Remembering Freddie

[E. Shaun]

It's hard to believe it's been fifteen years since Freddie Mercury died of complications due to AIDS. I remember the day quite well...it happened to be the same day that Magic Johnston announced that he had tested HIV positive. Though I was a bit too young to have the depth of appreciation for Mercury's impact on music (though I remember loving the movie Flash Gordon as a kid...largely because of the soundtrack), it was a year or so later that I was really introduced to their music, starting off with Classic Queen and Queen Greatest Hits on cassette, then finally getting The Game on CD for Christmas 1993. And that started it.

Over the next few years, I became a huge Queen fan, with all the biographies, all the albums, posters on my bedroom wall, concert videos for my VCR, fake book on my piano...you get the picture. In my high school music classes, I used to find every opportunity I could to play examples of something relatively germane to the topic at hand. Rhythmic notation? Why, what better example than "We Will Rock You!"

In recent years, I don't listen to Queen so often...I'm so intimately familiar with all of their material that it has become a part of me. I've also managed to completely ignore the Paul Rodgers travesty that masquerades as the Real Deal. As much as I like Brian May and Roger Taylor, Queen is a band that can never be Queen without the most flamboyant and iconic frontman in rock.

Anyhow, tomorrow I'll be popping Queen II in my CD player, and thinking about how tragic it is for such a talent to be extinguished at the age of 45.

[nobby]

I remember loving the movie Flash Gordon as a kid...largely because of the soundtrack), it was a year or so later that I was really introduced to their music, starting off with Classic Queen and Queen Greatest Hits on cassette, then finally getting The Game on CD for Christmas 1993. And that started it.

Over the next few years, I became a huge Queen fan, with all the biographies, all the albums, posters on my bedroom wall, concert videos for my VCR, fake book on my piano...you get the picture. In my high school music classes, I used to find every opportunity I could to play examples of something relatively germane to the topic at hand. Rhythmic notation? Why, what better example than "We Will Rock You!"

In recent years, I don't listen to Queen so often...I'm so intimately familiar with all of their material that it has become a part of me. I've also managed to completely ignore the Paul Rodgers travesty that masquerades as the Real Deal. As much as I like Brian May and Roger Taylor, Queen is a band that can never be Queen without the most flamboyant and iconic frontman in rock.

Anyhow, tomorrow I'll be popping Queen II in my CD player, and thinking about how tragic it is for such a talent to be extinguished at the age of 45

Yeah, the sound track really rocks.

But I'm a little surprised that you've even heard of Buster Crabbe, and I'm still wondering what 1930's science fiction has to do with Queen. (http://flashgordon.ws/flash.htm)

[otek]

Yeah, the sound track really rocks.

...........

...I'm still wondering what 1930's science fiction has to do with Queen.

Actually, Flash Gordon was not the band's first brush with Sci-Fi themes and topics.

Already on News Of The World the cover art was done by noted Sci-Fi artist Frank Kelly Freas, who was one of the most important illustrators for magazines like Weird Tales, as well as hundreds of books.

Queen also had numerous song titles dealing with the subject - not to mention their early fascination with mythology and fantasy, something Whitley Strieber and other writers have described as the "pre-20th-century sci-fi".

[meLoCo_go]

I'm a huge Queen fan too!
Actually Queen was the thing that made me want to play music myself.
The last recordings of Freddie Mercury will be always example of outstanding passion for music that can make someone overcome pain and depression.
R.I.P.

[Goes211]

I saw Queen in this very place in Brussels (http://www.theatre140.be/index-action-infosTechniques.html) (check the 360° thing...I'm guessing 500 people, max.) in the mid-70's, during the Killer Queen/Sheer Heart Attack tour. 3rd or 4th gig I ever saw. I was 15 or 16...unbelievable gig. I've played there several times many years later, and each time I kept thinking..."fuck...Queen played here too..."
Freddy was a King.

Or a Queen.

Irrelevant.

He was a huge artist. And a fucking STAR.
:Coolio:

[malice]

No post by Kenny ?

that's weird


malice

[bbkong]

I thought this was about Freddie King.

