Where and why did Queen lose their ambition?

lose ambition?eh? sounds change as time changes especially if you look at songs from the 50s and songs now - theres a slight difference! i think Queen showed ambition in changing their sound during the 80s and yes, like people have said Innuendo = genius. welcome to queenzone :-D xxx

"The Night Comes Down", "Misfire", "Bring Back That Leroy Brown", "Dear Friend", "Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon", "You're My Best Friend", " '39", "Seaside Rendezvous", "Good Company", "Love Of My Life"......etc. If their last album contained all of these great, but "softer?" songs from their first 4 albums, would they still be less ambitous? And why do so many people dislike the "Hot Space" and "The Miracle" albums so much? Other than the fact that they lost their ambition on these recordings. Just Kidding. These are great albums. "Put Out The Fire", "Calling All Girls", "Under Pressure", "Back Chat", "Action This Day", "I Want It All", "Scandal", "The Miracle", "Breakthru", "The Invisible Man". These song's (IMO) are just as good as any of their other songs from other eras. I listen to "Innuendo" just as much as I listen to "Queen". And everything in between gets just as much play time here at my home in sunny Tucson, Arizona. Thanks for allowing me to contribute and overuse my quotation mark button.

Queen never lost anything...

Except for some "fans" who are not really worth working your ass off to make music for them. Better off without them.

In the 80's ...

Brian got neutered by the rest of the band and was instructed to write only music that fit the albums central theme.

Freddie and John abandoned all creativity, and insisted on making mostly formulaic dance and pop songs.

Roger was the only songwriter that improved in the 80's and 90's, although his songs tended to be formulaic too.

"Who wakes up in the morning and says "Today I will be brilliant"?"


Well I do, honestly

I agree with the majority here that whilst Queen had to change with the times and in some instances had to play it safe to be a commercial entity there was definately a lot of creative pieces of music produced by the guys after the 70's. For instance, has anyone listened the last track on Made in Heaven (Beautiful Day reprise). Its amazing and eerie.

Sonja wrote:

7 wrote:

And no, I am not saying that they had bad albums in the end. I love Innuendo but I just can't see where they chose to make things simpler ...a lot simpler.

Just one example: Innuendo.
Where is this song simple?
I believe they NEVER made "simple" things. They always put everything they could into their work. Maybe technical development and improvement made it easier for them to realize their ideas but that doesn't mean that they didn't put as much work into the last albums as they did in the beginning.

I can see how you misinterpreted what I wrote but what I meant was that Innuendo, althgough a very good album seems a lot less complex than the inital ones. The majority of the songs are more poppy, if you will, as in "verse - chorus - verse - chorus - solo - chorus" of sorts.

What I meant with ambition is that if you listen to the first records you can hear beautifully harmonized backing vocals, Brian's one-guitarred orchestra, Roger's over the top backing vocals with great drum work, John using the bass to include more melody.

Do not get me wrong: I do appreciate later Queen, Innuendo was the second record of theirs I bought, but I do feel like you can't compare the work (backing vocals, composition, arrangements) of say "Millionaire Waltz" and "I want to break Free". It is obvious which one is the most complicated one, and consequently and objectively: merit.

That is what I am referring to when I say loss of ambition which you have somehow morphed into "change of style" andd honestly I had not seen it from that point of view. But they did change of style. I understand that now.

Still, how many workings do you think Freddie never managed to release that could've been awesome compositions (seeing as though he had gathered vast experience in those massive undertakings by the late 70's)?

I don't think it's a case of losing their ambition; Queen is one of the few bands that had the talent to evolve. Their range is why they never got boring.

One thing I will say is that I think Brian's personal problems in the 80's and Roger's reliance on drum machines took them away from what they really were; a guitar and drum driven band.

Unfortunately, a lot of 70's rock bands stray a bit too far from their roots in an effort to stay popular. I'd sure as hell rather listen to "Selling England By The Pound" then "Invisible Touch."

