| br5946 21.02.2011 13:57 |
Queen have always been known among die hard fans on here as masters of diversity, plunging into any style that takes their fancy. For example, the gospel style of Somebody to Love, or the prog rock of Prophet's Song. OK, I'm on a roll now, so including the aforementioned two songs, I'll whip up a collection of styles. Somebody to Love = Gospel Prophet's Song = Prog rock Bo Rhap = Rock opera '39 = Folk-rock The Millionaire Waltz, Sunday Afternoon & Seaside Rendezvous = Vaudeville AOBTD = Disco A Winter's Tale & IGSM = Psychedelic rock Innuendo = Flamenco-rock Good Company = Jazz Stone Cold Crazy = Thrash metal (actually generally considered the first song of said genre, but that aside...) Radio Ga Ga = Electronica/Techno Crazy Little Thing = Rockabilly SWABIF & Lost Opportunity = Blues-rock Now I'm Here = Heavy metal Princes = Power metal Back Chat = Funk bordering on soul Track 13 = Ambient You Don't Fool Me = Ibiza (or rave, whatever you want to call it. Especially the remixes. Like I've said on a previous post, with the guitar solo, I feel YDFM is a marriage of rock and ibiza. Result? FAB BEYOND COMPREHENSION!!!!) And if we dig into solo catalogues I do believe there are more despite some repeats... Your Kind of Lover = Samba Living on My Own = Again, techno Blues Breaker = Again, blues-rock (stating the obivous, but still...) Let's Turn It On = Electronica Mr. Bad Guy = Symphonic rock (personally I call it a term I coined myself - rockestra. Cool term I think. If you like it, spread the word. Literally!) Let Your Heart Rule Your Head = Country rock Space = Again, ambient Note: The Freddie tracks listed are their originial Mr. Bad Guy versions from 1985. Although the remixes vary from good to vile anyway. That being said, I feel the Living on My Own (1993 club mix) and LoMO (underground solutions mix) definitely count as ibiza to an extent. They're the two closing tracks on the ninth disc of the Freddie box if you can't find them. |
| Soundfreak 22.02.2011 07:21 |
This is, what they had in common with the Beatles. They could adopt (nearly) every style and genre and yet they were recognisable. On the white album the Beatles played vaudeville songs like "Honey Pie" next to hard rockers like "Helter skelter". Like Queen did on ANATO and other albums..... |
| mike hunt 22.02.2011 08:16 |
br5946 wrote: Queen have always been known among die hard fans on here as masters of diversity, plunging into any style that takes their fancy. For example, the gospel style of Somebody to Love, or the prog rock of Prophet's Song. OK, I'm on a roll now, so including the aforementioned two songs, I'll whip up a collection of styles. Somebody to Love = Gospel Prophet's Song = Prog rock Bo Rhap = Rock opera '39 = Folk-rock The Millionaire Waltz, Sunday Afternoon & Seaside Rendezvous = Vaudeville AOBTD = Disco A Winter's Tale & IGSM = Psychedelic rock Innuendo = Flamenco-rock Good Company = Jazz Stone Cold Crazy = Thrash metal (actually generally considered the first song of said genre, but that aside...) Radio Ga Ga = Electronica/Techno Crazy Little Thing = Rockabilly SWABIF & Lost Opportunity = Blues-rock Now I'm Here = Heavy metal Princes = Power metal Back Chat = Funk bordering on soul Track 13 = Ambient You Don't Fool Me = Ibiza (or rave, whatever you want to call it. Especially the remixes. Like I've said on a previous post, with the guitar solo, I feel YDFM is a marriage of rock and ibiza. Result? FAB BEYOND COMPREHENSION!!!!) And if we dig into solo catalogues I do believe there are more despite some repeats... Your Kind of Lover = Samba Living on My Own = Again, techno Blues Breaker = Again, blues-rock (stating the obivous, but still...) Let's Turn It On = Electronica Mr. Bad Guy = Symphonic rock (personally I call it a term I coined myself - rockestra. Cool term I think. If you like it, spread the word. Literally!) Let Your Heart Rule Your Head = Country rock Space = Again, ambient Note: The Freddie tracks listed are their originial Mr. Bad Guy versions from 1985. Although the remixes vary from good to vile anyway. That being said, I feel the Living on My Own (1993 club mix) and LoMO (underground solutions mix) definitely count as ibiza to an extent. They're the two closing tracks on the ninth disc of the Freddie box if you can't find them. A winter's tale= psychedelic?....Are you serious?..... Not sure where you get that from....Though slightly Mad I agree with......The rest is right. Though i wouldn't call Stoned cold crazy the first thrash song, it does have a thrashy riff. My Melancholoy blues is a true jazz/blues song for sure. |
| thomasquinn 32989 22.02.2011 13:05 |
Good Company =/= jazz. "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" comes moderately close to being Dixieland a few times, but even that is not jazz. |
| Mr Mercury 22.02.2011 15:23 |
For me, Cool Cat has an RnB feel to it. |
| kozlorf 22.02.2011 16:36 |
I wouldn't say, that Stone Cold Crazy is generally considered the first song of thrash metal ;). I guess the title goes for Metallica's Kill'Em All stuff ;) And anyway, if one was searching for the very predecessor of the said genre then, well, Budgie's Breadfan was released a year before SCC... |
| kozlorf 22.02.2011 16:43 |
