why did rock critics hate Queen so much in the 1970s/80s?

in the uk 'bohemian rhapsody' was ridiculously big, a #1 hit and a couple of years after its release it got song of the half century or something like that from the british recording industry (sgt peppers got album iirc to give you some idea of what type of canon it was already in). it did well elsewhere including the us where it hit #9 in 76, and it got some grammy nominations. reissue did better but part of that might've been changes in radio and chart calculation plus it has literally both of the factors that can lead to an old song suddenly becoming a hit again (death, use in other media). i remember occasionally seeing the video along w/ every other ancient pre-mtv video here and there during the 80s but it's profile wasn't remotely what it became. this makes sense though, these songs weren't that old and 8-10 year old hits don't really have a place on radio. 'we will rock you' and 'we are the champions' had lingered by virtue of being jock jams but i didn't know about 'under pressure' until vanilla ice, and wouldn't really have had any reason to. i'd guess there's a difference there w/ the uk where they reached a level higher than simply very successful rock band.

in fairness to xgau he knew they had something; he just couldn't (allow himself to) get a handle on it.

A Night at the Opera [Elektra, 1975]
This is near enough to the reported mishmash to make me doubt that it sells for what's good about it. Which is that it doesn't actually botch any of a half-dozen arty-to-heavy "eclectic" modes--even something called "Prophet's Song" sounds OK--and achieves a parodic tone often enough to suggest more than meets the ear. Maybe if they come up with a coherent masterwork I'll figure out what that more is. Maybe if they come up with a coherent masterwork they'll figure out what that more is. B-

You have no idea how big Queen were. Way bigger and better known than Led Zeppelin. I never heard any zep on uk daytime radio growing up.

I'm really the only person who knew "Bohemian Rhapsody" from classic rock radio pre-92??

xp yep i never knowingly heard zep until my 20s when i befriended a rock/metal guy. i remember specifically thinking "so that's where queen got their sound."

I had to buy Led Zep IV just to hear this stairway to heaven song people spoke of.
Whole Lotta Love was known purely because a cover version of it was the top of the pops theme tune

metal, for Xgau, clearly represented the quotidian american, midwest/south mill-yer that he resented deeply. rather like a lot of people who left NYC for college for 4 years and then came back for the rest of their lives…

it never fails to amaze me that so many of you guys are in thrall to the likes of Xgau and Marsh, to the point where so many of you cite shit they wrote as if it means a goddamn thing…I'm 43, and the amount of guys on this board who reflexively defend those guys makes me think that that alot of you here just a bit older than me and are weirdly hung-up on the bizarre, self-flattering but very much not self-aware shit those guys have perpetrated for decades… but at least Xgau's wife didn't manage Peter Stampfel…

ha ha al these UK guys who just posted…tell us how old you are, if you dare!

I'm really the only person who knew "Bohemian Rhapsody" from classic rock radio pre-92??

― EveningStar (Sund4r), Saturday, May 17, 2014 8:04 PM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no, it was def around classic rock stations in metro nyc turn of the 80s, not huge though.

Like "Another one…" did not work on rock radio

this song saturated every kind of radio as far as i recall.

x-post is anyone here really in thrall of Marsh? I did the polls of his stupid list book, but I never detected any love for the man.

i love this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wk9hPubD1Q

Yeah, it was another one I remembered.
xpost re "Another One..."

ha ha al these UK guys who just posted…tell us how old you are, if you dare!

― veronica moser,

41

i'm 42

that is so fuckin' hilarious that UK dudes around my age had to buy a record to hear fuckin "stairway." in the U.S., that song is a fact of life like McDonalds, but the countrymen of the people who made it have to seek it out cuz Morrissey and the NME doesn't like it!

although maybe folks born in the US in 1992 or thereabouts have never heard it.

it never fails to amaze me that so many of you guys are in thrall to the likes of Xgau and Marsh, to the point where so many of you cite shit they wrote as if it means a goddamn thing…I'm 43, and the amount of guys on this board who reflexively defend those guys makes me think that that alot of you here just a bit older than me and are weirdly hung-up on the bizarre, self-flattering but very much not self-aware shit those guys have perpetrated for decades

eh Christgau was a huge influence but like scott said his tastes and mine don't intersect for quite a few things he thought too "British" or "European." But so what? Apart from admiring felicities of style, the point of writers reading writers is often just to follow the course of an argument. Sharing tastes doesn't matter much to me.

xp i live in the us now and it was conversely weird to me to discover classic rock radio and see all these teens into the likes of pink floyd.

to the point where so many of you cite shit they wrote as if it means a goddamn thing

this sorta is a thread about rock critics' attitudes toward queen iirc.

WW reissue of "Bohemian Rhapsody" was so fucking huge in America. Only Vanessa Williams' great "Save the Best For Last" kept it from #1. I always associate spring '92 with those two jams, "I Love Your Smile," and "Jump."

what a great fuckin year

all4 of those songs own

speaking of all4 we also had "All 4 Love" at #1.

