fras444 19.02.2019 21:55 |
When it comes to album songs, being in the studio, recording etc. Who was the most consistent member Who, I guess the best way to put it. Was the most indespensible/key part in building the song and being apart of the process from start to the finishedproduct of every song... Who had the most "down time" and was not the "key element" to every part of a song process. The one who would have spent the most time in studio while recording every single album. For example... Although Roger was the only one who could play the drums (John being the closest but distant second) it could be said that his input is almost on every single Queen song...... Some have said that Roger had more of an easy job as he a couple of takes on the drums and could easily be subbed with drum machines or electronic drums... such as good chunk of the songs recorded for the late part of the 80s. Would he have to be almost on the bottom Brian has had a couple of examples of his services not needed.. I.e my mecholny blues. He would have to be around the middle BUT........ With almost every song that roger or John wrote where they played guitar, I belive that he had some shared input with guitar. John.. a couple of songs Roger wrote had no input from John and dear friends... but would John had to have been one of the most consistent on each album with bass (along with drums) being the one instrument the rest of the guys wernt techincally competent with barring Roger... Hotspace though.. would have to be Johns Achilles, from what I have read on here Sebastian etc.. there was alot of synth bass on that album. Then with innuendo ...where I also read here.. Where he spent alot of time on holiday and only turning up for a few bass lines Freddie... Apart from piano or backing vocal parts... 70s era where Roger and Brian sung their own songs... Freddies input 'being lead singer/backing vocals and primary pianists' on each album would had to have put him, very much at the top |
Ziggy_SD 19.02.2019 23:55 |
Freddie. It was Freddie. |
fras444 20.02.2019 01:02 |
Yeah I think Freddie would definitely have to be at the top or very close to the top of the list when it comes to the overall song/album input, during the 70s it would be close as two-thirds songs per album had no lead from him and Brian could play the piano quite well... the 80s definitely had Freddie on almost every song. Brian and John would be very neck and neck as both have been on a song where the other was not needed.. if it wasn't for John's ability to sing he could have been sole writer and performer of a whole song barring drumming input from Roger... I thought Roger would have to be at the top with being the only one who cpuld drum and along with being the main one laying down backing vocals on many songs but there was extensive use of drum machines in the later years.... does he still sit at the top?? There are three or four songs he hasn't had any part in off the top of my head. Roger definitely could write and produce a whole song on his own if he wanted to and all but came close to barring a guitar part by Brian |
fras444 20.02.2019 01:11 |
Definitely all four had a part to play and all put in their fair effort and hard work but there is all ways one who had it slightly easier or harder or, in a band of musicians that queen was essentially... Where all could play other instruments. There are songs where one isn't needed, and regarding queens entire discography... it would be interesting who was the most consistently featured as I could imagine it would be very tight |
fras444 20.02.2019 01:33 |
Fuck it, to be completely honest!!!! This is for bragging rights for us dieheart who have a fav member in the band and think their fav member single handedly made the band... John has the most input bass and guitar he actually plays an instrument on more songs than Roger.. Roger just tunes in the drum machine and goes of for a fight and beer ???????????? Songs that features John Deacon and no Brian are far better than the opposite???? Brian actually has to ask John to play bass whereas John can just pick up the guitar and play.???? |
Iron Butterfly 20.02.2019 03:39 |
I think Freddie. For example, he had a lot of input for Radio GaGa and even changed it when Roger wasn't around. That's one example. |
spiralstatic 20.02.2019 08:30 |
Iron Butterfly wrote: I think Freddie. For example, he had a lot of input for Radio GaGa and even changed it when Roger wasn't around. That's one example.I think this is a good example of what's really important here: it isn't just (or even mainly) who has musical input on record - them actually playing on a track that's the answer to this question, but who has the most creative input into what the band are creating? Who is there in the studio, working a great deal creatively to get whatever sound is in their head, even on songs they didn't write or potentially on tracks they're not playing or are not playing as much on? (Of course one band member can write the music 100% which another band member plays too.) But then it's difficult. Brian was notoriously perfectionist about his guitar parts. If he spent more time getting those just how he wanted them, is