| GratefulFan 10.03.2010 23:53 |
Joe Elliot as quoted in 'Brian May: The Definitive Biography" by Laura Jackson "It is my personal belief that Brian was the big anchor of Queen. I don't take anything away from the other three, but had it not been for Brian then I think they would have become a pop band and not as big as they are. Freddie, I feel, would have leaned more towards ballads and Roger to pop. 'Radio Ga Ga' is a terrific Queen number but very pop. The hard stuff is down to Brian. I think he kept a crucial and unique balance in the band." |
| john bodega 11.03.2010 01:25 |
I think he meant "wig wanker". |
| pittrek 11.03.2010 01:44 |
GratefulFan wrote: Joe Elliot as quoted in 'Brian May: The Definitive Biography" by Laura Jackson "It is my personal belief that Brian was the big anchor of Queen. I don't take anything away from the other three, but had it not been for Brian then I think they would have become a pop band and not as big as they are. Freddie, I feel, would have leaned more towards ballads and Roger to pop. 'Radio Ga Ga' is a terrific Queen number but very pop. The hard stuff is down to Brian. I think he kept a crucial and unique balance in the band." I fully agree |
| Vali 11.03.2010 04:36 |
what a great discovery, Mr. Elliot. |
| mike hunt 11.03.2010 08:30 |
no really?...of course brian was the rocker of the band, but I can't see queen without songs like millianare waltz, the style that really set them apart from the basic rock bands. let's face it, a lot of bands were recording kick as stuff like stone cold crazy and tie your mother down.....name one band other than queen that were recording stuff like the millionare waltz?...It really was the balance of the freddie and brian songs that made queen who they were. |
| FriedChicken 11.03.2010 08:45 |
Depends on what you want to anchor to... Sure, he played a major part in the rock hitsongs (I Want it All, Tie Your Mother Down, We Will Rock You etc) but John was the anchor when it came to black influences, and so on. I still like to think they all played a part in Queen (Perhaps John and Roger to a less extend than Brian and Freddie). But still, if Brian or Freddie would've been replaced in a crucial point in their carreer (74-'76) It would've been all so different. |
| Soundfreak 11.03.2010 08:55 |
I do not understand why people always try to divide a band into important or less important members. I think the sentence "the sum of a band is bigger than the sum of the individual members" says it all. It's the chemistry of certain people getting together that makes a band exciting. Freddie and Brian definitely put their stamp on the Queen sound. But with Roger and John and their enormous stylistic variety they could work out all those ideas. Imagine the Beatles without Ringo...all their movies would have been quite boring as he was a brilliant actor and added so much to the visual image of the band. And yet people tend to say it was all Lennon and McCartney... |
| mike hunt 11.03.2010 10:00 |
FriedChicken wrote: Depends on what you want to anchor to... Sure, he played a major part in the rock hitsongs (I Want it All, Tie Your Mother Down, We Will Rock You etc) but John was the anchor when it came to black influences, and so on. I still like to think they all played a part in Queen (Perhaps John and Roger to a less extend than Brian and Freddie). But still, if Brian or Freddie would've been replaced in a crucial point in their carreer (74-'76) It would've been all so different. That say's it all...In their prime...".the opera/races era " No freddie, no Queen. the same for brian of course. you could never replace a singer like fred, also what most don't mention is the fact that his songwriting was by far the most original of the group, and one of the most original songwriters in rock history for that matter. Of course his songs wouldn't have been the same without brian may....the sound of the guitar fit perfectly with freddie's style of songwriting. "millionare waltz" say's it all. No way does freddie get those results with a oridinary rock guitarist. They needed each other big time. |
| Rubbersuit 11.03.2010 10:06 |
I think Freddie had the biggest anchor. |
| greaserkat 11.03.2010 12:30 |
Well, Freddie did write some of Queens heavy songs and riffs: Orgre Battle, Princes of the Universe, Bohemian Rhapsody, Great King Rat, Flick of the Wrist, Death on Two Legs, an so on. |
| Pim Derks 11.03.2010 14:07 |
I wish Queen had a drummer with one arm, I love freaks like that! |
| thunderbolt 31742 11.03.2010 14:32 |
