How much of a dark horse was John regards to writing, arranging and composing music? Would his input had been enough... If Brian... let John have, unimpeded control and input into the song writing, would have John made the album more than half decent???
fras444 · Member since
More the the question... With John given the free rain to compose and be apart of the songwriting much in the same way that Freddie supposably aloud him over the years, could the three of them had made an impact in the 90s-2000s as Queen - Freddie
Saint Jiub · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]fras444 wrote:[/b]
How much of a dark horse was John regards to writing, arranging and composing music? Would his input had been enough... If Brian... let John have, unimpeded control and input into the song writing, would have John made the album more than half decent???
[/QUOTE]
The bass sucked on this album ... surely John would have immensely improved TCR just based on this alone.
Please also note that John salvaged "The Hitman" from the scrap heap with his song arrangement skills.
matt z · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]fras444 wrote:[/b]
More the the question... With John given the free rain to compose and be apart of the songwriting much in the same way that Freddie supposably aloud him over the years, could the three of them had made an impact in the 90s-2000s as Queen - Freddie[/QUOTE]
Ahhh! The classic BITTER/SARCASTIC but more ACCURATE term for the band since
Hahaha always gives me a laugh
QUEEN -
(Minus)
Star* · Member since
There is a good saying Forget Queen+ and lets call them
Queen - Freddie !
philip storey · Member since
Bass Guitar was done by Brian on TCR,seems a little strange to me as a really good Bass Guitarist could have added some guts to some of the tracks. Surely it was not done to this way to keep costs down !
philip storey · Member since
Bass Guitar was done by Brian on TCR,seems a little strange to me as a really good Bass Guitarist could have added some guts to some of the tracks. Surely it was not done to this way to keep costs down !
fras444 · Member since
^Saint Jiub
Was that why Deacks got a credit to such an "un John" heavy metal number!!?? Always wondered what his input to that song, also has to be one of the very few that he got for innuendo... There you go....
Had John been apart of the TCR... at the very least.... the bass would have been brilliant....
One wonders what the huge difference is for a multi instrumentalist Brian to play bass... he could play the 6 strings with his fingers piano... BASS.... something just simply did not click...
John....
Bass piano drums synths "BACKING VOCALS..." and he could also play..... Guitar
Dave Mustaine... "Bass players are at the bottom of the food chain..."
Hahaha there you go... Seseme Street...The word of the day kids is
QUEEN - Freddie.
When you use basic algebra math in bands
B+J+R-F = Queen - Freddie.. Doesnt make sense.. its algebra... it's not meant to make sense but it does...
The Real Wizard · Member since
[QUOTE] [b]fras444 wrote:[/b]
Dave Mustaine... "Bass players are at the bottom of the food chain..."[/QUOTE]
Exactly the ignorant nonsense one can expect from someone at the bottom of the food chain of metal.
Geddy Lee, Chris Squire, James Jamerson, and Lee Sklar would almost certainly agree with me.
fras444 · Member since
^ yup that just sums it all up mate.
Dave Mustaine... the creator of Megadeth will always be remembered as the guy who got fired from Metallica and with all the success he had with Megadeth... Will always be left with the "what ifs... " wishing he was still in the band.
Wonder what he thought of Cliff Burton...
matt z · Member since
???
Megadeth is far far far far greater than that shitty band metallica.
Its not even close. Creatively artistically etc
Maybe that's a quote regarding his style of music. But they've been just about as consistent as any band could be without retreads.
A few non grandeur albums: super collider, United abominations... But even stuff like The world needs a hero (*with a drastic lineup change) batted about .600
Didn't know there were Megadeth haters here.
They may not have enjoyed the public ride that metallica has gotten despite years of incredulous crap with a few albums copying themselves (death magnetic/hard wired) but they're genuine, compelling, contemporary and still strong with variety , riffs and feats. .something metallica hasn't done
fras444 · Member since
I enjoy Megadeth. Rust in peice and hanger 18 is a top notch song but I dear say I couldn't listen to Mustaines voice all day vs James.....
Countdown too extinction is another top album.
Yep band changes kinda sums up Mustaine in away.... if Marty had gotthe chance to have more of an artistic input into it. Could have been something more different.
True about Metallica though. Dave brought them Kill em all, Cliff brought them Ride and Master... justice was a great album but lacking the bass... poor Newsted could have been a force and had he been given more support and less crap... Black album was okay.. Load/Reload okay.... and yep what Cliff and Dave brought was something that James Kirk and Lars couldn't quite produce... Top quality songs composure creativity
matt z · Member since
And that's just it. Metallica continues to Tour and rake up sales and touring revenue although they are mostly a heritage act at this point.
Meanwhile Megadeth continues to produce original topical material and still pack a mean punch without sounding contrived (*except for that A Tout Le Monde redo with that female singer)
Which is difficult after all that time.
