Queens popularity

Whats with Queens popularity among the general population. They aren't bad but it seems like overall they are the most popular band to come out of the 70s/80s. If you look at their Spotify plays they are miles ahead of other popular rock acts from their time, even Led Zeppelin are back in the 200s for monthly plays. Was it because of Feddie's premature death? What about them gives them so much staying power?

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Bro have you even listened to Queen's hits? They're the peak of rock. Superb composition, excellent harmonies, lyrics that rock, all while still being easily accessible. Queen's hits are unmatched by anyone in the era or afterwards

They have a theatrical quality to them that ages well

>talented band that wrote good songs and appeals to both hardcore fans and the general public is very popular
Yeah OP I can't piece it together either

>Queen fans actually believe this

they are a cheap knockoff of Sparks and Devo with watered down music

Queen II > all their other albums

Entry Level: The Band

Ok, why isn't early Genesis more popular then?

Spotify isn't the best way to judge a band's success. Obviously Queen are huge though. It's not really hard to see why, catchy pop-rock with unique vocals.

I don't think there is a single person who hasn't listened to Queens hits considering how prevalent they are. I think they are good but in no way far superior to other popular acts of the time. They started out as a good hard rock band with very light prog elements which is characteristic of the time, but then went to extremely uninspired and generally bad pop rock in the 80s.

Genesis' early stuff isn't as poppy and accessible.

Pretty sure Queen came before both of those.

you realize queen predates both of these bands right user

Maybe on Spotify they are, but if you look at Last.fm they aren't really the most popular older band. They are quite high for sure, but not among the most popular ones.

Maybe because the general public uses Spotify instead of last.fm

But spotify is by far the most popular streaming service, so it's probably also the most accurate

Lurk more

Spotify and Last.fm can be linked together and many people do that, probably the most scrobbles come from there - as a proof look at how most scrobbled Iron Maiden songs are called: last.fm/music/Iron Maiden

They are all retarded tags coming from Spotify

its true, first band i was ever obsessed with. While i dont beleive that they made any great individual album (thanks roger taylor), they have a large amount of fantastic hits.

Same with me, used to be way too obsessed with them when I was 12

>(thanks roger taylor)
What does he have to do with that?

reddit soyboys.

just.....

Oh, sorry. I meant to say that Normies don't tend to use last.fm, so over there the most popular stuff should be different. I get you point anyways.

me because I can't stand Mercury's shitty over the top "singing", I only know Prince of the Universe because of the Highlander TV show (the movie sucked)

they were shitty post Beatles stagnation The Who, King Crimson, Hawkwind and Deep Purple were far better.

Spotify is more accurate for newer music. For bands that have been around for 40 years. A lot of people probably own physical albums.

They aren't nearly as big and Floyd, Zep, Stones but they're the next step down.

He is responsible for so many tracks that turned the potentially awesome Queen albums into mediocre albums.
> Im In Love With My Car
> Modern Times Rock 'n roll
> The Loser in the End
> Tenement Funster
> Drowse
> (((Fun It)))
All of the low points of Queen's albums are coated in the stink of Roger Taylor. The only acceptable song he wrote was Radio Gaga, and he didn't even really write that, Freddie finished it while Roger was on vacation.

Its because they are a great band who had reasonable longevity and reinvented themselves several times.
They went off the rails a bit in the 80s but still kept pumping out hit singles.
It isn't the answer Sup Forums wants to hear but the reason they get a lot of plays is solid songwriting and in particular, strong melodies that aren't dirges on one note as later became popular. They are similar to Abba in that regard, whether you think they are cool or embarrassing really depends on the moment, they go in and out of favour in that regard. Bottom line is you can put "Don't stop me now" on and it still sounds exciting.

Queen really is one of the better bands of the 70s. Queen I, Queen II, and Sheer Heart Attack are better than the best Led Zeppelin album AND the best Pink Floyd album.

>imo
Physical Graffiti and Animals

Sparks and Queen are not really alike. Theyre just as similar as Queen and Rush or Sparks and The Cars.

Far from ripping off.

Yeah I don't agree with that at all. Queen was a singles band, their albums lack consistency and focus. Considering how much more focused they were on creating albums as a whole experience, I would easily put half of Led Zeppelins and Pink Floyds albums over my favorite Queen album.

Speaking of which, the Freddie Mercury Biopic isn't happening anymore. Brian Singer tried to molest Rami Malek on set.

That's crazy. Queen was focused on singles and they STILL made more enjoyable albums than Zeppelin or Floyd.

Far out.

this but unironically

>Im In Love With My Car
but this song is good
I agree with the rest though

> Im In Love With My Car
> Modern Times Rock 'n roll
> Tenement Funster
> Drowse

These are all awesome songs.