You know, I was actually going to reply that, if one was referring to Queen's later career, then the esteemed Mr. Elliott (whose music I do have a ton of respect for, actually) would be correct. Then I thought a little harder about it, and two things came to mind. "Princes of the Universe" "Was It All Worth It" Sure, Freddie skewed towards ballads and three-chord pop later on, but even late in the band's career, he was still cranking out a (very) hard rocker or two per album. Roger's music skewed towards the abstract frequently, but he still wrote "I'm in Love with My Car" and "Rock It (Prime Jive)," both of which were definitely rock music. Really, about the only member who didn't contribute any songs to the string-breaking aspect of things was John. I get what Joe's saying, and I know where he's going with it. No Brian = no Now I'm Here, no TYMD, no WWRY, no FBG, no Hammer to Fall, no IWIA. But before one pins Brian as the band's king of hard rock, let's not forget... ...this is also the guy who wrote "Save Me," "Las Palabras de Amor," "Who Wants to Live Forever" and most of the band's acoustic ballads. |
| kosimodo 11.03.2010 15:30 |
For those who are just as puzzled as me... link |
| Arnaldo "Ogre-" Silveira 11.03.2010 16:34 |
Rubbersuit wrote: I think Freddie had the biggest anchor. LOL |
| brENsKi 11.03.2010 17:35 |
and let's not forget...some of queen's loudest and biggest rockers...were Freddie's songs Liar Great King Rat Ogre Battle March of the Black Queen Seven Seas of Rhye Death on Two Legs |
| lalaalalaa 11.03.2010 17:55 |
Brian might be the anchor, but Freddie's the ship :P |
| Sebastian 11.03.2010 18:36 |
Of course Mr Elliot would say that: Brian's his closest friend in the band and probably the only Queen member who cares about Lep. If Joe ever met Freddie this is probably how the conversation went: Joe: Hi Freddie, it's so great to finally meet you, I'm a huge fan! Freddie: Who the bloody hell are you? Joe: I sing in Def Leppard and... (gets interrupted) Freddie: Phoebe! Time to take out the rubbish! Get this mis-spelling bastard out of here! Joe: But Fred, you love Led Zeppelin... Freddie: How dare you compare your group with them? So, it's natural that Joe's Brian-biased. BTW, Freddie did love Led Zeppelin a lot. He often cited Robert Plant as his favourite singer (or one of his favourites). He also cited Michael Jackson, Paul Young, Aretha, Montserrat, and his friends have also mentioned he had a soft spot for Prince, Bowie and others. And d'you know who was never mentioned in those lists before '04? Paul Rodgers! |
| mike hunt 12.03.2010 01:20 |
brENsKi wrote: and let's not forget...some of queen's loudest and biggest rockers...were Freddie's songs Liar Great King Rat Ogre Battle March of the Black Queen Seven Seas of Rhye Death on Two LegsI think Orge battle and great king rat were the heaviest songs Queen ever did. |
| Bo Rhap 12.03.2010 04:49 |
I think its fair to say that they all needed each other. They kinda fed off one another's ideas in the studio. And then there is the live perfomances.Especially in the seventies,when it was just the 4 of them.They all kinda relied on Brian quite heavily.When Freddie would stop playing his piano to do a bit of lead singing,Brian would very often have to cover for Freddie not playing his piano.Therefore becoming a rhythm guitarist who throws in a few lead riffs every now and again. |
| cmsdrums 12.03.2010 07:33 |
GratefulFan wrote: Joe Elliot as quoted in 'Brian May: The Definitive Biography" by Laura Jackson "It is my personal belief that Brian was the big anchor of Queen. I don't take anything away from the other three, but had it not been for Brian then I think they would have become a pop band and not as big as they are. THEY DID BECOME A POP BAND AND BECAME MASSIVE ON THE BACK OF IT Freddie, I feel, would have leaned more towards ballads and Roger to pop. 'Radio Ga Ga' is a terrific Queen number but very pop. The hard stuff is down to Brian. I think he kept a crucial and unique balance in the band." ROGER - SHEER HEART ATTACK, FREDDIE - OGRE BATTLE, BRIAN - ALL DEAD, ALL DEAD I think, taking into account my points above (and those of others on this topic), Joe Eilliott was MASSIVELY generalising don't you think?!!! |
| Penetration_Guru 12.03.2010 09:20 |
When was this book published? |
| YourValentine 12.03.2010 09:28 |
It was published in 2007 but do not bother. It's just as crappy as her Freddie book and she copied pages and pages of her Freddie book into this one. Mr. Scully translated it into Czech and he had hard times to just translate it and not rewrite it :-) |
| ParisNair 12.03.2010 15:15 |
I have her book, Queen - The Definitive Biography. And this was published in the late 90s (I think). This quote from Joe Elliot appears there too. Another from that book that just came to mind is from Tony Iommi. He said that Brian was responsible for keeping the band together, or something like that, and likened it to his own role in Sabbath. |
| Saif 12.03.2010 22:17 |
