Zoe and the X-men

Guess who got sucked in to the marketing of the new X-Men movie.



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Queen for a Day - You're My Best Friend

John Deacon rears his songwriting head and comes up with the band's second, sure fire, radio friendly, super massive hit.
Starting off with a cheesy wurlitzer organ, the song comes across like the sound of the day. Meaning, it's dangerously close to the Captain and Tenille.
Rogers giant drums, the multi harmonies, Freddie's earnest singing, Brian's killer guitar work and RTB's production, elevate the song so high that it still turns up in movies and commercials. Nearly 40 years after it's release.
On the remastered you can really hear the xylophone-esque keyboard in the background.

It's cheese, but ready made wedding cheese.

Grade: B-


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Queen for a Day - I'm in Love with My Car

A truly ridiculous song. Truly. A love song to a car. Four albums in and Roger continues to prove that as a songwriter he's an awesome drummer.
Yet, it's catchy as hell. Why? Well beyond rhyming "forget her" with "carburetor", it's also earnest while at the same time knowing just how dumb it is.
It's a bad song, but those harmonies are killer. And it made roger a rich man since he begged Freddie to let it be the B side to Bohemian Rhapsody. Therefore it sold with that song and made a fortune for him. It's not the worst thing ever but it's pretty stupid.

Grade: C+



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Queen for a Day - Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon

A hard left turn after the opener, Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon is the closest the band comes to sounding like Sparks.
A trifle at barely a minute, it features multi layered vocals by Fred as well as some sweet almost honkey tonk piano playing.
Even more effete than he's ever been before this is another side of Freddie as Wilde. It also represents a nice palette cleanser from the screed that came before and, like the previous two records, represents part of a larger whole as it smashes into the next song with senseless yet perfectly sensible abutting.

Grade: A+

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Queen for a Day - Death on Two Legs (dedicated to...)

By time queen went in to the studio to record what would be, at that time, the most expensive album ever recorded, they had broken up with their manager, Norman Sheffield. A man so evil by all accounts that, despite having a number one hit, Freddie had to beg to borrow a few quid to buy a new piano. Shameless.
So, Freddie penned a screed so hateful, funny and lacerating that it could be used as a poison pen letter for, well, just about anyone or any circumstance warranting it.
The studio magic is effortless and leaps above anything they had done before. In a way it calls to mind Ogre Battle in it's sheer bombast but there's a biting subtlety or nuance to it.
Starting off with a piano as calliope, it descends into madness and then back to glam meets rock theater piece. It's got teeth, this one, not just lyrically. This song is loaded for bear. Better heard on headphones, there's so much going on, fitfully stopping, disappearing, starting again, soloing, it's the kitchen sink of Queen.
And then it's gone.

Fred's pissed off but he's still above it. On this track, he transforms himself from pomp rocker to the Oscar Wilde of music.

Grade: A+

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Queen for a Day- In the Lap of the Gods...revisited

The first real "anthem" in the bands catalog, Lap has little to do with the Side Two opener save the name. Instead, it's a stadium ready beast that seems to say (well, Freddie is the one saying it, really) "we are meant to pay for thousands, nay, HUNDREDS of thousands of people and we can pull it off!"
And pull it off he does. I mean, they do.
A true coda, a genuine finale, to a near perfect record and one that stands the test of 27 years' time.

Grade: A


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Queen for a Day - She Makes Me (Stormtrooper in Stilletoes)

Utilizing a wall of sound, heavy breathing and some elegiac harmonies reminiscent of The Monkees' The Porpoise Song, Brian May comes up with the only...ballad?
It's a fitting coda to this hodgepodge of a record if the least inventive or interesting. I enjoy the nightmare city sounds that overwhelm the song toward the end but thats about it. Not a lot of thought went into this one.