For what it's worth, Christgau did come around on Queen when he reviewed something called Barcelona (had this lodged in my memory, had to google "Christgau Mercury"):

I can't deny it because I catch myself grinning--distanced by the years, and with the campy kicks magnified by a heightened awareness of Freddie Mercury's sexuality, the music of Queen has accrued the high gloss of committed kitsch, where that of Journey, say, has assumed the dull shapelessness of utter crap. Although I don't enjoy all of Classic Queen or Queen's Greatest Hits--the material's not quite that deep--they're often funny and they're also pop, oddly reminiscent of top-grade Cheap Trick.

The Cheap Trick lover in me flinches, but there you go.

It's amazing Queen did these kinds of sales in the UK for most of the eighties:

The single reached only the 45th position in the US charts, but reached number 3 in the UK and was certified silver with 200,000+ copies sold

That's for "I Want to Break Free."

as if it means a goddamn thing

As opposed to what? What we say here? They had opinions, we have opinions, some of theirs influenced some of mine.

yeah I don't get veronica moser's position. Critics should resist reading....other critics?

that is so fuckin' hilarious that UK dudes around my age had to buy a record to hear fuckin "stairway." in the U.S., that song is a fact of life like McDonalds, but the countrymen of the people who made it have to seek it out cuz Morrissey and the NME doesn't like it!

although maybe folks born in the US in 1992 or thereabouts have never heard it.

― veronica moser, Saturday, May 17, 2014 7:44 PM Bookmark

I'm an estadounidense and have never heard "Stairway to Heaven" other than of my own volition (and thank god, that song fucking sucks). I've hear Queen all the time tho.

it never fails to amaze me that so many of you guys are in thrall to the likes of Xgau and Marsh, to the point where so many of you cite shit they wrote as if it means a goddamn thing…

i don't get that impression from this thread at all FWIW.

I'm just interested in why the rock-crit establishment (not just those two guys) hated Queen so much. I mean, it's a valid historical question.

xpost

isn't "kitsch" by definition something of poor quality? Queen is not kitsch.

what was the last old song to get a second life like that? was fairly common for a string there during the 80s into early 90s - 'twist and shout', 'stand by me', 'unchained melody', 'bohemian rhapsody', and i'm sure i'm forgetting others (none of these were obscurities to begin w/ either). these were generally all due to use in movies and the uk had a similar phenomenon w/ levi's ads during this time as well.

your beloved "Into the Night." Also: "Send Me An Angel." Bit of a trend in '89.

xpost

motherfucking candle in the wind?

Elvis's "A Little Less Conversation"?

yeah, though that's kinda a different type of trend where you had early 80s hits get second life (and often rerecordings by said acts needing a new record deal), the same happened w/ 'i melt w/ you'.

well I guess I should say that I've been around Xgau a number of times, and he's remarkable for the smug self-satisfaction that he exudes, so yeah that influences the way I think about him. He and Marsh have existed in only occasionally permeable bubbles for 40 years now that no one, not even the most self-impressed rock crit reprobates among you, should ever aspire to. and both of them continue to exude a certain privilege a la "oh I've been doing this for so long no one can fuck with me" that is truly revolting. They are the Clapton-esque elite of the field, and should be regarded as such.

'candle in the wind' was a very different recording though, it wasn't quite the disparity of having an old ben e. king hit pop up between falco and nu shooz. plus the circumstances (referring here to america's infatuation w/ a-side 'something about the way you look tonight', perhaps prompted by a nation unable to stop thinking about heather graham in boogie nights), you could sell me that the charting of a different live version of 'candle in the wind' in 87 ties into this phenomenon somewhat (though that's probably more 'hey here's a live version of some old shit' a la 'maybe i'm amazed' and 'she's got a way'). 'a little less conversation' probably qualifies more though i'm begrudging it cuz remix plus was it that big a hit really. i never got whiplash from it like i did w/ 'unchained melody'.

Let's not forget: "Candle in the Wind" was bigger in America in '87 and '97 than it ever was in the seventies.

well I guess I should say that I've been around Xgau a number of times, and he's remarkable for the smug self-satisfaction that he exudes

never gotten this attitude from him at all -- the contrary actually -- but ok

that is so fuckin' hilarious that UK dudes around my age had to buy a record to hear fuckin "stairway." in the U.S., that song is a fact of life like McDonalds, but the countrymen of the people who made it have to seek it out cuz Morrissey and the NME doesn't like it!

