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Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 3:52 pm**

"We Will Rock You" being one step removed from the Deutschlandlied is about the dumbest thing I will read today, or at least I hope so

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 3:53 pm**

Zot! wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 3:34 pm Well, the Wagnerian operatics of Queen was an certainly a common thread. Certainly Freddy was also an enigmatic egomaniac, while the name Queen denotes a autocracy even before it betrays flamboyance. Before anyone protests, I don't think Queen are actual fascists, but I get the connotation.

I don’t think Queen are fascists either. My original remark was about “fascist posturing” and when two posters claimed bewilderment, I gave some context.

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 3:54 pm**

Lost Highway wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 3:24 pm Queen shifted full gear into stadium rock just as punk had come along, so the idea that there was something fascist about them was hardly an unusual opinion.

Fiery Angel wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 3:04 pmRolling Stone always hated Queen (and I knew you'd dig up that ridiculously moronic Dave Marsh review), so that doesn't really help your case.
If you really knew that, then why the incomprehension in you previous post ?

because I didn't think someone would actually parrot that nonsense and pass it off as some insight into the band's music

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 3:59 pm**

I have no insight into their music apart from that I think most of it is trash. All I did was linking to evidence that Queen have long been accused of fascist tendencies when my remark drew incomprehension.

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:07 pm**

Let's say the premise is accurate and Queen were indeed fascists. So? What's the big deal if a musical group commanded powerful stage presence and sway over a willing audience? It's not like Mercury ordered his minions to take to the streets and slay Kenny Loggins

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:10 pm**

Hell, I didn’t know there were so many Queen fans here !

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:12 pm**

At least you didn't say this on Twitter.

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:16 pm**

Lost Highway wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:10 pm Hell, I didn’t know there were so many Queen fans here !

I like the songs I remember from growing up with classic rock radio, but that's about the extent of it. I don't think one has to be a fan to find open hostility directed at a pretty harmless mainstream rock band a bit odd, though

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:22 pm**

domino harvey wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:16 pm
Lost Highway wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:10 pm Hell, I didn’t know there were so many Queen fans here !
I like the songs I remember from growing up with classic rock radio, but that's about the extent of it. I don't think one has to be a fan to find open hostility directed at a pretty harmless mainstream rock band a bit odd, though

I think we can agree that in terms of ideology we don’t see eye to eye. I’m not going to get into a direct discussion with you about ideological points because of something which happened a few months ago and which strongly made me reconsider whether to still post here. I’ll just leave it at that.

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:23 pm**

There was certainly some aesthetic that rock bands adopted that were certainly fascist inspired but that doesn't equate to them supporting the politics itself. I doubt many people listened to The Wall and thought it was Pro-Facism for instance. The same goes for the film version.

Queen was and is a harmless rock band. Exuberant live performances with large crowds being in any way fascist is just ridiculous.

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:29 pm**

domino harvey wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:16 pm
Lost Highway wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 4:10 pm Hell, I didn’t know there were so many Queen fans here !
I like the songs I remember from growing up with classic rock radio, but that's about the extent of it. I don't think one has to be a fan to find open hostility directed at a pretty harmless mainstream rock band a bit odd, though

If you were a teenager in the early 90s in Britain just after Freddie Mercury died their music was everywhere, was a lot more difficult to escape back then (Still in the days of only 4 tv channels in the UK unless you paid extra for satellite, no internet and pretty much dependent on the radio for your music) and Queen were raised to the level of legendary geniuses. If you already dislike their songs being forcefed their music to that extent is a quick way to turn dislike into lasting hostility. Especially if you're in the kind of environment where disliking bands like Queen or Bon Jovi already mark you out as an outsider.

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 5:15 pm**

I'm surprised there hasn't been a mention of Peter Watkins' "Privilege", which came out 10 years prior to News of the World. While the protagonist of that film is nothing like Freddie Mercury, the film explores the links between fascist presentation and the "rock star" (as the protagonist was a surrogate for many people, imo). I only mention this to point out that this link was shown way before Queen, and I think citing News of the World as a major catalyst is wrong.

2 other things:

1. For better or worse, Freddie Mercury's priority was performance. Brian May typically had more control/interest over the PR/image of the band. While I do agree that News of the World was a conscious reaction to punk rock, I think it was more about keeping a composition-based order (even if it's simple compared to other Queen material) rather than a promotion of Fascism. Yes that interest in order aligns with Fascist philosophy, but it also aligns with plenty of other non-political philosophies. I've always found the direct comparison specious, at best. Yes it creates awkward moments like that German concert. But again, that's far from a direct and provable correlation.

2. That Rolling Stone quote is stupid and indefensible in any context. Presenting it here as a serious point of debate makes no sense to me.

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 6:01 pm**

Just weighing in to say that I fucking hate Queen, and find their giftwrapped foot stomping sports anthems just as cynical as parody music, if not moreso. They rank on a The Doors level of "Really? This?!" cultural absurdity in my book. Power to those who are stating their position on this, I am in your corner.

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 6:06 pm**

sounds like you've only heard 2 of their songs

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 7:21 pm**

I will absolutely state that I have not heard their entire catalog, but it's definitely been more than 2 songs.

