So I'm running for the board of Screen Actors Guild in Hollywood

If you or your friends or your cat or your cgi dog can vote for me, please do.
;)

So, I'm running for the board of Screen Actors Guild in Los Angeles

If you can vote for me, great, I would appreciate your vote. Or your friends' votes. Or, well, anyone that can cast a vote for me, actually.

Queen for a Day - Leaving Home Ain't Easy

Brian also wrote a ballad for this album. Truth is, he is the one who comes off best on the record, even though Freddie wrote the biggest hits.
Like a cousin to She Makes Me, Leaving is in the trope of '39 or Long Away. If one put together an album of Brian's mid tempo acoustic tracks frommthe 70s I think they would have made for a pretty standard California rock sounding album.
I dig this song even though the subject matter is trite and on the nose. Like i said earlier: give the boys a phrase and they'll conjure up a tune,

Grade: B


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Queen for a Day - Fun It

Queen goes disco!
Roger came up with this percussive heavy, electric drum, chic guitar track replete with roller disco whistles. As you can see from this song the band was already playing with the style that would garner them great fame and then great enmity in a short time.
My trouble with all the shit on Jazz is that it's all impertinently hummable. The boys are such craftsmen that they can turn crap into, well, not diamonds, but at least zircons.

Grade: B-


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Queen for a Day - Dreamer's Ball

Brian May wrote this for the late Elvis Presley. Sure, why not?
This is a band that has almost completely run out of ideas.
A simple acoustic campfire ditty with a noodley lead accompaniment, the song is trying to evoke a seaside, Leon Redbone sound with Freddie Mercury crooning along.
Meh.

Grade: C-


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Queen for a Day - In Only Seven Days

John Deacon.
I really shouldn't have to say anything more. This is a crappy list song. I hate list songs. In the list he is on vacation and meets a woman who he then can't find and then does...
It's like a shitty movie, Summer Lovers or something. It makes Friday by that Rebecca Black chick seem like genius.
Freddie does his best but this is the band's nadir.

Grade: F


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Queen for a Day - Dead on Time

Opening like the introduction of a second act of a Rawk Show, Dead on Time is the song you play for people who THINK they Queen but only know the hits.
A blues breaker unequaled in the band's repertoire, I played this track for my lead guitarist to show him...well, to show him why I loved Queen.
Building on the shredding of Keep Yourself Alive, Dead takes it to a whole bother level. It's more aggressive then Brighton Rock or Stone Cold Crazy combined.
The harmonies are sparse but they kill when they need to. Freddie is there to serve the song, as is the rest of the band and they are all there to seve Brian's guitar god majesty.
If you think you know Queen or you THINK because you like Tie Your Mother Down you are versed in Brian May and his contribution to the annals of rock, sit down, give this a listen and learn.
A masterpiece.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - If you Can't Beat Them/Let Me Entertain You

Just look at those titles. The first thing that comes to mind, for me, is, hmmm, I think these guys have run out of ideas and are just sitting in the studio, tossing out random phrases and writing songs about them.
Hey, what about a song about being jealous?
You know, if you can't beat them...hey, waitaminnit.
And so on.
Both songs are as trite as they appear, the former is saved by an epic guitar solo that takes the song over and remakes it in it's own image.
The latter is bolstered by Freddie's ego, pomp and pomposity.
Without them, however, they are trash.

If:
Grade: C-
Let:
Grade: B-


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Queen for a Day - Bicycle Race

Dumbest song in the catalog or the most fun?
I particularly love the bike bell battle followed by the descending quarter solo guitar battle.
And the song lends itself perfectly to mashup with eminem 30 years later.
It's goofy, it's piffle and it's a blast.
Credit Freddie and the ensuing all female naked bike race for turning me into an avid cyclist.

Grade: A


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Queen for a Day - Jealousy

Freddie at his most androgynously treacly. He was always cheeky this qy, hedging his bets and keeping American audiences from running away from him and his co-horts.
Jealousy sounds like an old song from Queen II but it quickly turns into a super ballad that has a toe in Day at the Races and a whole foot in the "we ran out of things to sing about" songbook.
This track would almost qualify as a guilty pleasure if it was pleasurable. Thats not really fair. It has a nice melody. But it feels as though it was written during one bored evening in the studio while waiting for the other band members to arrive.
They've done better.

Grade: C-

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Queen for a Day - Fat Bottomed Girls

Drop D tuning, baby. When I ask my band to learn this song (we never ended up covering it) the guitarists so loved the tuning that they went a wrote the music for a song that would become one our biggest fan favorites, Age of Consent.
Probably the last time Brian really wrote something that sounds like it came out of the Foghat songbook.
That this song would become a single is great. Jazz is one of Queen's least celebrated albums but with RTB back at the controls it's easily one of their best. And this song is a big reason why.

Dirty, raunchy, big and ballsy.

Grade: A+


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Queen for a Day - Mustapha

I bought Jazz one summer in Maine and made my father come in and listen to this track with me.
First off, I loved sharing music with my dad. One of my best memories of him is him sitting in my room, listening to the Doors' Greatest Hits with me and asking me questions about why I liked it. He was great that way. He died 21 years ago yesterday.
He had no idea what Freddie was singing. My dad was Israeli, I should mention but much of the lyrics in the song are gibberish, it turns out.
First mostly gibberish song I can totally sing along with.
And what an audacious way to open a record!
I adore Jazz, and a lot of what I love can be found on this song.
It's tight. Great, economic harmonies. Blistering guitar solo.
One of Queen's best.

Grade: A+


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