Grade: C

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Queen for a Day - Bring Back That Leroy Brown

Another harbinger of what would come on the next record this is a retro vaudeville song complete with brian may on ukelele, jangly piano, some terrific noodling by Brian on electric and some neat bass playing by John. The real treat here is Freddie. Doubling, tripling, acting, echoing, he does everything.
The economy of the song is remarkable. It packs an epic into a tight, taut, 2+ minutes.
Perhaps my favorite song on the record, it's hard to imagine that this was the same album that started off with the hard rocking Brighton Rock as we are now in full on eclectica.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - Misfire

The first John Deacon penned track is the tritest song on the record. And the one that harkens the most to The Beatles. Mostly in instrumentation, with the loopy lick and the bouncy McCartney bass line. The song itself is the definition of forgettable, so thank goodness it's just 1:50. Hard to believe that the writer of this song would go on to write some of the band's biggest hits.
This is not one. However, Neko Case, on her solo album, covered this song, for some reason and it turned out pretty spiffy. Maybe it just needed to be sung by a woman, that way the lyrics can sound like bad come ons rather than poorly misguided double entendres, which I don't think they were meant to be, but seem to be.
Trite indeed.

Grade: C-


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Queen for a Day - Dear Friends

In keeping with the concept of this being the boys' Abbey Road, Brian May follows the shredtastic Stone Cold Crazy with a piece of piffle. A little piano piece featuring Freddie's exceptional vocals. Another song that could be longer but end up being the perfect length and just over a minute. Its almost an interlude. An interlude to what, i don't know. But it works. Gentle and sweet. And those backing vocals...wow. Just beautiful.

Grade: A-


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Queen for a Day - Stone Cold Crazy

Have you ever heard Metallica do this song? They really didn't have to do much to make it sound authentically metal. It's a shredder of a piece. Spitfire rapped out verses with no melody to speak of sandwiched between the title as chorus sung as in signature harmony. There's a killer riff all over this track and a fiery solo. It's a blast. It's the Polythene Pam of Sheer Heart Attack. And it sounds fresh almost 40 years later.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - In the Lap of the Gods

Perhaps the most bizarre song in the bands earlier catalog. It's not the first operatic venture (March of the Black Queen) but it is easily the main precursor to BoRhap. But much weirder.
The opening verse starts with the obligatory opera shrieks but turns into a ballad where Freddie's voice is mangled to the point of unrecognizability, then the chorus is some bastardized Beatles latter day track and the scat wails by Roger echo Pink Floyd.
And the words "Lap of the Gods" are just repeated for a few mintues until the song disintegrates into nothingness replaced by the next. It's as though the guys had been listening to side two of Abbey Road non stop and this is what they came up with.
As a song, it's ho hum at best. As an experiment in studio manipulation and band boldness? It's a smash.

Grade: B+


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Queen for a Day - Now I'm Here

The first real stadium ready, blues breaking, anthem in the bands repertoire, comes at the end of Sheer's first side.
It's raucous, fun and a showcase for Brian. Who perhaps was making up for lost time on the first record.
Sort of the spiritual cousin of Brighton Rock, Now is the hybrid of glam and blues. A real tour de force that shows the band maturing into something great.

Grade: A


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Queen for a Day - Lily of the Valley

The kindred spirit of Nevermore. It's a lovely, if super short ballad featuring Freddie on piano and vocals and vocals and vocals. Wen the rest of the band comes in, you'd swear this song is longer and even more fully realized than it is. But it's just 1:45. And it's awesome.
This sort of sound and ballad would be expanded on in a few years on A Day at the Races.

Grade: A

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Queen for a Day - Flick of the Wrist

Another suite! Funster leads right into the dark screed that is Flick of the Wrist. A song that warns against signing with a devilish recording manager, it's well known that, in the early days, Queen were indentured servants to their management company. Hit songs on the radio and Freddie begging to borrow money to pay for a new piano. In the future the boys would become so guarded about their image that the propaganda would be off putting and impenetrable.
This song is a warm up for Death on Two Legs.
Here its a terrifically angry anthem. Multi vocals harmonizing like soaring bats and gargoyles. No filigree, no fat, just theatre and rock.
The song doesn't end, however, and that's a sorry part, as it tries to emulate the previous album by folding into a ballad.
But that's for tomorrow.