Joe Elliot has no credibility. Def Leppard started of as an NWOBHM band and it was Joe Elliot who pushed to soften their sound. I think they suck and they're a joke nowadays. Except their debut album, none of their material is that heavy. Joe Elliot is just a dumbass, even though his statement about Brian is more or less true. |
| Amazon 13.03.2010 13:22 |
Soundfreak wrote: I do not understand why people always try to divide a band into important or less important members. I think the sentence "the sum of a band is bigger than the sum of the individual members" says it all. It's the chemistry of certain people getting together that makes a band exciting. Freddie and Brian definitely put their stamp on the Queen sound. But with Roger and John and their enormous stylistic variety they could work out all those ideas. Imagine the Beatles without Ringo...all their movies would have been quite boring as he was a brilliant actor and added so much to the visual image of the band. And yet people tend to say it was all Lennon and McCartney... I think that George played a pretty big role as well. :D I think you're right though that groups shouldn't always be divided into important or less important members. While I do think that Queen has more important members, I wouldn't want to replace either John or Roger for the world. In fact, when people talk about when Queen ended, for me, it wasn't when Freddie died. It was when John retired. If John hadn't retired, I would still regard the group (minus Freddie) as Queen. |
| GratefulFan 14.03.2010 00:52 |
YourValentine wrote: It was published in 2007 but do not bother. It's just as crappy as her Freddie book and she copied pages and pages of her Freddie book into this one. Mr. Scully translated it into Czech and he had hard times to just translate it and not rewrite it :-) I find most of the books are pastiches of all the other ones out there. There is very little truly original research. I did enjoy some early sections that focused on the music. They were written in a similar style and voice to The Early Years book, but covering a period that began where the other book ended. After that though the whole thing got a little thin. |
| maxpower 14.03.2010 06:56 |
For F**** sake this is why Queen fans annoy me, he was generalising at the end of day Brian plays the guitar so he is more rock & blues orientated end of story. Oh & Joe Elliott has two "t''s see we can all nitpick |
| GratefulFan 14.03.2010 14:39 |
Yeah, I noticed that the other day when I saw Joe Elliott's name elsewhere online. My apologies to Joe. It actually really bugs me when I spell people's names wrong. Anyway, to the point of the original post. I think he was right and I think he was wrong. The fusion of four different musicians pulling at four different tensions was always the key to the brilliant material. While some of my favourite tracks are Brian tracks, left mostly to his own devices he was capable of boring the hell out of me probably more than the other three put together. 'Hammer to Fall', which Joe apparently singled out in the conversation I quoted as a fantastic example of Brian's heavy influence, is a really ordinary unimpressive song. Ditto 'I Want it All' and 'Scandal'. I don't think it's entirely a coincidence that the period after Hot Space and before Innuendo saw a slide in general quality because it seems to me to have been a time when a variety of factors came together in a way that saw creative tension become creative compromise out of sheer necessity. They seemed to start playing on each others songs more than genuinely co-creating which saw the emergence of tracks easy to file under pop, sappy ballad, hard rock etc. Once Freddie's grave illness required them to truly pull together to create once again we got Innuendo. So yes, Brian was a big heavy anchor that kept a great ship from drifting too far off course, but without any one of them that ship wasn't going anywhere near as interesting. |
| Sebastian 14.03.2010 15:30 |
GratefulFan wrote: I don't think it's entirely a coincidence that the period after Hot Space and before Innuendo saw a slide in general quality because it seems to me to have been a time when a variety of factors came together in a way that saw creative tension become creative compromise out of sheer necessity. They seemed to start playing on each others songs more than genuinely co-creating which saw the emergence of tracks easy to file under pop, sappy ballad, hard rock etc. Once Freddie's grave illness required them to truly pull together to create once again we got Innuendo. Actually, all the Quen period (1970-1991, that is) featured both sides of songwriting/arranging: collaborative and individual. We've got Fred taking Ga Ga and Magic under his wing and virtually tearing them to pieces and building them over again, we've got