As for Marty, They had a mutual separation after Marty wanted to take them into pop style territory. He'd been considered to rejoin but stated he didn't want to reduce any of the legacy of that era.
Boudica · Member since
Boudica · Member since
<>But it's not like Mercury found much success on his own without the other band members. He had a few top ten singles, but nothing compared to what he had as part of the band. Brian had a couple top ten singles too. Does that mean he was just fine without Mercury too? Or was the collective more than the sum of the parts?
The fact that Brian and Roger's creativity lagged after the mid 1990s could just as well be due to age or other external factors. Most artists are lucky to get a decade of solid creativity, and these guys had two. Even McCartney - arguably the greatest songwriter of the past century - dried up for quite some time. How many solid albums has he written since 1973?
Had Mercury not fallen ill, who's to say his output would've improved as it did while he faced his mortality? In the 80s it was the other members of the band writing most of the hits while he was absorbed in the gay scene and happy as a clam. Mr Bad Guy is where Mercury was at, and it's basically an album of decent to good hooks without much direction. Maybe he would've gotten even worse had Bob Geldof not happened.
Of course such things will never be known, but it's fun to speculate. But the argument that the band are nothing without Mercury just doesn't fly. The other band members are partly what made Mercury great as well. Sheer Heart Attack isn't a great album because of a quarter of the band. <>
Freddie's solo albums were not his main focus. He even left behind Mr Bad Guy at one point to work on Queen material. He didn't promote his solo album much. After Freddie's death Brian had a lot of opportunities to promote his solo material, he toured and did a lot of press interviews.
People don't often realize that Freddie abandoned the whole disco phase after Mr Bad Guy. He never wrote any disco music after that. He also wrote It's A Hard Life during that time, it wasn't the biggest hit, but from a songwriting perspective it is a good song. He did a lot more promotion for the Barcelona album. But the whole Barcelona album isn't exactly top of the charts commercial pop music.The Barcelona song did well in spite of the fact that it wasn't very commercial. The album is well regarded and highly rated, on most places. Freddie did prove that he could work separately from Queen.
The band were also able to use some of Freddie's solo material for the Made In Heaven album, precisely because it wasn't well promoted at the time Freddie released the album. After the Mr Bad Guy album, Freddie wrote songs such as Princess Of The Universe, Was It All Worth It, I am Going Slightly Mad, Friends Will Be Friends. Innuendo. The Miracle, the whole Barcelona album.
In truth Freddie was never really one who often wrote overtly commercial music, the Hot Space album is the one exception. A lot of his songs that became hits, were hits despite the fact that they were not commercial in an obvious manner. Even something simple such as Crazy Little Thing Called Love, was a rockabilly tune in the 80's. If it was during the 60's then the tune's popularity would have been much more obvious. Don't Stop Me Now, didn't do well on the charts, but the song have become very popular over the years. Living On My Own and I Was Born To Love You are other songs that was converted into a reasonably big hits after Freddie's death. The same is true of Freddie in the early years as well, songs such March Of The Black or even Bohemian Rhapsody, are good songwriting, but wasn't exactly songs that were written for the pop charts.
The band member who's input really declined during this period was John. John often added a song or two to Queen's albums. I don't believe John was such a good songwriter as Freddie or Brian, but he usually added some generally good material. During the last years his input really declined, and he did not have a lot of input on Innuendo. It seems like his personal life influenced his output. John also wrote a lot music in conjunction with Freddie.
That leaves us with Roger, his songwriting improved a bit over the years, but his music always need a lot of direction. Roger also had a tendency of writing very corny lyrics. Practically all of his songs that became hits were reworked and altered by Freddie. From all of the available information Roger was left to perform most of the songwriting duties on Cosmos Rocks. That immediately signals a problem, because was there no one to alter and rework his music.
Brian is a very good songwriter, but he never actually wrote that many big hits. Brian has produced some interesting and unique music. But overall Freddie was a more adventurous and unique songwriter. Brian was often good at adding some nice guitar solos to Freddie's music.
Roger has spoken this songwriting issue, with regards to producing new music: “Well, you’re missing your best and prime songwriter,” Taylor says. “We could all write songs, but Freddie was born to it. He constantly surprised us. I still don’t know where some of his lyrics came from, they’re so clever, almost Cole Porter-ish at times. Or like when he was writing all that slightly Tolkien-esque, proggy stuff. I never saw Freddie read a book, but he must have been a great black hole of information. That’s why Brian and I haven’t made more new music since he died, because we know we wouldn’t bring the full arsenal that we had to the table.
Even according to Roger himself, Freddie was very important to their songwriting at the end of the day.
The Cosmos Rocks definitely also suffered from the fact that it was sold as a Queen album. If you attach the name Queen to a project, people are going to have certain expectations. It was strange how they did not use a real bass player on the album. Bass might not always be the most obvious aspect of a song, but it can be very important. Paul Rogers is a reasonably well known figure, but he had never really written or composed such big hits as Queen. As a songwriter he is not on the same level.