Grade: A

http://m.youtube.com/index?client=mv-google&desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US&rdm=4mltwaush#/watch?v=jeGZf97Q4m4


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Queen for a Day - Tenement Funster

It's the Roger song, what does that mean? Mid-tempo rocker, all down beats, relatively colorless. It is nothing more than a dress rehearsal for "I'm in love with my car".

Grade: C+

www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPAkL3wO27E

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Queen for a Day - Killer Queen

Sorry about not posting this yesterday, the whole day got away from me. But the good news is that today is a twofer. Since it Tuesday, that seems appropriate.

Queen has a hit! Finally.
The funny thing is it's nothing like one would have expected, given their output the last two records. It's a piano/harpsichord driven piece of jaunt about a high class hooker. It's lyrical, yes, but musically, it's so steeped in the "glam" sound of 1974, it could have been written by Sparks. Or Raspberries, if they had the sensibility.
Killer also contains the tastiest and most melodic guitar solo Brian May had ever recorded.
It's a "pop" single in the purest 1974 sense of the word,yet it's also timeless.
Confection is a word often used to describe stuff like this and it fits for a reason.

Grade: A+

www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6cEsOP9nQU

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Queen for a Day - Brighton Rock

Named after a candy, the first track off Queen's first breakthrough album, Sheer Heart Attack, is a Brian May tour de force. All the more interesting in that Brian was in the hospital with hepatitis during much of the album's initial recording, it's a real lead guitar tour de force. At about 3 minutes in the entire band drops out save for Brian and his multi-layered contrapuntal, six string electric call and response. In fact, the whole song is almost just an excuse for that and one that would show some real muscle in concert.

Freddie plays both the male and female in the song, who are worried that their love tryst will be found out and he avails himself well, as do the rest of the band, but, make no mistake, this is s Brian May Show. The third time in a row that a song by Brian would open a Queen album.

Grade: A

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdUKi3_QntE


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Queen for a Day - Seven Seas of Rhye

On the first album this song was half finished and yet, to whet the appetite for the future listener (read: fill time), the band included it. That version was sluggish and not well though out.
Things are mighty different this time out.
The piano is played with purpose. The guitar glisses are cinematic. The band is tighter. And, most important, Freddie is in full glam-bat out of hell vocal regalia.
There is tension as we come out of the solos that suggest an army of bat Ike gargoyles swooping down with a vengeance.
The song ends with a happy beach going chorus fighting their way in to be heard, and they win out in the end, suggesting out emergence from whatever funhouse fantasia this album has been.

Grade: A

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsXJ_bfy98c


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Queen for a Day - Funny How Love Is

Queen would never sound like this again. Employing Phil Spector's "wall of sound" technique, this tune actually harkens back to Freddie's Larry Lurex "I can hear music" days.
It's a fun tune, whimsical, with multi-layered vocals flying all over the place, I'm not sure any other other members are on it save Roger. The fourth track in the Side Black suite, it was never performed live, which is a shame, since it would have been such a fun song to sing along to.

Grade: A

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnIOd6EioWw


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Queen for a Day - March of the Black Queen

It starts off simply. A piano and an interstitial guitar. Within seconds it explodes with multilayered harmonies and before you know it, it revs up into a high gear, like a juggernaut. Even when it turns into a near a Capella it still rolls at 100mph.
Then, a guitar solo amidst a march the Red Queen would have been jealous of.
In short, it's March of the black Queen, the centerpiece of Queen II. And I've always wondered why anyone would have been surprised at the operatic hit a few years later since that's what this song is: opera.
If there is one song that truly represents all Queen was about, it's this one. Everyone shines from the players to the producers. There are so many surprises (and a beloved harpsichord) and treats and movements, it's an impossible song to deny. It plays like a five act play. Truthfully, all of side black begs to be turned into a musical theater experience.
Sublime.
(note: Blogger's servers were down yesterday when this was supposed to publish. There will be another entry later tonight.)