As artists you have to grow and not keep doing the same thing forever or you will lose interest, eventually people will catch on and hate you for being a one trick pony.

Then explain everything Aerosmith has done since 1988!?!?! :)

That's absolutely true about the Genesis comparison boy of destiny. Their mid-career stuff paled in comparison to their Selling England/Trick of the Tail era. But wouldn't it be weird hearing that type of stuff 10-15 years after it first happened. I think Queen's first albums positively bristled with creativity, and something that many hear don't touch on, their Britishness. I think the reason that the early albums were so good was that they could handle every musical style since they grew up with skiffle, show music and trad jazz. Then when The Game hit, they became a little more of a straightforward American sounding band. Hot Space saw them as Euro's, and when they became a "something for everyone" type of band, they tried songs (see Body Language, Pain is so Close, Cool Cat) that weren't really part of their vocabulary. It was worth a try, but not really the quality of their early stuff but they had to try it to keep same and the band together.

Where and why did Queen lose SOME ambition?

When dear Freddie died...

You're right. Though I can love both eras, it's obvious that in the eighties Queen had become a very commercial band, growing in popularity but losing their early 70's creativity. That's why they were never taken seriously by the critics and the intellectuals, their production in the 80's was only about making as much money as possible.

Actually I think that their last good album artistically speaking was "A day at the races". The news of the world was already much more commercial, with ridiculous songs like WWRY, a song very often used nowadays in TV advertisings to sell products...

Nevertheless, this problem is not only about Queen, but about the whole Eighties period, which is laughed at today by most people, and most of the time considered as the weakest artistic musical decade over the last 40 years.

The music and the great atists of the 60's and of the 70's will be remembered in 2100, I highly doubt it will be the case for the 80's...

To sum up, yes, they did lose creativity in the eighties, but this artistic plight is to be considered in the context of this almost non-existent decade musically speaking, and that can be said about each artist of the eighties.

They didn't lose their ambitions, they left it.
They used to say that when they got bored to do things, they left it and started on new stuff.
They said it was better that they got bored first, and not the fans (and thats very true).

Frenchfroggy wrote:

You're right. Though I can love both eras, it's obvious that in the eighties Queen had become a very commercial band, growing in popularity but losing their early 70's creativity. That's why they were never taken seriously by the critics and the intellectuals, their production in the 80's was only about making as much money as possible.

Actually I think that their last good album artistically speaking was "A day at the races". The news of the world was already much more commercial, with ridiculous songs like WWRY, a song very often used nowadays in TV advertisings to sell products...

Nevertheless, this problem is not only about Queen, but about the whole Eighties period, which is laughed at today by most people, and most of the time considered as the weakest artistic musical decade over the last 40 years.

The music and the great atists of the 60's and of the 70's will be remembered in 2100, I highly doubt it will be the case for the 80's...

To sum up, yes, they did lose creativity in the eighties, but this artistic plight is to be considered in the context of this almost non-existent decade musically speaking, and that can be said about each artist of the eighties.

The 80s were way better than the decade 1995-2005. The 70s were better than the 80s, but its ridiculous to say that it was the worst decade musically. It had the same amount of Megastars as the 70s (Madonna, Prince, Michael Jackson, U2, etc.) and the 80s were not only light pop (remember the Dire Straits or Bruce Springsteen?). I think it was the best decade after the 70s and people, who trash it should remember what we have nowadays. No new star from 1998-2005 will be remembered in 2100, but Radio Ga Ga by Queen or Billie Jean by Jacko will be remembered. What "music" do we have today? Only computer-produced Eurodance and techno shit and a load of crappy hip-hop from America! Fine, isn`t it? So do you really call this musical era good? In the 80s MTV used to play music, today its a teleshopping channel for ringtones.

I'm all on your side! MTV is crap this days!
Now is it VH1 who counts...