And I would rather name SWABIF a part of "stoner rock" genre. I think the only true blues-rock song in Queen repertoire is Sleeping On The Sidewalk, and maybe-baybe Dreamer's Ball fits there somehow too. |
| rhyeking 22.02.2011 17:03 |
Here's how I hear it, a sampling of the different genres they affected (some aren't absolutely faithful, but the you can hear what they were going for). I'm leaving out styles that later became recognized as styles of their own (Thrash-Metal, etc), because Queen couldn't adopt a style which didn't exist (though they could influence it, which is worthy of its own thread): See What A Fool I've Been = Blues See What A Fool I've Been (B-Side Version) = Burlesque Theatre The March Of The Black Queen = progressive Funny How Love Is = Spector-esque Wall Of Sound Bring Back That Leroy Brown = Boogie Woogie/jump blues Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon = British Music Hall '39 = Folk Seaside Rendezvous = Vaudeville Somebody To Love = Gospel The Millionaire Waltz = Waltz Who Needs You = Latin My Melancholy Blues = Jazz Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy = Dance Hall Mustapha = Middle Eastern Dreamer's Ball = Cabaret Fun It = Disco Dragon Attack = Funk Crazy Little Thing Called Love = Rockabilly Don't Try Suicide = Sondheim-esque Musical Man On The Prowl = Rock And Roll One Year Of Love = Soul The Invisible Man = New Wave |
| thomasquinn 32989 23.02.2011 04:32 |
"My Melancholy Blues" is a so-called minor blues, a genre which is also known by the name...melancholy blues. It seems to me that you people really need to learn a *lot* more about jazz. |
| Leonardo Venegas 23.02.2011 09:33 |
What about Rain Must Fall? |
| rhyeking 23.02.2011 11:30 |
ThomasQuinn wrote: "My Melancholy Blues" is a so-called minor blues, a genre which is also known by the name...melancholy blues. It seems to me that you people really need to learn a *lot* more about jazz. *************** I think at this point we're splitting hairs, but a Jazz aficionado may disagree. Jazz has always encompassed a variety of approaches and resulted in a variety of sub-genres (cool jazz, hard jazz, etc.), not mention influencing what we now recognize as styles on their own (Funk, Ska, etc.). Generally, I've held that Jazz, in the general sense, is recognized by the syncopated beat and the performer being free to improvise around the melody. The approach Queen used on this track seems to reflect that sensibility. Jazz and Blues have always shared characteristics and lent themselves to cross-pollination. An easy example would be Little Willy John's "Fever," a blues song if there ever was one and a massive hit for him. It was easily translated in jazz by Peggy Lee, becoming a massive hit for her. Given that Jazz and Blues effectively gave birth to Rock & Roll and Rhythm And Blues, two more genres which easily translate from one to the other, it starts to become an exercise in futility to strictly define where all these genres start and end. Besides, we're not really talking about period Jazz here, we're discussing the band's approach and the end result. I think they were going for a jazz sound, even it deviates from the source the material. This a band paying homage to a style, not trying to write a modern-day jazz standard. |
| Silken 23.02.2011 11:58 |
Leonardo Venegas wrote: What about Rain Must Fall? *** A rare one. Sounds like Caribbean to me. |
| thomasquinn 32989 23.02.2011 12:13 |
rhyeking wrote: I think at this point we're splitting hairs, but a Jazz aficionado may disagree. Jazz has always encompassed a variety of approaches and resulted in a variety of sub-genres (cool jazz, hard jazz, etc.), not mention influencing what we now recognize as styles on their own (Funk, Ska, etc.). ==== 1) there's no such thing as "hard jazz". I think you are referring to "hard bop", which is a more gospel, blues and rhythm 'n blues infused type of bebop. 2) "Funk" was originally the slang term for "hard bop", the genre it now refers to has nothing to do with the original attribution; compare, for instance, ryhthm 'n blues and what is now called R 'n B. Ska is a caribbean genre that grew, in part, from calypso and early rock 'n roll, and developed independently from jazz. ==== Generally, I've held that Jazz, in the general sense, is recognized by the syncopated beat and the performer being free to improvise around the melody. The approach Queen used on this track seems to reflect that sensibility. ==== No adequate definition of jazz has ever been given. What is certain, however, is that there is undisputable jazz which is not syncopated (lots of cool jazz, Miles Davis' work with Gil Evans), and that there is syncopated music which is not jazz (e.g. nearly everything by Lead Belly). Neither is every kinds of improvisation equal to jazz improvisation. In fact, the most universal characteristic of jazz seems to be the way it treats harmony and tonality, to be precise the use of non-diatonic harmonies (chords are related by form, not key, i.e. they may contain (many) notes not part of the scale(s) used for melody) and lydian-chromatic tonality (see: George Russell). ==== Jazz and Blues have always shared characteristics and lent themselves to cross-pollination. An easy example would be Little Willy John's "Fever," a blues song if there ever was one and a massive hit for him. It was easily translated in jazz by Peggy Lee, becoming a massive