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - Nevermore

Clocking in at 1:15, the ballad in the middle of the four song suite acts more like the turning point in a musical. The banishment from love that freddie is singing about could just as easily be the banishing of a prince or princess. It's not. It's a love ballad, a sad one and one that doesn't linger for very long. The harmonies are majestic, far reaching and elegiac, the piano playing sparse and delicate. It's a lovely little piece, a harbinger (again) of music to come in about two years. It works fine as a sketch, a doodle. It's s little treacly but I don't really mind that either. Sweet.

Grade: B+



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Queen for a Day - The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke

So, Freddie saw this painting by Richard Dadd and wrote a song describing everything in it. In just over 2.5 minutes. It's speedy, it's wordy (a good apothecary man?!?), there's a guitar solo PRECEDED by a HARPSICHORD solo!! The song is an epic part of the multiple song suite that makes up Side Black and it was never played live. Why should they? At best it's piffle. Middle earthian piffle.
It's also one of the best songs Queen ever produced.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day -Ogre Battle

Okay, here we are. Finally.
How to describe "ogre battle"? It's metal/glam explosion of backwards masking, sudden harmonies, mythological creatures that aren't annoying, bombast, and musicianship.
If you marry the early 70s obsession with middle earth to a combination of of metal and pop rock, you *might* get an idea of what this song is all about.
"Ogre Battle" starts off Side Black, the side of the record that is 100% Freddie Mercury. Most of it is one long seamless suite of bombast and theater. Everything that would coalesce into their biggest hit just one year later, the song that still stands as one of the greatest of all time, can be found here in side black.
"Ogre" may be dumb in subject but it's brilliant in craft.
It's really best to just listen to it. I think you'll agree.
(I will provide a link when I am at my actual computer. No way to link from e iPad.)


Grade: A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DvlYv5RrVQ&sns=em


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Queen for a Day - Loser in the End

Roger Taylor's contribution to Queen II is a generic Taylor Tune. Mid-tempo, downbeat, slave to its rhythm (hey, he's a percussionist!). Roger would get this formula right in a few records and eventually score a number one hit about 13 years later with it. I should make a Roger Taylor only playlist just to see how similar his songs are.
If there is a theme in Queen II, "Loser in the End" fits nowhere in it. It's a song about how mothers are discarded and unneeded as one gets older. Pity her, she's a sad case.
Wow, how appropriate that this tune lands on Mother's Day.
It's a glorious mess of aimless guitar soloing, schizoid percussion and cowbells (At least I think they're cowbells..).
And thus ends the Mercury-less side of Queen II.
Tomorrow Queen really gets going.

Grade: B-

Queen for a Day - Some Day, Some Way

In a few weeks we will get to the track that made me fall completely in love with Queen. Because I thought they were Fleetwood Mac. And it's not like I love FM.
This isn't that song, but it's very similar. Just about every Queen album includes a skiffly acoustic track written by Brian. This is that song. It's cute. It's a little too in love with the stars. A little too trippy (on the Red Special solos).
But worst of all for this blog series:
It's not sung by Freddie. Since this series was dedicated to the 20th anniversary of Mercury's death I just thought it was important to point that out.
That aside, the trouble with May's vocals is he's trying too hard to be an accomplished vocalist. You can hear it in his very forced vibrato. Brian always had a weak voice. Certainly not a rock voice. Or a rock voice that fits the power of this band. Fortunately on this song, power isn't necessary. So, it's fine. It's not great. Just passable.

Grade: B-

Queen for a Day - White Queen (As It Began)

(Update: This post was accidentally named for the song that follows. I apologize for any confusion. Don't be confused! All 3 of you that read this blog!)

