Queen is the Greatest Band Ever
 

1. The Greatest Voice in Rock History
2. One of the most innovative and talented guitar players ever
3. All four members of the band wrote their music
4. Their anthems live on worldwide
5. Best diversity of any group, as not one single of theirs sounds the same as any other
6. The best live band ever
7. Their music transcends culture, language, and time.
8. Over 20 years ago, their lead singer died. This month, in the same night, Queen Extravaganza performed, Windborne covered Queen with a symphony orchestra backing them, and 2 of the 4 members of Queen performed with Adam Lambert at the EURO Cup Fan Appreciation Night.
9. As already mentioned in another thread, they stomped all other bands at Live Aide 1985, broadcast to an estimated 2 billion people.
10. The number of artists and musicians covering them is endless, but includes Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Pink, Elton John, Guns n Roses, Def Leppard, David Bowie, Sarah Brightman, Glee, Katie Perry, and even Scatman John.
11. Over 55 over theirs songs have been covered and recorded by other artists.
12. They were the first band to recognize the power of marketing and were pumping out music videos in the late 70s for all their singles.
13. They pioneered numerous recording methods.
14. They had their own crest.

f3lix you're in London for the Olympics and you're starting threads that we'd expect you to post from your Indiana shithole on a lonely Tuesday winter night. If you want to suck English band dick, you can actually go do that right now!

Olympic content, please. Commentary on what it's like to be a house-guest of FC's despite the two of you having had a somewhat contemptuous relationship on Nubblies, please.

Who?

What happens to be my favorite Queen song at the moment, is Somebody to Love. The tune is written in 6/8 time, which is unusual for rock bands, but common in musical theatre and in the classical world. It incorporates a gospel feel with harmonies that stimulate even the pure music theorists. Below is the original from the album "A Day at the Races" and is followed by two mind-numbing live performances, then several covers.

Despite MTV not coming out until 1984, Queen released this music video in 1976.


When Queen would perform this live, Freddie Mercury would lead off with an improvised solo on piano and vocals. While Freddie was great an being improv singer, what makes this so awesome is he alters the harmonies (chords) - a daring task for any musician to improv.


George Michael with gospel choir cover at the Freddie Tribute Concert in 1992.


Glee even took their shot at it with an amazing solo at the 1:46 mark.


Quite a different kind of cover here, where the song is put in 4/4 time.


A Techno cover by Fits of Gloom


Marc Martel came to internet stardom with his successful cover which landed him a singing role with Queen Extravaganza.


It also shows up in movies Ella Enchanted, Happy Feet, and Late Last Night. It's appeared on singing shows American Idol, X Factor, and Glee (posted above.)

.

More Queen commentary please.

I would like to see more numbered arguments. Fourteen simply is not enough. And, to be quite honest with you, some of those seemed a bit redundant. Numbers 10 and 11, for example, are basically rephrasing the same point.

14 defines into how good they were at making Queen a brand (marketing).

10 and 11 are very similar, but were separated to indicate how obscene both are.

Best singer; the best band is The Rolling Stones.

I will prove my point over many, many posts.

The only thing F3lix knows less about is how to not suck.

Queen was okay. But the greatest band ever talk is stretching it. I like Queen alright, but some of their/Columbia claims regarding sales are fucking absurd when their best selling album was the Greatest Hits and the highest estimate is 25 million. That's only 5 million behind In-A-Godda-Da-Vida and also behind the likes of the Spice Girls, Back Street Boys, Nirvans,and ABBA. A lot of other bands from the same time period of Queen were bigger and more successful. Nobody in their right mind would ever say that Queen was greater than Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin. Hell, Eagles and Fleetwood Mac hold their own from that time period against Queen. Other groups who did pretty damn well world wide in Queen's hey day were the BeeGees and ABBA. I'd always thought of Queen as a slightly more popular version of the pre-break up Aerosmith and less popular than the regrouped Aerosmith.

Boston even gets more airplay in 2012 than Queen does on the U.S. classic rock stations.

While on the surface, album sales should be a good indicator, it really does not reflect quality. Pop musicians will always outsell real talent, because pop music is what the major of people like, hence "pop" = popular. I think we can all attest how brain dead the majority of humans are.

I like a lot of the bands you've mentioned, but where they fail in comparison is flexibility. How many of those groups improved their songs over time? How many have a musical made after them? How many could control live crowds of 100k+? My biggest complaint about the Beatles is they were a boy band for years and years before becoming the great band they ended up being, but also they were notorious for being awful live. The Eagles always played their music the exact same as the record/cassette/CD/etc... What's the point of hearing them live?

Again, I'm not and never will argue popularity as a tool for greatness, as even in my own world, the biggest sellers each year is fluff shit and great music is now being pushed aside by publishers for music that sells big; it's a disgrace. Queen + whoever is still playing to sold out venues without Freddie, which says a lot about their music. Had Freddie still been around, they would have just killed one of those Super Bowl half time shows.

Clearly the only mark of quality that matters.

It's really not, even less so if we're talking live performance.
You're way off in terms of how successful Queen are too, 300 million (claimed) sales and only 6 bands outselling them, MJ/Elvis/Beatles being the only three that do so with ease.
Queen have double the claimed sales of Aerosmith and nearly three times that of The Eagles (worst band ever)




How much of this was down to shit equipment? weren't they using 50 watt amps in the early days? reaching a % of the audience

I don't know maybe The Beatles didn't progress at all from Meet the Beatles to Abbey Road. Are you fucking kidding me or just trolling? They broke all fucking sorts of new ground. Queen sucked ass for their last 7 studio albums. I think I can name maybe three songs off those albums combined. . .and I'm a fan. This is the first claim of anybody ever saying the Beatles sucked live. Monday please. Brian May completely is a product of the studio and you're kidding yourself if you think otherwise. He writes articles on how he did it. Deacon can't play bass to save his ass.

Queen + Paul Rogers played to a not so sold out Verizon theater in a Dallas suburb not too long ago. So tap the brakes on that one.

ABBA has a fucking musical based on their songs. And it's the 12th longest running of all time (over 5,200 in the West End). So what? So has Frankie Vallie and a few others. Did you think Queen was some sort of trend setter with this? Mother fucking Judas Priest with White Snake and also special guests April Wine sells bigger venues than Queen + Paul Rogers. So does Motley Crue. Ozz Fest draws stupid crowds. And Eagles still sell out arena and Paul McCartney still sells out stadiums. Old fuckers pay crazy money to go see the geriatric tours.

But going by not being super popular and not selling obscene amounts of records, Rush is much greater than Queen. Three dudes are are badass at their instruments.

Beach Boys.

Limp Bizkit

I thought I addressed the claimed issue. 300 million claimed by Columbia is a fuckload different than what the RIAA says is realistic. In fact, its over 3 times the amount. RIAA are the folks who keep track and gives out those gold and platinum records. Queen is not in the top 6 according to those who keep track.

I agree.

heatstroke?

Top 15ish on confirmed sales then, would still put them in the runnings for greatest band ever.
' A lot of other bands from the same time period of Queen were bigger and more successful.'
Max of 15, I wouldn't say that's a lot.

'Boston even gets more airplay in 2012 than Queen does on the U.S. classic rock stations.'

Queen are pretty big on Queen FM

And the and confirmed sales includes singles. Which really fucks the whole source up. I'm fairly certain that ABBA sold nowhere near as many albums as Queen.

15. Queen was tributed in the 2012 opening Ceremonies of the olympics.

Dude, ever hear of a spoiler alert?

For the guy living in London? No.