Zepplin and Floyd are 100x better. They made really unique and innovative music that was ahead of their time. Queen is just fun pop songs to sing along to.

Ludicrous. Sheer Heart Attack and A Night At The Opera are more innovative than anything either Floyd or especially Zeppelin ever did. You have evidently listened to neither.

Here we go again, another thread with opinions on Queen based on listening to their Greatest Hits compilations.

>Sheer Heart Attack and A Night At The Opera are more innovative than anything either Floyd or especially Zeppelin ever did.
dude, I love Queen but you're just straight up wrong here lmao

What is innovative about photocopying Muddy Waters songs onto a loud drum beat?

>Zeppelin and Floyd are 100x better
Nice anecdotal evidence.

Also, I think Queen and Pink Floyd are both far superior to Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin are the second most overrated rock band of all time, and it has nothing to do with them ripping off old blues guys. Bland hard rock with a terrible singer. If Robert Plant didnt have such an irritating voice, I'd probably like them more.

Again, all imo.

how about you stop oversimplifying artists you don't like and actually give reasons on why you think Queen is more innovative than those two

innovation =/= quality

>moving the goalposts
I agree with you but that's not what we're discussing

This is supposed to be ironic, right?

So any good arguments about why we have to compare floyd and queen as if they were similar bands?

All dadrock is the same.

I didn't start it, numbnuts who claimed the New Yardbirds copying Cream was "innovative" did.

With Queen, where to begin really. The Brighton Rock guitar solo. Bohemian Rhapsody in general (or the Lap of the Gods). Did Les Paul ever manage something as convincing as Good Company? Stone Cold Crazy, there is a reason Metallica play it is an encore. They did nothing but innovate, they were the successors to the Beatles in that regard. I mean, what kind of music is A Night At The Opera by genre - its different on every track.

But yeah, an album of Willie Dixon covers that came out after both is more "innovative".

Only the 80s dadrock sounds all the same.

And Pink Floyd, I'm hunting for what they did that is supposed to so impressive. Echoes and One of These Days are OK but making three or four albums of versions out of them isn't that interesting to me. Maybe the vocals on Great Gig In The Sky but the Stones and even Simon & Garfunkel (Save the life of my child) had done that before.

All the best Led Zeppelin material is completely original though. Stairway to Heaven (that lawsuit was a huge stretch), Black Dog, The Rain Song, No Quarter, Achilles Last Stand, Kashmir, Ten Years gone. Even their stolen stuff was so altered that there is barley a resemblance. Listen to the original When the Levee breaks, then compare it to the Zeppelin version, how much of it did they really steal? Beyond the lyrics basically nothing, and that true for 90% of their "stolen". The biggest offence was Dazed and Confused, they took the song in a completely other direction but they still should have given credit. I'm not gonna deny they took a bunch of material on their first few albums but it really wasn't much worse then a bunch of artists back them. Most of those blues songs they existed for a long time and have been played, changed, and recorded multiple time before Led Zeppelin came along.

...

Good argument. I feel silly now.

How is Bohemian Rhapsody innovative? All they did was take the trend of longer multi part songs common in prog rock and present it in a more accessible way. Queen was not the first band to do any of the things you mentioned. They made fun, simple rock tracks, nothing wrong with that. Queen always played it safe, and that's a big reason why they are popular. They never did anything "scary" to the mainstream public like make a 20 minute psychedelic space rock track like Floyd or push for a heavier sound like Zeppelin. I wouldn't even say those two bands were particularly innovative but compared to Queen they definitively experimented more.

>they were shitty post Beatles stagnation
Queen sound nothing like the fucking Beatles you lunatic.

I feel like Queen, and many other of the great bands of yore, experience a regular wax and wane of popularity. I can remember back in the late 00s/early 10s when they were at a high point and Reddit constantly espoused how 'epic' they were to the point where eventually there was a huge backlash against them, everyone was sick of it, and they receded for a time. In this current cycle, they're likely experiencing a boost in popularity on account of the Jojo's DiU anime and Baby Driver to a lesser extent. Another example of this is when Wayne's World came out and everybody was hyped about Bohemian Raphsody because of the car scene.

I think you mean cinematic...

...which I'll concede is the only reason why they're popular in the first place

Without Wayne's World they would have fallen into obscurity after Freddie died

I agree, at least The Beatles have like three albums that have actually good production that stands out compared to other pop music of its time.

This. When I got into them in the late 90s/early 00s, nobody liked Queen.

I have to say, I fell in love with 'I'm In Love With My Car' when it was used in a car commercial some time ago.

"Fun simple rock tracks" - there is something wrong with your ears.

