It has been fun to see everyone's list. Given that it has been a few days since any lists have been submitted, I decided to tabulate the results. There were a total of 32 lists submitted.
Queen - My Fairy King and Liar each had 9
votes. Eight songs mentioned.
Queen II - MOTBQ barely nudged WQ by 11 to 10. No other
song had more than 4 votes.
Sheer Heat Attack - ITLOTG,revisited (8) to Brighton Rock (6).
Nine songs mentioned.
A Night of the Opera - BR had 11 to Prophet' Song 6.
A Day at the Races - Teo Torriate 8 to Somebody to Love 7.
News of the World - It's Late 7 to We are the Champions 5
Of note, We Will Rock You just got 2.
Jazz - Don't Stop Me know 8 to Dead on Time 5. No clear
pattern with many songs getting 3 or 4 votes.
The Game - Save Me 9 to Play the Game 7.
Flash Gordon - The Hero 13 to Flash 6.
Hot Space - Under Pressure 11 to several songs 4
(Dancer, Back Chat, and Action This Day)
The Works - Very close three way race. Hammer to Fall
and It's A Hard Life both had 9 to Radio Ga Ga 8
A Kind of Magic - Princes of the Universe 11 to WWTLF 10.
Miracle - Was It Worth It All 10 to I Want It All 7.
Innuendo - Innuendo and The Show Must Go On - tied at 9.
Made In Heaven - A Winter's Tale 7 to Made in Heaven 5.
All 10 regular tracks got a mention by someone, which
was the only time this happened.
Observations: There is a real diversity of what are people's favorite Queen songs. No album had a song that got most of the votes, with Under Pressure and Bohemian Rhapsody getting the most, but only about one third of the votes on their respective albums.
Very few people seemed to automatically go for the singles, with several major hits only getting a few votes such as We Will Rock You, Killer Queen, This Thing Called Love, andAnother One Bites the Dust.. and I Want to Break Free all getting less than 5 votes and Your My Best Friend just getting 1 vote. However, it wasn't automatic that singles were discounted with arguably two of the biggest classics BR and Under Pressure doing well.
Feel free to post your own comments about the results.,
It's certainly interesting. I'm sure it has been mentioned that general hits fatigue gets in the way - most notable exceptions being Under Pressure (I love loads of songs on HS and rarely listen to UP but when push comes to shove, it's the best song on that album and one of the best of their career) and of course BR which is in a field of it's own. Flash album seems a no brainer. Although I do wonder how many people who voted genuinely knows all these albums inside out.
It grates on me that the Queen song you hear most on British radio by far is I Want to Break Free when it is maybe the worst single of all (after Body Language of course). I was listening to a podcast the other week and Play the Game came on and the DJ said he had never heard it before in his life...
Good point Dysan about the fatigue factor and the knowledge of all songs factor. I took it as a positive that about everyone rated all the albums and hardly anyone stuck mostly to the well known hits. In fact, most of the songs across all the albums had someone vote for them. I find that diversity rather remarkable and speaks to the wealth of the excellent deep cuts by Queen.
Yes, and of course we can't discount the strong psychogeography embedded deeply within us - I know I let nostalgia fog my ratings of what tracks are best.
Maybe not 'psychogeography' - perhaps psychodiscography?
I am surprised that no song took more than 1/3 of the votes on their respective album. I suppose that is to be expected with hardcore fans and at least nine candidates ...
I like this poll, but unfortunately it reminds me of the US presidential election ... over one year of robocalls is coming. Winter is coming too, but I prefer -20 C temperatures to this election nonsense and hypocrisy.
I didn't take part in the survey but apart from The Game (sail away sweet sister) I think all my number 1 choices were named in the list of top songs from each album. Which means I wouldn't have influenced the list at all.
It also means I'm a very generic Queenzone Queen fan. Which is a disappointment because so ,many of you are batshit crazy :-)
Anyhow, thanks for collating that, it was weirdly interesting.
Interesting and informative. Thanks.
The apparent reluctance to pick singles may be a numerical factor: early albums in particular had 2 singles vs 8 or 9 non-singles, and quality was more or less balanced so obviously the latter had a bit of an advantage. Another possibility, of course, is that some singles are overplayed. Yet another one, worth mentioning, is that some of us (myself included) may be subconsciously favouring lesser-known tracks.