Zep never released singles in the UK so didnt get pop airplay (smiths etc never got airplay either) and UK had no rock radio.
obv peel played zep etc at the time as will have alan fluff freeman. but that was evening/late night.

i actually owned the 87 version 7-inch. was kinda horrified the first time i heard the goodbye yellow brick road version - what's w/ these beach boys touches? and that corny guitar line? WHY ISN'T HE BELLOWING MORE??? just remembered another coelacanth hit - 'daydream believer'. maybe even another monkees rerelease i'm forgetting (most successful state fair reunion ever). this isn't quite isolated to the late 80s, the beatles charted in the top ten in 1976 w/ 'got to get you into my life', but it seems like it flourished more from 86-92.

four kinds i think:

1 - these ancient coelacanth hits popping up due to movie or tv ('stand by me', 'bohemian rhapsody', 'unchained melody')

2 - desperate fucks lucking into some dj somewhere playing their one hit and milking that second chance for all it's worth by rerecording that one hit (benny, modern english, real life)(just found out the guys who did 'send me an angel' were named real life)

3 - someone w/ recent pop success putting out a comp as a stopgap while they work on a followup and throwing out a remix of a song that should've done better on the charts the first time around ('valerie', 'blue monday 88', 'close to me (closest remix)')

4 - hey here's a live version of some old song that wasn't that huge a hit the first time ('she's got a way', 'candle in the wind')

3 & 4 closely related, 2 somewhere between those two and 1, which is the outgroup.

When did they start playing Zep on the radio in the UK? That is so so so weird.

I mean, i understand Queen's ubiquitousness in the UK, but the seemingly deliberate blacklisting of Zep like they were Insane Clown Posse or something...

yeah 'stairway' is atop peel's festive fifty for 76, whole list is like a glimpse of a possible model for what uk classic rock could've been -

1. Led Zeppelin - Stairway To Heaven
2. Derek & the Dominoes - Layla
3. Bob Dylan - Desolation Row
4. Pink Floyd - Echoes
5. Jimi Hendrix - All Along The Watchtower
6. Free - Alright Now
7. Racing Cars - They Shoot Horses Don't They?
8. Pink Floyd - Shine On You Crazy Diamond
9. Beatles - A Day In The Life
10. Bob Dylan - Like A Rolling Stone
11. Poco - Rose of Cimarron
12. Neil Young - Cortez the killer
13. Rolling Stones - Brown sugar
14. Beatles - Hey Jude
15. Legendary Stardust Cowboy - Paralysed
16. Jimi Hendrix - Voodoo chile
17. Beatles - Strawberry fields forever
18. Captain Beefheart - Big eyed beans from Venus
19. Led Zeppelin - Whole lotta love
20. Lynyrd Skynyrd - Freebird
21. Van Morrison - Madame George
22. Doors - Riders on the storm
23. Bob Dylan - Visions of Johanna
24. Jefferson Airplane - White Rabbit
25. Deep Purple - Child in time
26. Little Feat - Long distance love
27. Grinderswitch - Pickin' the blues
28. Joe Walsh - Rocky mountain way
29. Who - Won't get fooled again
30. Misunderstood - I can take you to the sun
31. Genesis - Supper's ready
32. Bob Marley and the Wailers - No woman, no cry
33. Jonathan Richman - Roadrunner
34. Rod Stewart - Maggie May
35. Jackson Browne - Late for the sky
36. Led Zeppelin - Kashmir
37. Jimi Hendrix - Hey Joe
38. Allman Brothers band - Jessica
39. Rolling Stones - Jumping Jack flash
40. Grateful Dead - Dark Star
41. Richard Thompson - I wanna see the bright lights
42. Family - The weaver's answer
43. Jackson Browne - Fountain of sorrow
44. Bob Dylan - Hurricane
45. Doors - Light my fire
46. Matching Mole - O Caroline
47. Roy Harper - When an old cricketer leaves the crease
48. Wild Man Fischer - Go to Rhino records
49. Little Feat - Willin'
50. Yes - And you and I

that jonathan richman is like seeing a little microbe that's about to wipe out every organism around it

Good call on "Valerie."It and "Higher Love" and to a lessee extent "While You See a Chance" are the only Winwoods I hear.

lol i play arc of a diver like five times a summer. 'spanish dancer' is what i want playing when i'm gliding past the fans to jessica lange's embrace.

"Hold on" from the his first solo album is what I wish the rest of his solo career leaned towards, not that I would want to live without his zippy 80s synth lead style. Him and D'angelo should make an album together.

"Baby Blue" made a couple of Billboard charts after the Breaking Bad episode ("it blasts onto Rock Digital Songs at No. 8"--the tremors are still being felt).

http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/5755383/chart-moves-badfingers-baby-blue-enters-hot-rock-songs-paramore-scores-a

I think the launch of virgin radio was when stairway got played on daytime radio (early on before it became just another 80s station)

Older people obv had heard zep as they were huge but i guess they sought out the records themselves. But i never heard them once during the 80s on radio.

re. peel's festive 50 for 76:

it's funny, some of that stuff was no doubt cutting-edge at the time but I begin looking through that list and I can barely keep my eyes open. i mean a lot of the music on it is great but—with a few notable exceptions, the equivalent of someone pouring water on you while you're napping—seeing zeppelin/floyd/hendrix/beatles/dylan/free in succession triggers some sleep mechanism in my brain.

seemingly half of those songs are from late 60s/early 70s--what gives?

the list is also WHITE AS FUCK. jesus, did peel never listen to R&B?

i mean i feel like half of my faves from 76 would be miami or philly r&b

that will be voted by his listeners