he spending more time (in this part of his work) contributing to the album overall, or just finessing his own work? Where do you come in regarding literal studio time and the nature of what you're doing in that time? What we can say for sure is that the Queen sound comes from ALL of the members of the band and without any of them it wouldn't be Queen, so in a sense the question is meaningless. And, for certain reasons one member or other of the band would have spent more or less time in the studio on certain albums. How Queen wrote songs even changed dramatically over the years. In the early days, they'd write songs in advance, coming to the studio with detailed plans and written material and then once recording, many of them desiring a huge amount of control over the sound of their own songs that they'd written. Later, they'd write as they recorded - it was completely different. Even the people who wrote the most songs altered over the years. I think we can say on the early Queen albums, Freddie had the most studio time and control (almost any documentary footage and photos from this time, he is sat at the recording desk, desiring control) then Brian, then Rog, then John. But, I mean, probably they were all there a lot of the time in the early days?? Especially when in the countryside, living at a studio essentially!!? We then know there are albums like Sheer Heart Attack where Brian was ill so he couldn't come in to add stuff until later, so that would have impacted how much creative input he had into some of that I guess. By the '80's... and into the final albums... well it definitely isn't the same as it was in the 70's. Think of A Kind of Magic where Freddie by this point has only one track credited to him alone. Through the '80's there are also numerous tracks credited to John and Freddie and I'd be really interested to know how they worked. And by the final albums, we have equal writing credits & Freddie was getting sicker. Did that mean he contributed less creative input to some songs as well? Or did he possibly contribute more than he had in recent years, as maybe the music meant more to him by then. I've no idea. It is possible a person could contribute creatively at some point to a song they weren't playing or singing on too. In fact if they're not performing on a song, I'd have thought they could be a more objective judge of how it wqs sounding? And if you DO want to get into time spent recoding just for musical parts, Rog has to be up there I'm sure with the sheer amount of harmony work he was always adding. |
Nathan H 20.02.2019 09:11 |
When Roger came up with songs I think it was Freddie who tended to help him the most to improve them. I think that's the same with John on the songs credited with Freddie (at least Pain Is Close To Pleasure) - I remember reading somewhere Freddie helped John rearrange the track; by adding changing parts. John was very pleased with the final product and instead of it be credited to John solely, he wanted Freddie to have a credit. Brian most of the time he didn't need any help with his songs, neither did Freddie. But however it's well documented that Freddie and Brian sometimes sat together and spent hours writing lyrics or music to songs (including It's A Hard Life, Mother Love and Seven Seas Of Rhye). They even write a song once (Is This The World We Created...?) It's hard to know who was in the studio the most. In the 70s I think they were all in the studio the most perhaps Freddie and Brian the most as they had more compositions. In the 1980s when tensions were high between each other, they will all unreliable at times. John the most as he often took skiing holidays during recording sessions without telling anyone (or sometimes just someone and not the whole band). Roger next as he sometimes went with John. I reckon it'll be Freddie next with the amount of partying he did which often caused him to be unusable to record songs (his voice). Brian would have the most tensions, involved in the worst arguments which caused him on occasions to 'leave the band' for a couple of days. In the 1980s they used synthesisers, drum machines and programmed bass but used less piano and guitar. They also hired other people to play keyboards (including Fred Mandel) which meant that members weren't required on songs. |
Star* 20.02.2019 10:29 |
Freddie was the only Queen member to keep the others in check and stop them wandering into the fog with there ideas especially Brian & Roger. Freddie took his work very seriously and never accepted second best when it came to the recording studio. He was a pure perfectionist and a credit to Queen. |
Sebastian 20.02.2019 12:32 |