Continuing the Brian May dominance on Side White of Queen II, the lead guitarist offers the sadly lovely White Queen (As It Began). I have often wondered which came first, this or the Freddie penned March of the Black Queen on the other side. Doesn't really matter, they're completely different. And exactly what they should be in this almost Wizard of Oz-ian Queen records. I say that because once we get past the relative normalcy (albeit a funhouse mirror of normal) of the first side, the album shifts gears and becomes a completely different animal.
This track calls to mind some middle earthy tones. It's majestic. It's almost too Tolkien. And it could have taken that dive and not recover but the May/Deacon/Taylor power rips that theme to shreds. The song almost dares Freddie to take his theatrics to a new level. He doesn't take the bait. And that's a great thing. Instead, he offers the sweetest balladeering that we've heard from him so far. With weaker production and less studio time, "White Queen" could have easily been just another half assed track like the stuff from the previous record. Instead, it soars into a prog-rocky territory that resembles Yes, ELP and, I'm going with Priest. Or someone. It's not the greatest track ever, but it fits perfectly. Side White would soon become the side of the album that you never played. So, when a track comes up on shuffle that is from that side, it's always welcome.

Grade: B

Queen for a Day - Procession/Father to Son

Okay. Now that we're done with the shite that was that first record we can get to the album that really begins to solidify the Queen sound and sensibility. I came to Queen II late in my adoration of the band. I think I was 15 and had no idea it even existed. But once I saw it and put it on the turntable that summer in Maine in 1981, it never came off. I moved the record player and a speaker into my parents' store on Main St so, when I opened the store I could play this record.
Divided into two sides, White and Black, it has been universally accepted that White opens the record and for good reason. "Procession" is a guitar laden pomp and circumstance into to royalty, laying the foundation for the kind of sounds Brian May would exemplify and, in doing so, become a guitar hero to a legion of young players.
The next song, "Father to Son" could just be a message from a father to his son but since it flows seamlessly from the Procession, I've always imagined some royal highness aspect to it.
As a musical experience, it's a monster. The sheer enormity of it is easy to discount in retrospect because we've come to expect that from this band, but they really invented it right here with this song. The remnants of prog and hippitude are divested and replaced by a stadium ready anthem sound.
The multi-layered vocals, the harmonies, the acoustic guitars fighting for dominance with the electric, the cinematic fade into the next track...it's all so delicious that I am loathe to stop here.
I will. Because this record just gets better and better with each listen.

Grade: A+

Queen for a Day - Mad the Swine

Much as I would love to be moving on the next Queen record (which is a personal favorite) I would be remiss if I didn't include the previous to 1991 unreleased "Mad the Swine". According to Wikipedia the reason it was left off was that producer Roy Thomas Baker and the band were unsatisfied with the quality of the percussion. I would hasten to add: also cuz it's a really dumb song. I say this because a) I've never had an issue with the percussion, in fact I think it's the best thing on the song and because b) it's a dumb song about a prophetic angel who has come back but "this time I wear no sandals". He is Mad the Swine who has come to save everyone ala Jesus. In fact, from everything Freddie sings (Crap like "Let me take you to the river without a fall") its the story of the return of Jesus. But why is his name "Mad"? And why is he referred to as "the Swine"?
Ugh. I think they just blamed Roger for the fact that Freddie wrote a piece of shit and they recorded it. This song stinks of early 70s love-fest, Godspell-ian hippy, robe-flowing crap.

Grade: D

Queen for a Day - Jesus/Seven Seas of Rhye

Okay, today's a bonus day. Two songs for one day! But, not really.

Jesus is awful. It's a trippy, neo-quasi-semi psychedelic telling of the story of Jesus of Nazareth. It wasn't uncommon for metal bands to mine the bible (or Tolkien, or the middle ages) for material. I don't recall anyone being as blatant as this entry by Queen. It's a pretty boring song and it ends a mediocre album for good reason. If you made it to the end you might become a fan. With it's plodding, marching rock sound meets Andrew Lloyd Webber-esque flowing robes/flower power sentiment, it's just a long exercise of dumb rock. May's solo toward the end shows some promise, though.
Now, I can't totally blame Queen for all of the mess that this song and the rest of the album is. They only got to record on off hours as part of their deal with their management and Trident Studios. So, it's no wonder the record is a hodgepodge. Things would only get better.
Right?