Led Zep are just Cream with poorer musicianship playing uncredited covers, its a non-starter I'm afraid. They've never claimed to be innovative anyway, they are a hard rock band with odd Faiport/Jansch cribs, its a fairly fixed genre.
Pink Floyd are fine but it all sounds the same after a bit, they sound like every other London psych band, then they record Echoes and everything sounds like that until Roger Waters got bored and left.

Here is what I think is going on. A song like Killer Queen is so fluent and melodic that you think its easy or simple, indeed, like many of their classic tracks it feels like it might always have existed somehow and it was just a question of writing it down. You've missed the wood for the trees.

Yes the band that made Under Pressure, We Will Rock You, We are the Champions, Crazy Little Thing Called Love and Another One Bites The Dust would have faded away if not for mike myers. They certainly weren't popular before that movie.

nb. Only in the US where Led Zep were disproportionately popular, probably because its relatively unsophisticated simple music which suits the bland American palate.
Queen are huge all over the world, even in like obscure 3rd world countries and at the time the eastern bloc, just never in the US for some reason.

News of The World is criminally underrated. No flow to the album but great songs and lesser known ones like All Dead, Spread Your Wings and It's Late

You know i love Killer Queen, one of my favorite Queen songs, but I'm not gonna act like its some complex and innovative piece of music that only the truly cultured can understand, unlike those swine that enjoy Zeppelin and Cream. It's a well put together pop-rock song, nothing more. As far as musicianship goes, calling the members of Cream and Led Zeppelin is lesser musicians is just wrong, Like Roger Taylor with Ginger Baker or John Bonham. Brian May is an underrated guitarist but hes not better then Page or Clapton.

Well the poppier the band the more world wide acclaim they get. Zeppelin were heavy as fuck for their time and very controversial.

And this is the chart for how much Led Zeppelin IV sold worldwide.

I was comparing Led Zep to Cream. JPJ and Bonham, while I like the noise that they make, aren't even really musicians compared to Jack and Ginger, they are just blokes in a band. Its a different thing, there is no contest.

Here we get to the depths of it:
>I'm not gonna act like its some complex and innovative piece of music that only the truly cultured can understand

Well put together pop that stands the test of time is deceptive, its extremely difficult to do well and is strongly demanding of innovation and sophistication. ABBA would be one of the few other examples of that kind of titanic talent at work. This is why people like both of them to do this day when others have fallen at the roadside, quality will out.

You just can't detect it unless it sounds like people are trying really hard, or "innovation" is so clumsily applied it stands out and you're missing the point completely.

I'm guessing you either haven't listened to much Led Zeppelin or are just ignorant if you can confidently they less sophisticated then Queen.

Here's the thing about Freddie

They really aren't, you seem to think qualities are the same thing as value judgements and they aren't. I like lots of music that just sounds good, this is really what rock and roll is after all.

My point to you is that you are making a rather immature mistake, you think things that sound effortless are, and things that sound difficult demonstrate greater sophistication - you are wrong. You aren't alone in this, its the disease that ruins Sup Forums but there it is.

I never understood this meme. I've been on Reddit for years and I haven't seen any Queen fanboying

I don't think you understand what innovation is. You can 100% detect innovation because if it's being done correctly it should be something you have never heard before. When I look at Queen, I can't see a single significant thing they did first. They took pre-existing ideas, and put them together in a very attractive package. The idea of pop music can be applied to a multitude of genres, it's basically denoting something as accessible and therefore "popular". Both King Crimson and Queen can be classified under the term rock but on is pop-rock and the other very much not. Like basically all pop acts that have stood the test of time, Queen did what they did extremely well, but they never veered very far off the established track into the unknown. You can't tell me a single Queen song that more adventurous then songs from the same period like Rush's 2112 or Yes's Close to the Edge. I'm not saying those songs are naturally better, some people may prefer the simplicity of a Queen song to the over the top and complex nature of Rush, but calling Queen something they are not just because you like them is foolish.

Yes, I am. Your problem is that you don't understand it for the reasons I've explained.

Here is a useful leaflet aimed at 14 year olds you might find useful.

pearsonschoolsandfecolleges.co.uk/Secondary/Music/14-16/EdexcelGCSE(9-1)Music/Samples/Student-Resource-Samples/Section-3-Area-of-Study-2-Queen-Sample.pdf

You are ignorant for assuming that something can't sound good and be more complex. Calling people pretentious and looking down on them because they enjoy something a little more complex then your average Queen song is pretty hypocritical don't you think. Acting like you have superiority because can you can appreciate the subtle yet brilliant simplicity of Radio Gaga is pretty ironic. Complexity doesn't equate to quality but I personally believe that the best musicians are able to efficiency combine both. I can enjoy a Queen song, but personally they don't offer the same depth as other artists. I can listen to Killer Queen a few times and get a pretty full grasp on the song, and because of that i tire of it quickly. I'll return to it later but it's not something i can listen to multiple time and stay interested. I can listen to a King Crimson song over and over and still find it fresh and exciting, something I can't do with Queen. That's just me personally, and everyone is different so stop assuming Queen sounds just as good to everybody, cause it's not true.

