"We Believe" happened to come up on shuffle on my ipod today and it got me thinking about TCR and the Q+PR partnership. I think, although many people disliked them, the Q+PR gigs were top class but for many pro-PR people like myself, we felt that TCR didn't hit the heights they reached live.
Thinking about the album now, it feels like it was an album they were fishing around on. There are a lot of different styles on the album from Quo-type boogie-rock to PR styled blues and some more old-type Queen sounds as well e.g. "We Believe". Although some of what the album produced was very poor, "We Believe" and "Still Burnin'" come to mind; some was very strong eg. SINT, "Some Things That Glitter" and "Small".
I wonder whether, if the partnership had lasted for at least another tour and led to a return to the studio would the net result have been better? I think the band would have been able to look at TCR, choose what worked and what didn't and work towards a much stronger offering, meaning that, in time, TCR would have been seen as a try-out album leading to the better second which would be less varied but still stronger, rather than the poor offering from these great rock stars that we got. I know is just pondering but I wanted to share it a see what other people think?
For me the sort of power-ballad style of SINT or "Some Things That Glitter" was the bands strongest and I don't think the more open blues of stuff like "Wander Through The Night" suited Queen. However would Paul be happy to record an almost blues-free album?
I personally think the main problem with TCR was always the bitty fashion of the running order of songs. It just seemed all over the place with very little thought to the album's structure.
I have since played around with the running order, omitting a few, adding a cover song, remix and bonus track and think it flows so much better...
1 Surf's Up... School's Out!
2 C-Lebrity
3 Some Things That Glitter
4 Call Me
5 Still Burnin'
6 We Believe
7 Small (MJK Mix)
8 Warboys
9 Say It's Not True
10 Voodoo
11 Cosmos Rockin'
12 Runaway
13 small reprise
14 C-Lebrity... live (Al Murray Show)
If you have the additional tracks/remix, give it a try in this order.... For some reason the opening flow reminds me of Jazz????
Russian Headlong wrote:
anything with pr is going to piss on the embarassing adam lambert fiasco.
Amen! Lambert is their way to be more relevant in today's "music" scene. Perhaps thinking it will bring "younger" fans to the Queen catalog. OR the AL mini tour could be a warm up for a US AL+ Queen tour...gosh I hope not...I will go just to see Roger and Brian who I would expect would be doing vocals as well. Bring on Marc Martel from the Queen Extravaganza..now that would be good IMHO
Whateeeeever gets them recording new stuff... Even if its crappy Adam Lambert.
BLOOD FROM A STONE!! ;)
Dunno about another qpr album because no one will know.
Personally would have loved to hear Bri rock out with Lemmy and Toni Iommi ...maybe with Iggy Pop on vocals...
Now THAT would be some monstrously weird shit
Dave grohl and taylor hawkins on drums.
Just sayyin.
The MOR rock thing isn't my bag. I TRIED liking TCR so much.
There were a few great ones.
Like RichJohnson, I was very impressed with the gig I went to but less so with the album, which I felt was decent but disappointingly unadventurous for Queen.
I would welcome another album from the collaboration though, I would just hope that they would be a bit more daring the next time.
I don't think it will happen though, I think Q+PR is over permanently.
Depends on your point of view.
There's NOTHING wrong with TCR at all.
It's a great album recorded by mature men rather than young men and as such that shows in the songs.
I think people who don't like this album simply can't get over the fact that it isn't anything like any other "Queen" album.
Oh, and "We Believe" is the best damn song on it. They should have released that as an un-edited single around the world.
I always thought that Rodgers was the wrong fit for Queen. At least he was a real vocalist, albeit more blues-rock than the remaining members of Queen. Glambert is just Simon Cowell's fecal spawn. At the same time, I would hate to see a Freddie impersonator (ie. Mullen, Martel) take the mic. Freddie, sad to say, is gone. Maybe I'm too hard to please. Can't you see, I'm too big of a fan of Mr. Mercury!
BrianMayKicksAss wrote:
I always thought that Rodgers was the wrong fit for Queen. At least he was a real vocalist, albeit more blues-rock than the remaining members of Queen.
Yep. Image-wise, it might have worked if they had formed a "supergroup" with John Paul Jones (or some other famous individual) on bass. Doesn't mean the quality would necessarily have been better, but it would've made more artistic sense than "Queen +".
Simply having Rodgers as Queen's new singer, even though he was spectacularly unsuited to many of their hit songs (AOBTD!!!), was a mistake. It might even have worked if they had chosen songs better suited to Rodgers' voice e.g. It's Late, KYA. For the live shows they were too hung up on recreating rock superstardom rather than creating something new and interesting. In the studiio, I think they deferred too much to Paul Rodgers -- someone who was great as the lead singer of2-3 good rock bands -- but not someone particularly known for his great songwriting as a solo artist. There's no ambition in TCR: it's professional, boring MOR music i.e. Paul Rodgers forte.
Although I'm certain without a shadow of a doubt that this 2nd Q+PR album will never happen given the current course of things anyways, I'd circumwager that if things were more concentrated on consistently and way less of the tangential distractions took place again, a second album would be a certain improvement over TCR.