writing hit singles. Thus, none of them deserves to be called the best songwriter, as they all wrote hits, which defined the band at certain stages. When it went more mainstream, it was John's and Roger's turn. And they delivered quite well... [/QUOTE]

For me, best songwriter has nothing to do with hits. Best hit-writer would be that. Great & terrible songs can become hits & many wonderful songs aren’t.

I can’t speak for Queen & how much/often they were interested in writing hits versus great art (of course a song *can* be both - Bohemian Rhapsody being an ideal example) but I’d be surprised if Queen only or even mainly cared about writing hits. They definitely didn’t the first 5 albums & going on years more: there are obvious hits on there, but there are always plenty of other tracks, written with other intent, sometimes the best of their work in my opinion.

It was the mix of them all that made it special. 4 unique talents in one band.

Today we learn on TV that music is a contest. That there always has to be a winner. Vote & Choose.

Just enjoy the diversity in stead.

Spiralistic @ Of course Queen cared about writing hits other wise they would not have broken into the music industry. A great single gets a band noticed and cause a huge insurgence of interest to check out an album.
Queen always made sure they had a strong single to put out to capture the interest of the record buyer.

Roger provides that diversity as his songs are the most different from the Queen sound , especially when he takes lead vocals it's like a different band.
On the other hand John is the only member hasn't written or recorded a bad song, they fit in to Queens sound However I get the feeling that as Freddie sang on them he would also be influencing the recording process. We also can't be clear of John's contribution when writing credits were joint ,whereas we do know ones that Roger was a driver on.
I'd have to place Roger higher as an independent writer.
Top two would be Freddie then Brian. Some of Brians album tracks are the backbone of Queen live .

[QUOTE] [b]AlbaNo1 wrote:[/b]

I get the feeling that as Freddie sang on them he would also be influencing the recording process.[/QUOTE]

Frederick also sang most of Brian's songs and at least half of Roger's. Does it mean he also influenced those?

[QUOTE] [b]AlbaNo1 wrote:[/b]

We also can't be clear of John's contribution when writing credits were joint ,whereas we do know ones that Roger was a driver on.[/QUOTE]

It depends on what you define as 'clear'. But if you define it as 'equally clear as we are of Roger's, Brian's and Frederick's contributions', then yes: John wrote 'My Life Has Been Saved' and contributed heavily to the music of 'Rain Must Fall', 'My Baby Does Me' and 'You Don't Fool Me'. He also co-created the 'Show Must Go On' sequence with Roger and changed the order of some 'Hitman' sections.

I wonder if Freddie had been well would he have changed many of the songs on the Innuendo album?
We know he was too ill to argue about sections of songs and that was probably why certain songs were not up to scratch like the awful Delilah.

@EMI2565 Yes, of course Queen made sure they had a/some tracks they wanted/hoped to be hit singles. Which is a VERY different thing to "It was never about coming up with great art in Queen's case."

That suggests ALL or even MOST of Queen's songwriting, or certainly their best songwriting was motivated by seeking a hit rather than artistic motivations. Maybe you think it was. I am saying I don't know if Queen thought ALL they really wanted to do was create the hit singles, but I'd suggest not given some (often a lot) of tracks they wrote.

In any case, whatever Queen's intention, hits and the success of a song is not related to the quality of the songwriting.

Queen always said in the early days they wanted to consider themselves as an album band but when they got very famous mid 75 /76 they did get pressure from the record company to be more commercial.
This was more evident by 1984 when The Works got released.

True: hence why I said especially the first 5 albums... but yeah The Works & A Kind Of Magic, fair enough. I admit I know Queen’s 80’s stuff less well, but for me their best work isn’t there so it doesn’t affect the thread question.

I only listened up to Jazz & then Innuendo onwards for most of my Queen-loving years (Obviously I listened to it all as a kid when I first discovered Queen but only continued listening to the albums I liked best) & only very recently have begun to revisit the intervening albums: so far only The Game, Hot Space & The Miracle none of which I’d heard since I was probably 13. Not done the others yet.

I would honestly say The Game is the bands stand out album of the 80s for miles, it was just outstanding and beats other 80s Queen albums for the excellent quality songs.
Best 70s Queen album in my opinion is a very difficult question, as there was a few so i would leave that to you and look forward to your review on that on lol

If you're asking, for me Queen's best album (of the '70's... or just in general!) is A Day at the Races - no weak track at all. I think as a full album it has such great flow (and works better in its entirety than A Night at the Opera) and it is just such an enjoyable listen. Also it includes my favourite Queen track of all - You Take my Breath Away and since I guess that's partly more of a Freddie track, it also includes the Bohemian Rhapsody most people have never heard of, The Millionaire Waltz (with some ace bass), the popular track that never gets old and is as fresh every time you hear it - Somebody to Love, Brian Rocking (Tie your Mother Down) and beautiful (Teo Torriatte) and probably my favourite Roger track in Drowse. Also Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy and John's sweet You and I. I do love Queen II personally too, but for me by A Day at the Races Queen had reached full Queen status and it is the epitome of their music to me and just such a happy listen.

Yes i was thinking "A day at the races" or "A night at the opera" which a typical fan would choose, but "Races" is a finely crafted Queen album in so many ways, good choice.

To get back to Sebastian , yes I think Freddie would have influenced most songs he sang on and would have stood off Roger and Brian compositions that they took lead vocal on.
We already know for sure he reworked A kind of magic, and I think he also influenced Radio GaGa
Did he touch Some Day, One day or Action This Day. Not so much.
Do you really think John was calling the shots on his songs all the way through. I think more likely he got enough of the framework of the song to get the credits to keep the peace financially..

In one of the Queen documentaries I think it is Brian who says that in the early days he and Roger were very protective of their songs and since they felt what they'd written was very personal to them, they also wanted to sing the song and I guess "make it theirs" entirely nd express their own song vocally.

Brian said that later (in the '80's, I guess) they had come to realise what a vehicle they had in Freddie's voice, so they sang less and were more willing to give their songs to Freddie to sing and Brian said something to the effect of when you give your song to another singer, you have to allow that of course they'll bring their emotion and interpretation of the song and lyrics and trust in them and that they have something to give to it rather than having to have full control yourself.

(There are a few Brian songs on the earlier albums that I wish he'd let Freddie sing, or at least sing more of. I like Brians voice for a small amount of time, but I feel he can seldom quite reach a climax vocally and if he'd even allowed Freddie one full verse and chorus or the end in those early albums in a few of his songs, I feel it could have made an ok or good song great, or greater than they are. Anyway. Less so Roger as I like a full Roger track on an album and Roger has a great voice and.I think suited to many songs he wrote.)

Musically speaking, I think a song sung by Freddie can be 100% composed by whoever had credit for it. I guess that's probably where arguments stemmed from more than there being individual writers though? I imagine some songs were pretty much composed entirely by the named writer while others were more of a two-person or whole-band collaboration, but the one with the initial idea still gets full credit whether they wrote it entirely alone or just came up with the lyrics/main idea.

I'd love to know how much of John's songs came completely from him. By the 80's John has a certain style, and lyrically I think his style was always quite distinct, but musically there's something of Freddie in John's early compositions I find... though NOT harmonically so much, hmmm! I'd never really thought about it until just now.

I'm sure most songs had some amount of creative input by everyone who played on them though!