He wasn't as big a star as FM, but he never gobbled goo either.

[Skwaidu]

My Karaoke favourite?

"Bohemian Rhapsody", very drunk....








:lol: :lol: :lol:

And yes, 70's Queen especially has some great moments... Gretest Hits Vol 1 is a cool collection all around, my personal favourites are probably "Killer Queen" and I gottta admit, "Bohemian Rhapsody". :D

[Droolbucket]

I have always wanted to put on the headphones, fire up a delay unit, and see how close I could get to "The Prophet's Song". Freddie and Queen opened a lot of doors as far as arranging and layering vocals and guitars. Brian May's melodies are as fantastic as his guitar tones.
My older brother went to a Queen concert in the mid 70's (I was too young to go along), and he still has never found the words to describe the show.
I still crank up Bohemian Rhapsody, and I'm not at all embarrassed about it. :Coolio:
Droolbucket

[J.G.]

I know I spent hours singing along to so many of those great songs, using the PA I used to have in our basement as a teen. (Still can't believe I'm not partially deaf from that madness.)

One of my fav's still remains, "You're My Best Friend"... A real heart-cozy that one...

R.I.P., cher Freddie.

[E. Shaun]

My favorite Queen song was always "'39", which is essentially a song about relativity...volunteers who set out to colonize another planet, and having to return to find all of their loved ones dead or gone.

Otek is right on the money about their preoccupation with technology. I don't know any other bands in the early 80's who wrote about Random Access Memory.

In all honesty, despite the fact that I created this thread in regards to Freddie's death fifteen years ago, pound for pound I prefer May's songwriting, and definitely his lyrics.

BUT...I contend that without Freddie, it just can't be Queen.

[Fulcrum]

And yet, for all their technophilia, they brazenly proclaimed "...and no one played synthesizers" on all their albums up to The Game.

They didn't need to; they had Brian May. And RTB behind the desk.

Queen II was a landmark in my musical education. How Freddy could turn from macho swagger to sensitive crooning on a dime-- it all came together on that album. Father To Son, White Queen, Ogre Battle, March of the Black Queen, and The Faerie Feller's Master Stroke.

"Talent will out, my dears!"

[MudCat]

He had an an incredible command of his audience.....I remember watching Live Aid(I believe), and with no music behind him, he had the the entire, massive audience repeating these short vocal chants exactly as he sang them, and physically moving their arms just as he did. It was like watching the German army march as one on one of those old Nazi newsreels (strange analogy, but yeah....that's what it was like)....just amazing.

[jerryskid]

"Death on Two Legs"




nuff said









we miss you Freddie

[blackieC]

Agreed to all.

Freddie was the very definition of front man and no one, with the possible exception of Jeff Buckley, has had that kind of presence and vocal control since.

There is a Freddie sized hole in the universe and it will never be filled.


Never.

[Bob Olhsson]

I really had no idea how great he was until I saw a video of him for the first time a few months ago.

[Palewailer]

I thought this was about Freddie King.


Ha! Same here. Carry on, lads.


I've been gigging with a cousin of FK's lately, Bubba. You should check this cat (http://myspace.com/victorcrain)out. :Thumbsup:

[Fulcrum]

I thought this was about Freddie King.

You got to tell me.. is poker his thing?

[Spock]

Funny thing about this thread. Just yesterday a few famly members got talking, and the question was to name the top front men. Of course Freddie was one everyone's list.

Oh and that voice.....

[E. Shaun]

Sounds like the makings of an interesting thread...

[binaural turbine]

what was the name of that concert video shot in Brazil? Anyway, it ranks up there with the best concert video, ever. Bar none. Damn, I wish I had seen them back then.

[ella]

Agreed to all.

Freddie was the very definition of front man and no one, with the possible exception of Jeff Buckley, has had that kind of presence and vocal control since.

There is a Freddie sized hole in the universe and it will never be filled.


Never.

That is for sure. A terrible loss of a huge talent.

[Bryson]

And with just the top part of the mic stand!

So uniquely cool.

You can bet that no one else is gonna try that (without getting their ass kicked).

Not many give me goosebumps like Freddie does.