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Danny Baker, Shortlist Questionnaire:
Who’s the most overrated band of your lifetime? “Queen. A dreadful group. They were neither Led Zeppelin nor Bowie and they played that middle ground in between. Punk rock didn’t come around because of prog rock or anything like that, it came around because of Queen. Abba, Queen and ELO—that was what people were trying to move away from. You can find everything Queen did better elsewhere.”
Second-rate punk journalist, sports writer for The Times in the '90s (says it all, doesn't it?), radio host and football-fanatic.
So no surprise that a punk-fanatic was going to rip on Queen. Considering the utter crap produced by British punk-groups (The Clash is, IMHO, the only worthwhile thing to come out of the whole British punk movement, and they were much broader than punk was to begin with) and embraced by this guy, I don't think greater praise for Queen than his sneer is possible.
thomasquinn 32989 wrote: He's a fat, balding, middle-aged football commentator and b-list radio DJ. I think he's suffered enough.
Couldn't agree more with you, nobody ever takes notice of him, saw him doing a documentary on BBC2 recently I was shocked he was still alive, turned it off after 5 minutes.
He's a tit on this point; he's so self opinionated. He hosted a recent 'serious' tv series in the uk examining each decade of music from the 50's onwards. For the 70s, even when running through the best/most popular tracks and albums of 1975, Bo Rhap and ANATO were glaringly omitted.
The series was supposed to be factual and unbiased yet was far from it, with him and his mates basically trying to out-do each other with mentions of obscure bands (that were obscure for a reason!!).
The only single mention Queen got across the whole of the 70s and 80s shows was when one of the guests said they liked Queen, and Baker then said something derogatory about the band.
mooghead wrote:
Some people don't like Queen. It's ok. Calm down.
Some people like Coldplay.
It's not a case of him not liking them; there's lots of bands I don't like but can appreciate their impact, and musical prowess and validity. Danny Baker states factually that Queen are rubbish, not talented, not deserving of the status etc: regardless of whether he likes them or not, he is simply plain wrong on those counts.
Danny Baker was irked when the band turned down the request to appear on his early morning ITV game show "Win Lose Or Draw" back in 1987. Apparentely Brian and John were up for it but due to the recording of Barcelona and Shove It, Freddie and Roger had to pass up the invitation.
He's also wrong: punks did rebel against prog rock. The irony is Roger Waters wrote some really great lyrics attacking the "system" as it was then, in songs like 'Wish You Were Here' and 'Have a Cigar'. His lyrics were just as anti-establishment as the Sex Pistols 'God Save the Queen'.
Holly2003 wrote:
He's also wrong: punks did rebel against prog rock. The irony is Roger Waters wrote some really great lyrics attacking the "system" as it was then, in songs like 'Wish You Were Here' and 'Have a Cigar'. His lyrics were just as anti-establishment as the Sex Pistols 'God Save the Queen'.
Check out Pink Floyd's Animals. If that isn't anti-establishment, nothing is. It's also supremely ironic that The Sex Pistols were completely engineered by a big record company, i.e. The System. They were like a punk-equivalent to The Monkees.
Panchgani wrote:
... But i like ABBA. ELO and Queen ... As well as Led Zepp & Bowie.
Whatever.
Anyone who likes ABBA is close to being disqualified from the human race for obscenity IMHO.
Coming from you, and your Some Cumma Loud degree, I'll take that as a complement.