Classic Rock Bottom

VOTW - QUEEN solo

I'm not at all a fan of "Queen-solo". I AM a fan of Queen, but only up until 1980. From then on, it went too much disco/pop-crap and weaker songs/albums imo., with a few exceptions. I DID like (and saw them on the tour) A Kind Of Magic, but some of the magic was by then long gone...imo. Listening to these solo-video's, it went even worse, when they were solo (an exception is the Taylor-song, but that's the only one from before 1981, so there). What do YOU think of "Queen-solo"? Oh, and I had to post my favorite song of alltime, with a little personal story, that I might have shared before, not an important one, except to me, off course:

FREDDIE MERCURY - I WAS BORN TO LOVE YOU

"I Was Born to Love You" is a 1985 song by Freddie Mercury, and was released as a single and on the Mr. Bad Guy album. After Mercury's death, Queen re-worked this song for their album Made in Heaven in 1995, by having the other members play their instrumental parts over the original track transforming the song from a disco number to a hard rocker.The song received its live debut on the 2005 Queen + Paul Rodgers tour of Japan. Brian May and Roger Taylor performed the song acoustically. The song was also performed during Queen + Adam Lambert's concerts in South Korea and Japan, which was the first time that a full live band was used for the performance.The Queen version from the Made In Heaven album also includes samples of Mercury's ad-lib vocals taken from "A Kind of Magic" from the 1986 album of the same name and from "Living On My Own" from his Mr. Bad Guy album.I remember this one from 1985, and I liked it, but I was still dissapointed in the Disco-sound, and that Queen didn't really produce great albums anymore. Still a great time.

BRIAN MAY - DRIVEN BY YOU

"Driven by You" is a song by Queen's lead guitarist Brian May. It was written as part of his 1992 solo album, Back to the Light. It was released as a single in late 1991, peaking at #6 on the UK Singles Chart and #9 on the US Mainstream Rock Tracks Chart.Besides the original album/single version, there are three other known studio versions of the song. One was used in a Ford commercial. The second is an instrumental remix of the song, called Driven by You Too. The other known version of this song has a new drum track from Cozy Powell as a bonus track on the US release of Back to the Light.Shortly before releasing it as single, May played it on the Guitar Legends concert in October 1991, having a super-group backing him: Cozy Powell on drums, Neil Murray on bass, Steve Vai on rhythm guitar, Rick Wakeman and Mike Moran on keyboards, Maggie Ryder, Miriam Stockley and Chris Thompson on backing vocals. Many fans think this song is dedicated to Freddie Mercury because of the lyrics and the song title Driven by You.It was released on 6 November 1991, just 18 days before the death of May's bandmate Freddie Mercury.It was used by the Ford Motor Company in an advert for the Ford Escort RS Cosworth, in which Miki Biasion (a ford rally driver at the time) compared his rally car to the road-going version.

ROGER TAYLOR - I WANNA TESTIFY

Can't find much to say about this one, other than it's the first single by Roger Taylor, and it was released in 1977, and it's definitely my favorite among these solo-songs (with Mercury's on second place). Taylor didn't release an album until 1981 (Fun In Space), and this song wasn't included.

JOHN DEACON & THE IMMORTALS - NO TURNING BACK

This is from a soundtrack to a movie called "Biggles" from 1986: "Biggles is a 1986 British sci-fi adventure film directed by John Hough and later released in 1988 in the United States as Biggles: Adventures in Time[3]). The plot involves a time traveller from the 1980s who is inserted into World War I to help the character Biggles from the series of novels by W. E. Johns and where Biggles also travels to the 1980s to fight time-travelling World War I Germans. The film stars Neil Dickson, Alex Hyde-White and Peter Cushing in his final feature film role."The song "No Turning Back" ny The Immortals featuring John Deacon is his only non-Queen recording.

QUEEN - BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

Everybody have seen and heard this song/video a million times, but it IS a very important song/video to me. My favorite song of all time, and the first "video" I really noticed on TV. I probably saw it around 1976, because at the very start of 1977, I had became a KISS-fan without knowing, what they sounded like. I had several KISS-posters on my wall for 3 months or so, without knowing the music, untill I at long last got "Destroyer" for my 12th year old birthday, in April. But if I imagined, what KISS sounded like, looking af those posters in the beginng of 1977, I thought about this video, where the song gets HEAVY and smokebombs gets fired of. Well, eventually I found out, that KISS didn't exactly sound like that at all, but that's another story.

.

Views: 91

Reply to This

Replies to This Discussion

FREDDIE MERCURY - I WAS BORN TO LOVE YOU ... Sounds like it could've been lifted right off of Hot Space. I definitely prefer the Made In Heaven remake.

BRIAN MAY - DRIVEN BY YOU ... Cozy Powell! Awesome to watch this Mega-All-star band play, but the song is just OK made far better because of the guitar work. Still a very interesting video to watch.

ROGER TAYLOR - I WANNA TESTIFY ... They all seem to carry the four part harmonies into their solo work, I suppose thats cool, but its best pulled off as Queen. And its weird seeing him front the band with a guitar. He seems a bit boring to watch. And the song? Well, eh...

JOHN DEACON & THE IMMORTALS - NO TURNING BACK ... Had no idea Deacon had solo work out there. This is definitely a period piece. And not a very good one at that.

Not sure what I could possibly add to the Bohemian Rhapsody vid, like you said, seen it a million times. Fun post!

I listened to some of this the other day, just didn't have time to comment.  The first song by Freddie is okay, but it's not really anything special.  Driven By You, in places, sounds like Freddie singing on it.  Brian May really could sing pretty decent.  He sure as heck could and still can play a guitar.  He is a top 3 all-time guitar player for me.  No one sounds like him.  Well, that's not exactly true, but when someone does sound like him, folks say, "that sounds like Brian May on the guitar".  

The Roger Taylor song is way cool.  I've never heard it before, but I really like it.  I wonder, if at anytime after Freddie's death, when May and Taylor were wanting to continue on recording as Queen, if they put any thought into just handling all vocals by themselves?  He also has a terrific voice and he's a killer drummer.

John Deacon, like May and Taylor, was an expert as far as the bass is concerned.  And I have to take my hat off to him, when he retired, he retired and stayed that way.  This probably wouldn't be considered solo, since he's the bassist for a band, but I get why you included it.  The pickin's are really slim for Deacon.  

BR is certainly a masterpiece.  Would you believe that I don't really remember the song at all until Wayne's World. Nice choice this week, I almost didn't get to it.  

RSS

Question Of The Week

CRB Features (Click photo to visit)

Birthdays

There are no birthdays today

CRB Staff Members

 

In Memory Of

Norma Jean Fox
(11/30/1945-9/7/2010)

Photos

  • Add Photos
  • View All

Videos

  • Add Videos
  • View All

Badge

Loading…

© 2024   Created by RJhog (Admin).   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service