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

I guess I grew up sheltered, in an extremely liberal environment...I was a kid, but at the time I saw "We are the Champions" as ironic. I thought everyone knew Freddie was gay. As a music geek I really enjoyed Brian May. My brother's favorite band, we were so sheltered we thought being gay was natural to the rock culture.

A lot of those critics came from a Vietnam-era mentality, where there was an "us versus them" (imagined reactionary elements) mentality.

Also kids' opinions didn't count for anything in the seventies...it was something used to disparage bands.

Can you plz point out to me where the irony is in We Are The Champions

I dont think sporting events crowds use it ironically but maybe the joke us on them.

I always got an ironic feeling from "no time for losers"

The thing with the Eagles in the UK though is that they sold out stadiums in 1976 here and again in 96 and beyond when they reformed.
Did Queen ever play stadiums in the US?
Plus you did hear a couple of Eagles songs on radio now and again unlike zep.

They never played outdoor sports stadiums here, but starting around 1976 they were playing arenas (Madison Square Garden, LA Forum and the like).

Even Neil Tennant didn't come out publicly until 1994. Neil Tennant!

Neil Tennant is gay!?!

Led Zep never released any singles, so obviously you never heard them on (daytime) radio, the Eagles did.

already said that upthread, tom

but youre a bit older than me tom, so how big actually was zep here? who was into them? I assume NME/MM didn't care for them? How about Sounds?

I always assume Sounds was the reason certain bands got popular but is that fair?

Big. But not in that slightly ridiculous way they are in the States... but then the same could probably be said of the Beatles! In the UK I'm sure they were considered the biggest rock band of the 70s, who else was there, Pink Floyd maybe.

The UK public (and radio) just never did rock, did they? Probably explains why there was not much disco sucks over here. Queen pretty much did rock for the UK and thats all it wanted.

I don't know about that

just imagining rock music coming over the airwaves in England and people shrieking in the streets a la Godzilla

Metal, not exactly unpopular in the UK? Well I don't know about now. If it got onthe Top 40, it would be played.

once a week.
Now if it gets in the top 40 the run down show doesnt even play it or anything else it hasnt playlisted

I always got an ironic feeling from "no time for losers"

― relentlessly pecking at peace (President Keyes), Sunday, May 18, 2014 10:33 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

same here. there's far too much humor and camp and playfulness in their catalog for me to hear that song as 100% serious.

I tried listening to a Queen album a while back and there were like THREE 20s/30s pastiches on it - I thought, fuck this McCartneyesque empty eclecticism tbh.

eff that, their 20s/30s tunes were gr8 (esp "Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon").

I don't like Queen I at all, other than the opener, but Queen II through News of the World is pretty unimpeachable.

Playful fascism possibly the worst kind

I mean, "We Will Rock You" -- he's playing a drill sergeant, not being a drill sergeant.

Replace drill sergeant w racist in that sentence, would you be as accepting? Shitty aesthetics are shitty aesthetics. I have more nuanced thoughts about this but am typing on phone sorry.

When were Queen fascists?? A gay not really white guy singing camp. Please, "we'll keep on fighting 'till the end"...it's very blue-collar leather man. Stadiums playing it is a testament to the stupidity /naïveté of the programmer.

Are sports crowds fascist too?? Like basketball crowds - I bet they're all racist.

Flowery Beatles shit, funk tracks getting played in the disco, opera singing....dude if you want crypto-fascism try hardcore music!

Are sports crowds fascist too??

ask this man

http://nonsite.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Adorno.jpg

Large groups of people shouting triumphalist nonsense is pretty fascist yeah. And I'm not talking politically about the band here (sun city thing upthread aside I dont know anything about their personal politics), they were artists not party leaders. I am talking about aesthetics here, generally speaking, and those aesthetics tie into and are related to and reminiscent of the aesthetics promoted and developed by actual fascist political parties. I dont know if "irony" excuses this really.

"We were quite excessive, but in a fairly harmless way," says May, for the defence as it were. "I don't think we ever did anyone a great disservice. I can understand some people saying We Are The Champions was bombastic. But it wasn't saying Queen are the champions, it was saying all of us are. It made the concert like a football match but with everyone on the same side.

http://www.deaky.net/rain/q91E.html

Except the losers, that is. Fascism is always monomaniacal, people that don't belong don't exist/shouldn't exist, they are an afterthought.

That's largely true. But I don't hear it in Queen's music.

I hear it in their biggest hits. Another One Bites the Dust, We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions. Bohemian Rhapsody could be sung by Hitler.

The self pity and ego of a murderer blown up to monstrous proportions, ending in adolescent nihilism.

We're still talking about Queen rite

Our Band Could Be Hitler's Life

I can actually understand how someone could find the message of "We Are the Champions" a little off-putting/uncomfortable. However, an introspective song from the pov of a self-pitying murderer (with a goofy, blatantly ironic quasi-operatic break) is really not the same thing imo.

It was better when the Bee Gees did it tbh

Adorno tripped over this shit too. I don't like sports or sports events but it takes warped imagination to construct an analogy between the Heat alongside thousands and cheering for a little man in a mustache with bad breath who's yelling about annexing Austria.

*between cheering for the Heat

Replace drill sergeant w racist in that sentence, would you be as accepting?

I mean, these two things are not equivalent imo, unless you're pretty radically pacifist! Drill sergeants are useful in the right time and place, especially if they just want to rock you.

I am a radical pacifist I guess.

Please dont rock me

drill instructor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQFYJXMVxTc

Is Phillippe Wynne a fascist?

Not my favorite George Clinton concept tbh, but I do find commands to dance inherently less objectionable than commands to accept being rocked by pompous rich narcissists.

George Clinton isn't rich?

There is actual violence ("blood on your face") in the Queen material that is not present in Funkadelic, which is just exhorting everyone to dance and party.

Clinton's wealth has never approached Queen levels. Plus there's the whole being black thing, which automatically puts him in opposition to existing class structure of the 70s. this was not some white guys claiming to be and acting like royalty. They were claiming to be aliens etc.

There is actual violence ("blood on your face") in the Queen material that is not present in Funkadelic, which is just exhorting everyone to dance and party.

"actual" violence in a song. Do you literally shit in your pants when you watch a scary movie?

plus, Funkadelic music is often fraught and queasy, never mind the lyrics.

I think a lyrical exhortation to dance is fundamentally different from one that threatens violence yes.

this was not some white guys claiming to be and acting like royalty.

claiming? You mean they weren't actually queens?