Anyway, people should be allowed to have even problematic opinions that one another disagree with and not worry about being toe-tapped and finger-wagged at for it, it's a weird trend around here we should probably work to get away from. You can say you don't like Queen or think a movie looks awful and your only interest level in it is whether it'll be nominated for awards without someone rushing in to rain on your parade in some kind of declarative fashion that doesn't meet you at the same level as the initial opinion you put forward. I like to go back and read threads we had here that went on for pages with people riffing and disagreeing and engaging with one another. We can do it without being mean or demeaning to one another. We're all(?) adults.

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 8:09 pm**

I don't know if this is a problematic opinion but people that hate things are invariably worse than the things they hate

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 8:14 pm**

Okay Nietzsche.

(also I'll just say I don't get the dislike for The Doors at all)

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 8:27 pm**

If being introspective, the dislike for both of those bands is definitely loaded with the cultural niche they carved out before I was even born. But the idol worshipping vision of someone who was in essence a strung out lounge singer has never endeared me to The Doors, nor has the keyboard noodling. To each their own, of course.

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 8:32 pm**

mfunk9786 wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 7:21 pm I will absolutely state that I have not heard their entire catalog, but it's definitely been more than 2 songs.

Anyway, people should be allowed to have even problematic opinions that one another disagree with and not worry about being toe-tapped and finger-wagged at for it, it's a weird trend around here we should probably work to get away from. You can say you don't like Queen or think a movie looks awful and your only interest level in it is whether it'll be nominated for awards without someone rushing in to rain on your parade in some kind of declarative fashion that doesn't meet you at the same level as the initial opinion you put forward. I like to go back and read threads we had here that went on for pages with people riffing and disagreeing and engaging with one another. We can do it without being mean or demeaning to one another. We're all(?) adults.

Yes, I think we can just all agree that Queen were a terrible band and move on. :-"

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 8:33 pm**

I thought that Simon Reynolds had a good way of summing up this issue surrounding Queen while eschewing the hyperbole of the Dave Marsh review that was already trotted out. Quoting from his book Shock and Awe:

Until Queen, rock bands had generally aligned themselves with the people. With the possible prior exception of Led Zeppelin, Queen were the first group overtly to break with rock's cult of the underdog and actively identify instead with the overlord. For rock critics in America—a country founded on the ejection of the British monarchy—this made Queen uniquely offensive: it rubbed against their liberal-populist politics, which at that time made them invest hopes for rock's renewal in street punks like the New York Dolls and Brice Springsteen....While Marsh's verdict is a tad harsh...there's no denying that songs like 'We Are the Champions' (with its taunting refrain 'no time for losers') and 'One Vision' do have an unsettling triumphalist and totalitarian vibe to them. Some of Mercury's grandiose onstage gestures more than slightly resembled the strutting of a Mussolini or Latin American dictator. It is tempting to read a certain sympathy for authoritarianism in to things like Queen playing huge stadium concerts in Argentina in 1981—the era of military dictatorship, when dissidents were 'disappeared' by being dropped, drugged, from a helicopter into the Rio de la Palata estuary. (To be fair, they also played in Brazil where the junta were gradually re-democratising the country...) Queen liked to make out they were apolitical, 'just entertainers', but for many they took this stance way too far when they played concerts at Sun City in 1984, breaking the anti-apartheid movement's cultural boycott of South Africa.

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 8:35 pm**

mfunk9786 wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 8:27 pm If being introspective, the dislike for both of those bands is definitely loaded with the cultural niche they carved out before I was even born. But the idol worshipping vision of someone who was in essence a strung out lounge singer has never endeared me to The Doors, nor has the keyboard noodling. To each their own, of course.

The last part is very true and I can't help you with your baggage (I have my own positive baggage as rocking out to them and Better Midler was one of the ways I used to bond with my mum), but the description of lounge singer is completely in the I don't get it category.

Posted: **Wed Oct 10, 2018 8:36 pm**

One of the few decisions I don't regret making as a teenager is ditching modern music in 1997 and going straight into classic rock. Weirdly enough I have come around to the music of that time for mainly sentimental reasons.

I get why people don't like either band (except for homophobia in Queen's case), but I like both quite a lot. I've been listening to a lot of Doors stuff lately, and particularly live they could be awful depending how fucked up Morrison was. They could also be brilliant under those circumstances too. I think he was very lucky to have those three talented musicians behind him who got what he was about, that made them such a good band, because admittedly he doesn't have a great singing voice. He was rarely profound as a lyricist either but again his energy and delivery were more important in retrospect.

Bringing this back to the movie a little, someone on reddit brought up Oliver Stone's movie and I thought how much more ridiculous it would be if he had to make a PG-13 of Morrison's story. I realize there are ways now to make a movie with such a rating considering the kind of approach to the material in this case, but it still feels disingenuous to the kind of life Mercury lived, to sanitize it even just a little bit. “Do anything you want with my music dear, but never make me boring!” is an exact quote from him, and from the outset this has been in danger of doing that.

Posted: **Thu Oct 11, 2018 12:21 am**

knives wrote: Wed Oct 10, 2018 8:35 pmBetter Midler

Got my new band name. Thanks!

Posted: **Thu Oct 11, 2018 2:47 am**

Surprised no one has thrown The Smiths into this.

Posted: **Thu Oct 11, 2018 3:15 am**

Hey now, let's not say anything we might regret

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