The other song is the actual album closer. A "coda" if you will. The legend goes that Freddie wasn't done writing "Seven Seas of Rhye" but they included what they had anyway. It sounds incomplete. Like a band that has great ideas but not enough time or money to complete them. Freddie's playing hints at some really great things to come. I've always been curious about the decision to put a half written, not entirely conceived song on an album. Seems like a weird thing to do. It's not like it's long enough to qualify as "filler". Oh, well. They'll get back to it.

Jesus Grade: D
Seven Seas of Rhye: C



No Vid for Seven Seas. You're just gonna have to wait....trust me.

Queen for a Day - Son and Daughter

Jeez, guys, Sabbath much? This is Queen at its heaviest. Sludgiest. One of the (few) things I like about this song, as opposed to dislikes, (like freddie's mic...) is the sudden burst into multi-harmonies from the vocals. It doesn't last long but it's a high point and it aims right at what their signature will end up being.
Now, about Freddie's mic...He's modulated way to high and pushed to the point of distortion. He sounds like Julian Casablancas would 30 years later on the first Strokes album. It's a mess. The production here is a disaster and the song isn't much to write home about. The playing is pedestrian, the orchestration sloppy. The song showcases John Deacon a bit but he doesn't have that much to do here besides holding down the sludge.
Skip it. I'm not going to post the original recording. Watch the live version from the 74 Rainbow show instead. It's better. If the song sounded like this on the record it would have gotten a grade and a half higher.

Grade: D-

Queen for a Day - Modern Times Rock and Roll

For years this was my favorite song on what I would have described as a half-assed attempt to be current, schizophrenic debut. It's barely a blip, coming in at under 2 minutes. It's speed metal with feedback, full stops, lightning solos and, surprisingly no drum flash. Given that it was written by a drummer.
Sure, it really wants to be a Zeppelin track. But it also wants to me thrash metal, which predates a lot of that stuff. Roger was always the rock and roller in the band. The guy voted most likely to sleep with models and have babies out of wedlock (I believe he conquered those). He was the one with the candy stripe suit in pictures inside Live Killers. Roger was the guy i wanted to be. He seemed like he was having the most fun. With Keep Yourself Alive, this is as straight ahead rock as this album was going to give.
I dig it.

Grade: A

Queen for a Day - The Night Comes Down

Oh, if ever there was a song that sounded like a band obsessed with Jimmy Page it's this one. Written by May between Smile and Queen it smacks of all that is annoying about 70s frilly-hippy-metal rock. Goofball lyrics ("Lucy was high and so was I), a sound so desperate to be pulchritudinous in it's adoration of the southern california sun-baked music that it just fails on so many levels. Put it this way: if this was the direction the band had followed, in other words, if Freddie wasn't there to take them on a theatrical journey of over the top stadium glam, Queen would have been one and done.

Grade: D

Queen for a Day: Liar

Liar opens Side Two of Queen and it is truly the moment when the band declared their importance in the pantheon of theatrical rock. It's credited to Freddie Mercury but that was mainly because he decided that the lyricist (and hence the writer of the melody) should be the writer of note. But it's obvious that this is a song written by an entire group with a focus. It's closest not to Bohemian Rhapsody, although it is the spiritual cousin of that song, but to Now I'm Here. At the moment I'm writing this I'm listening to a dual guitar solo attack by May that breaks into a percussion based "All Day Long" breakdown. Which, like BoRhap later, is replaced by a crescendoing May led instrumental section. As it concludes it turns into a sort of theater coda, an almost symphonic denouement.
There's no chance one guy wrote this song. Not these guys at this time.
It's a stellar work, however and deserving of ranking among the best of the band's canon.

Grade: A