hit for her. Given that Jazz and Blues effectively gave birth to Rock & Roll and Rhythm And Blues, two more genres which easily translate from one to the other, it starts to become an exercise in futility to strictly define where all these genres start and end. ===== It doesn't work like that. Jazz and blues developed side-by-side, and largely in different regions (an 1867 collection of black folk music ("Slave Songs Of The United States" by Allen, Ware and Garrison demonstrates these regional differences and already suggests jazz-like music developing in Louisiana and blues developing in the rest of the South, the Carolinas excluded, which show a remarkably uniform devotion to gospel). Jazz probably developed out of a kind of proto-blues, and there has indeed been extensive borrowing and mutual influence between jazz and other genres, but this does not mean there are no real demarcations. ===== Besides, we're not really talking about period Jazz here, we're discussing the band's approach and the end result. I think they were going for a jazz sound, even it deviates from the source the material. This a band paying homage to a style, not trying to write a modern-day jazz standard. ===== 1) a "jazz standard" is a "jazz ballad" that has become part of the standard repertory. A "jazz ballad" is a *pop-song* from the so-called Great American Songbook (Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, you know them) performed in a jazz-style. 2) I haven't a clue what you mean by "period jazz". I am discussing the "end result", and it is not jazz, nor a "jazz sound" - it is a textbook example of minor blues, and as such it is likely a tribute to the kind of melancholy blues often performed in nightclubs starting in the jazz age and persisting until today. I must here point out that this kind of music tended to be performed, during the '30s-'50s at least, in venues that did *not* have jazz groups - the two were part of competing styles. I do assure you that you can safely trust me when it comes to jazz - I have been studying the subject for years, and actually received my Master's degree for a thesis on the subject. |
| ole-the-first 23.02.2011 12:15 |
Leonardo Venegas wrote: What about Rain Must Fall? ========== Prog rock. Queen is mostly prog-rock band at all. And diversity of genres is result of prog-ness. |
| thomasquinn 32989 23.02.2011 12:28 |
ole-the-first wrote: Leonardo Venegas wrote: What about Rain Must Fall? ========== Prog rock. Queen is mostly prog-rock band at all. And diversity of genres is result of prog-ness. ===== Now *there* is an observant view! Queen borrowed heavily from numerous genres, but combined it into a new product that can only be filed under "Queen". |
| rhyeking 23.02.2011 12:39 |
Fine, TQ, I never said I was an expert and I also started my post by saying "Jazz aficionados may disagree." I was certainly right about that. Rather than addressing the masses with "It seems to me that you people really need to learn a *lot* more about jazz.," why not explain the differences to us from the start? If we don't know what you're talking about, it's hard to address your disagreement. It's difficult to learn when one is made to feel like idiot in their ignorance. If I mis-attributed one genre out the 16+ albums Queen have issued, I can still sleep at night not knowing exactly what Jazz is. |
| The Fairy King 23.02.2011 13:16 |
We Will Rock You = Rap/Hiphop |
| ole-the-first 23.02.2011 13:52 |
The Fairy King wrote: We Will Rock You = Rap/Hiphop ======== Please don't use obscene words such as "rap", "hip-hop" and "Justin Bieber". |
| JacquesDaniels 23.02.2011 14:36 |
The term "jazz" isn't very easy to explain what it exactly is, because it doesn't really mean much more than, say, "great sounding noise". The word originated, I believe, in Chicago or thereabouts in the 1910's as a slang word for the style of music that people started to develop. Wikipedia, I'm sure, will explain the matter more closely. As for the Queen songs in a jazz genre, a lot of these have been pointed out already, but... I'd say "Bring Back That Leroy Brown" was kind of a Dixieland thing, omitting the characteristic polyphonic improvisation and sticking with a more traditional rock band arrangement. I wouldn't label "Lazing..." too near the jazz bunch, as it's more of a vaudeville type piece, thoroughly composed. "Seaside Rendezvous", same thing. But I think "Good Company" is the closest to a tradional Dixieland jazz Queen ever got. "My Melancholy Blues" gets into the standard jazz piano ballad area, while "Dreamers' Ball" gets closer to the doo-wop tradition. Queen's experimentation with jazz-based genres was dropped after that, unless you count "A Winter's Tale" as a jazz waltz, kind of in the same vein as "What A Wonderful World" (Thiele/Weiss) is a jazz song, because Louis Armstrong sang it. But it's definitely not psychedelic rock. I'd also like to point out that progressive rock as a term is more about the way the songs progress (as in March of the Black Queen), rather than from which genres they are compiled of. If anything, "Rain Must Fall" could be called fusion rock, maybe derived from calypso or something. Also, jazz standard is not necessarily a ballad, but a song that has been taken into standard programme of a standard jazz band, which could be a ballad. |