the three founding members discussing One Vision details, Dr May putting lyrics to It's a Hard Life and suggesting the reversed-order at the end of Friends Will Be Friends, all five of them discussing Under Pressure (though the actual writing was mostly done by two people), guest musicians having a lot more input than before (Mandel, Kamen, Blake, Mardin, the producers and of course Bowie), etc. And during 'Innuendo' (as well as 'The Miracle' and all three post-'Innuendo' songs), there was a lot of individual songwriting as well. So, at the end of the day, such dynamics didn't change too much throughout their career. Many things came from interaction and ideas suggested from all corners (and never restricted to only the parts each one played or sang), many things were written beforehand by the author of the song and then taught to the others. And there are great results from both approaches, as well as some poor ones. What is true about Elliott's remark is that Brian was chiefly responsible for the 'classic Queen sound' especially when the others went in other directions. For instance, 'A Night at the Opera' features a lot of styles hardly ever actually explored by Queen (opera, vaudeville, skiffle, dixieland) and the only song which is goold ol' simple straightforward rock 'n' roll is Sweet Lady as well as the 'regular' Prophet's Song sections. While the rest of the album is also phenomenal, it was still a rock album thanks to Brian... without him, we'd have Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon and Love of My Life type of things, which aren't rock per se. I'm in Love With My Car may also qualify for some extent, but Two Legs is way too 'clasically-affected' to be regarded 'normal'. Of course, it's a fantastic song, but it's not what a 'normal' rock group would do. Sweet Lady and Prophet's Song (sans the interlude) are. Same for 'Races': we've got Roger going for a more soulful side, John with a brilliant pop tune, Freddie going waltz, gospel, vaudeville and his usual piano ballad but it was Brian who brought the rock side with Tie Your Mother Down and White Man. Same for the late era: Put Out the Fire in 'Hot Space' (simple, straightforward, no synths, killer solo, distorted electric guitars), Hammer to Fall in 'The Works' (the least-poppy track in a very poppy album), Gimme the Prize (simple, straightforward, no synths, distorted electric guitars, almost 'metal' intro, some of Brian's best, most difficult and most underrated guitar bits), I Want It All (simple, straightforward, distorted electric guitars, killer guitar solos), Headlong (simple, straightforward, distorted electric guitars, killer guitar solos), even The Show Must Go On (the pinnacle of what can be regarded as 'rock anthem', including both a softer side and some marvellous guitar work in a rock, not pop, vein). While Freddie's expeditions into heaviness (Two Legs, Princes, Ogre, Great King Rat, even The Hitman) were ornamented with his usual style and eccentricity (unusual chords, elaborate forms, classical touches however subtle) and often featured keyboards, Brian was 'the man' when it came to regular rock and roll. Neither side of the band was absolutely 'better' or 'worse' than the other, and while some (me included) may believe one was more fundamental than the other (i.e. one represented 30% and the other represented 25%, for instance), it is also true that they were both vital for Queen. |
| GratefulFan 15.03.2010 13:25 |
Sebastian, those songfacts and collaborative efforts are well documented and well known. Clearly I wasn't implying that the members of Queen ever functioned solely as session musicans for each other. I'm talking about qualitative differences between being a young and hungry band with things left to conquer and being an outfit 10 years on figuring out how to stay together through increasing divergence on multiple fronts. The 'whoever wrote the song gets final say on how it goes' rule really, really showed in the 80's. And the quality really suffered for it, and not least in Brian's heavier but wholly ordinary tracks. That was the point I was trying to make. It's worth noting that Freddie deserved a good spanking for 'The Miracle' too. |
| Sebastian 15.03.2010 15:50 |
I agree with the 'hungry' point, but the fact the author had the final say's not restricted to the 80's and indeed in many cases three of them were 'session musicians' for the creator, not only in the 70's and not only in the 80's. It depended on the song. So, the minor quality of their 80's output is due to a change in their priorities, not the creative dynamics. Except perhaps for Freddie taking less time to be involved in the production (One Vision's a clear exception), as opposed to the early days when he was reportedly rarely away from the console. |