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

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?

Even moreso when the latter is accompanied by stomping jackboot
xp

Gotta go now, more later

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

― brimstead, Sunday, May 18, 2014 3:39 AM (15 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

In the 30 years I've been alive, I've only ever heard 'Stairway To Heaven' played on the radio twice. I can't recall any other Zeppelin song getting any airplay.

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

― Οὖτις, Sunday, May 18, 2014 2:57 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

we will we will rock you in your face, stab your brain with your nose bone

we need trigger warnings on Queen songs

WARNING: You may get blood on your face from listening to this song.

we will we will rock you in your face, stab your brain with your nose bone
stomp, stomp left, stomp, stomp right.
boks in your face til there´s no teeth left.
stomp, stomp left, stomp, stomp right.
boks in your face til your face flows red.
stomp, stomp left, stomp, stomp right.
boks in your bollox now your seed don´t spread.
stomp, stomp left, stomp, stomp right.
i´m happy standing toe to toe trading blows,
but if you fall i´m gonna make your arse READ THESE BOKS
i´ll smack you in the mouth, show you what a real mans about,
when you drop you´re gonna READ THESE BOKS
heel to your jaw, blood spils on the floor,
i viciously ensure you READ THESE BOKS
stomping on your head til your brains brown bread,
as i´m kicking you dead, READ THESE BOKS

Queen's "Don't Try Suicide" is probably more pro-suicide than Ozzy's "Suicide Solution," which came out the same year, where were the PMRC on that one

I kind of alluded to this earlier, but as someone who was never exposed to classic rock radio as a kid, some of the bands here that are being mentioned as being on a similar/larger level (Zep/Eagles/Who) were completely foreign to me as a kid, even while Queen felt like they were always around? I've still never knowingly heard the Who other than "My Generation".

fwiw, the Who are by far the worst-sellers out of those four: only one top 10 single ("I Can See For Miles" topped out at #9 in 1967), and no #1 albums.

Queen was definitely 'pop' on some level that the Beatles were and a lot of those bands kinda weren't

This was alluded to earlier in this thread but it's worth noting, given previous statements about Nazis and "white guys,": it seems unlikely that Hitler would have considered Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara) to be a "white guy"

some dude otm re:Queen and pop

I was an obsessive Queen fan for most of my childhood and still love the first four albums unreservedly. I don't think it's a coincidence that my checking out as fan and the intense critical backlash came around Jazz and later: Brian May stopped playing distorted rhythmic electric guitar nearly as much, which made Roger Taylor's failings as a drummer (which are many and huge -- as a drummer, Roger Taylor has a startling falsetto voice) much more obvious when drum machines or heavy Freddie rhythm piano were not present; and, I think more importantly, they started getting lazy with their songwriting, doing it in the studio more and more, with more and more group credit. There is no question that homophobia played a huge part in the TONE of the backlash against them, but they were a band with lots of flaws, and I think it's hard to love both "March of the Black Queen" AND "Crazy Little Thing Called Love".

I love both