Brian is an obvious answer in the sense that his guitar work was rarely (though it did happen) replaced by machines and synthesisers - as opposed to John's bass and Roger's drumming, and there were loads and loads of songs without Frederick's keyboards. I'd like to make the case for Roger, though: when it came to backing vocals, the three of them would often sing them together but then it'd be just Roger for the top part (i.e. he logged more 'man-hours' in average). When it came to backing tracks, sure, he recorded his with John and either Brian or Frederick (occasionally both) and then stepped out of the way other than overdubbing (which by the way happened way more often than one may suspect at first), but think about all the time it took him to get ready for said take: setting up the drum-kit (sometimes it was a different set-up depending on the individual song and what the author wanted), working out the different beats and fills and sounds ('should I hit the 17" cymbal here or would the 16" fit it better?'), being there for hours on end while the producers and engineers made sure the mic levels were right. Also also, Roger did a lot of overdubs: plenty of songs have tambourines, maracas, triangles, woodblocks, etc., which may not be as noticeable as Brian's May-estic guitar choirs or Frederick's unique multi-tracked vocals (e.g. 'You Take My Breath Away', which probably took him ages and doesn't feature a single Maylor vocal), but which still took a lot of time, a lot of work, a lot of effort. Not only percussion: Roger played some guitars and keyboards and did some programming as well. Consistently, Roger worked his backside off from beginning to end. So did the others, of course. |
Togg 20.02.2019 12:54 |
I would say if you're talking about who put in the most time, it's almost aways the drummer, Crystal and Roger have both said they would often go in a week before the others to get the drum sound sorted. Glen Fry once spent a week just getting the bass drum sound... Roger also was involved in Vocal's percussion and sometime guitar... Brian also took a good while to get his sound, but they had it pretty nailed early on, he didn't change his settings much at all and once they had found a mic or two they liked it was down to how long Brian spent doing multiple takes... But my vote is definately Roger |
SweetCarolina 21.02.2019 21:11 |
I vote Roger |
bucsateflon 22.02.2019 17:45 |
all suppositions, nothing is certain |
Star* 22.02.2019 19:50 |
Freddie was the one that got the audiences whipped up into a frenzy and he was the one that got the band into the big time with his amazing vocals and song writing skills, without Freddie there would be no Queen no Bohemian Rhapsody and no celebrations at this weekends Oscars plus Adam Lambert would be on the dole! |
mooghead 22.02.2019 21:50 |
I knew I would regret clicking on this post but... what has anything you have just said got to do with the question? |
Ziggy_SD 22.02.2019 22:08 |
I really don’t get the question. Not sure what being consistent means in the context of a band that made very diverse music. Queen was essentially four solo projects working under that title. Each song has its merit — regardless of who performed on it and who was holidaying in Bali. |
mooghead 22.02.2019 22:29 |
"Queen was essentially four solo projects working under that title" ? |
spiralstatic 23.02.2019 07:51 |
bucsateflon wrote: all suppositions, nothing is certainTrue, but still interesting to wonder about I think. It is something that surely varied album to album too which again we can’t know any truth of the details but it’s interesting to wonder who contributed the most/spent the most time working on any given album. And, if that had an impact on the overall sound of each album. Of course “contributed” is up for interpretation too. Is it just studio time, time spent writing, time spent performing, time spent overseeing the full track. Do you include setting up? Have you truly contributed more if you just spent ages perfecting your part where someone else recorded their input quite quickly? Is it one of these more than the others? |
Star* 23.02.2019 10:14 |
I still think Freddie was the most consistent because He spent ages on making Bohemian Rhapsody in the studio back in 1975, Freddie lovingly nurtured that track and worked his socks off with the opera sections and we all know the tapes went transparent with so many overdubs and backing vocals. I honestly cant think of another Queen song that Freddie worked on for so long? |
Sebastian 23.02.2019 12:51 |
Black Queen, Somebody to Love, Millionaire Waltz, Master-Stroke, etc., not to mention songs he didn't write but where he lent a hand to the songwriting process such as Ga Ga, Break Free, Save Me... and songs he wasn't creatively involved with but which still required a lot of work from him. But, then again, the same would apply to everyone else: John didn't write 'Teo Torriatte', but who knows how long he spent rehearsing the backing track with Maylor; Brian didn't write 'Killer Queen', but he worked his backside off doing those guitar harmonies and backing vocals; Roger didn't write 'Bo Rhap', but he was there for the backing track, the drum overdubs, the timpani, the gong, the cymbal overdubs, the countless backing vocals... |
cmsdrums 24.02.2019 19:45 |
Togg wrote: Glen Fry once spent a week just getting the bass drum soundGlenn Fry or Don Henley?? |
matt z 25.02.2019 18:16 |
bucsateflon wrote: all suppositions, nothing is certainFor all we know, nobody used suppositories.. That said, I would speculate that Freddie was the most consistent and "regular". What kind of garbage trivial question is that anyways? What's done in the loo ought to be left well alone. |