Queen > Sheer Heart Attack > Queen II > A Night at the Opera > A Day at the Races > Jazz >>> News of the World > The Works > The Game > Innuendo > The Miracle > A Kind of Magic >>>>>>>> Hot Space

Not the person you were replying to, I'm glad I finally found someone who doesn't like queen who isn't a pretentious asshole about it.

Dude you sound like a Rick and Morty fanboy.

Stop.

nigga Hot Space is slightly better than Kind of Magic
other than that I like your ranking

Well, nobody listens to King Crimson because it doesn't sound very good. Robert Fripp is only the second most successful recording artist in his own living room.

You're still confusing the laboured sounds of people largely failing to do something with complexity or sophistication. There is more going on in how ABBA deal with a melody line across verses which you probably think is the same every time than there is in the whole of the average Rush song. Its just not being annoying about it.

I'd put Innuendo a little higher and swap Queen and Queen II but other than that fairly solid ranking

their songs are catchy and they try to make you feel something, and feel something besides the usual "song about my gf/bf" shit
it also helped having Freddie Mercury just belting out every single lyric, if the singer is enthusiastic and on point it makes you want to sign along more

>self-titled first
superb taste, user

>they never veered very far off the established track into the unknown

You mean apart from inventing thrash metal?
youtube.com/watch?v=T8Rfb1Jtmic

we're reaching levels of bait that shouldn't even be possible

Everything from their first album to Live Killers is GOAT. I don't like anything between The Game and Innuendo.

Just as they were rediscovering what made them so great in the first place...........

Queen were literally Rush except the musical quality was actually on par with the instrumental talent, whereas Rush were just good at their instruments but didn't write many good songs.

Good enough for Metallica to cover!

You got dubs, but Queen were around years before Devo hit the scene.

I don't even know why you're comparing the two.

The Who did it ten years before Queen with A Quick One While He's Away. Sticking a whole fuck load of songs together to make on huge song that tells a story is nothing new.

Fun fact: Queen were originally called Sour Milk Sea which was a song written by The Beatles.

I asked my mom because she was a kid-through-teenager when they were current and she said it's because they wrote what was on their mind, and what was on their mind were things people are always going to think about

You said this last time, but you've still not actually listened to A Night At The Opera which isn't a concept album and doesn't tell a story.

I like threads like this, even with the arguing people are connecting over something, something they really have shared

Incredible compositions, virtuosic musicians, arguably the best frontman of all time who is also one of the most talented rock singers of all time, a unique aesthetic, extreme charisma, a longer than average period of releasing good music, and identity tied to a nation, aesthetics and sound spanning tons of different styles, successful songs in multiple styles... Pretty easy to understand why the fanbase is so large and so enthusiastic.

But aside from all that, have you seen Live at Wembley? Watch it and you'll understand. It's an absolute fucking monster of a band.

youtube.com/watch?v=R-soyspdwqU

With this post I can now confirm you're mentally challenged. Rush is more innovative and has more staying power then ABBA could ever dream. You're glorification of what is really a pretty standard pop group is impressive. No, not many people listen to ABBA these days, they are a novelty act. Geddy Lee has more talent in in little finger then the entirety of Queen.

>hawkwind
my nigga

On an instrument by instrument basis Rush blow Queen away. I would love to see John Deacon and Roger Taylor try to perform YYZ to the same perfection Rush can. Rush has multiple songs better that alone I would take over the entire discography of Queen. Xanadu, 2112, both parts of Cygnus X1, La Villa Strangiato, Jacob's Ladder are better songs then anything Queen has ever put to tape.

>arguably the best frontman of all time
who are;
Mick Jagger
Iggy Pop
Lemmy Kilmister
Henry Rollins
Bon Scott
Glenn Danzig
Alice Cooper
Nick Cave
Lou Reed
David Bowie

>outing yourself as a redditor
Sup Forums truly is the worst board

I said arguably. And yeah, he's way better than anyone on that list except possibly Bowie during Bowie's good periods (Bowie had some very bad periods for his live show).

Cat's out of the bag. I'm the boogie man. I'm a white liberal atheist who thinks Sup Forums is "creepy". Take me away