oh mother look what theyve done to me
Queen - Queen - 1973
It's almost like the get-go of a joke: An astrophysicist, a biologist, an electronics guy and a graphics designer walk into a studio... and end up creating a kind of magic and then unique, and so brilliant, that would, at the aforementioned time, earn them ever increasing dearest and respect after more than than four decades, and brand them a strangely underrated band in their days.
Allow me get this straight right from the very beginning: Queen take been, are, and will always be the band I dearest the about. They were the offset ring I e'er became a fan of, and yous know how it is with commencement loves.
And no matter how much time goes by, I keep finding reasons for my love and admiration for these guys every time I listen to them again. There are a lot of other bands that I have a huge amount of respect, admiration and dearest for, but few manage to surprise me after all this time like Queen practice.
Probably part of it has to exercise that I was non even a teenager when I kickoff got to know them, and I didn't really know much almost music and then. Listen you, I grew upwardly listening to classical music, and in parallel with Queen, I got to know some of the most of import bands from the 1970s, but back and so I generally paid attention to melodies and, somehow, I "taught myself" to heed to Queen as a band that had beautiful songs, with a singer that was unbelievable, and sort of allow their musicianship slide by a bit.
In fourth dimension, as I grew older, I came to re-observe them in different ways, and I accept never been disappointed, quite the contrary.
Then nosotros come up at present to me listening to this one, their debut anthology, afterwards quite a while. I e'er loved all Queen albums, and this one is no exception, but now I realise how little I understood it for a long time. Listening to information technology in the context of its time helps a lot, and I can simply feel true awe about how unique, crazy and, in a mode, innovative this album was.
This i is much heavier than any of their future releases would be, and you can hear the influence of the hard rock / metal bands of the fourth dimension, especially Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. But there was too a more than glam rock aspect, but not the glam of bands like Sugariness or Slade, but a more complex and intricate kind, that reminds me more of David Bowie. And while in many cases influences brand an artist audio like a copy, when information technology comes to Queen information technology helped them produce a sound that was quite like zippo else at the time.
And because of this, I think they were sorely misunderstood and unappreciated, generally by critics, but by audiences too. As I said, it would take a bit of time, but eventually they got the recognition they always deserved.
But I want to take a couple of minutes to talk about the ane guy that stands out more than than anybody or anything else in this album: That ridiculously talented and also underrated guitar genius that is Brian May. Listening to this anthology again, I feel renewed adoration for this guy, and while I know that he is widely recognised as one of the best guitar players ever, I don't think any amount of praise does him justice.
He is one of the virtually immediately recognisable guitar players in the globe, I recollect, mostly because of his utilise of guitar harmonies and vibrato, as well as the unique audio that his Red Special, the guitar he himself congenital with his begetter had, and the added uniqueness of his non using picks to play it just a sixpence instead. In that location's a lot of that in this album and that'south why everyone who never heard this one earlier would know this is Queen, even earlier Freddie started to sing. Just what blows my listen here is how brilliant Brian is consistently, regardless of whether he is playing acoustic guitar, playing a solo, doing harmonies, or producing the heaviest riffs the band e'er played.
So this is for you, Brian, give thanks you for having given us your immense talent throughout the years, thank you considering your music has given me, personally, so much happiness, and thank you for, also, existence such a cool guy. Y'all're a true star, and not just considering you lot have an asteroid very equitably named afterward you.
- Bassist John Deacon appeared credited in this album as Deacon John, apparently because information technology made information technology sound more than interesting. In future albums, he would appear with his existent name.
- This album, every bit all the albums up until, but excluding, The Game, had a notation in the sleeve stating "And nobody played synthesiser", which was May's idea and a style to set themselves apart from the likes of ELP and all the prog bands that used (and driveling) synths.
- The title of this mail is from "My Fairy Rex", the kickoff of a series of fantasy themed songs written past Freddie they would have in the get-go few albums. Freddie claimed that he was singing about his ain mother and, after he came up with the song, he changed his proper noun.
- Probably the heaviest vocal in the anthology is "Son and Daughter" that really reminds me a lot of Sabbath. Someone described it as a cross between Blackness Sabbath and Ziggy Stardust, and weird as it sounds, I recollect it's quite accurate.
- While trying to decide on 1 song to mail here, I inverse my mind many times considering every time I heard a song I thought "this ane!". I ended up sticking to my get-go choice: "Great King Rat", a brilliant and complex song that I think represents this album quite well.
Looking fine on television receiver
New York Dolls - New York Dolls - 1973
They were from New York, they wore lots of lipstick, high heels, garters. They sounded like they really didn't know, or care, what they were doing. They were so much of a breath of fresh air that almost of the audiences either dismissed them or were not also certain what to do with them. They had the strange honor of being named both "Best New Band" and "Worst Band" by Creem magazine's poll for 1973. They were the granddaddies of punk.
They sound as if we had crossed the Rolling Stones with Velvet Underground and got the bounder child completely boozer.
This is one of the bands that would inspire punk rock a few years ahead, which is a flake of a problem, because punk is kind of strange, in the sense that musically is as narrow as information technology gets, only it caused a massive revolution. But because of how narrow the whole genre is, this album ends upwardly sounding like a much better version of punk than punk would ever be.
It does audio a bit dated, simply it's nevertheless a lot of fun to listen to this anthology. And what else can I say? It's a punk album, after all. It's not meant to be analysed.
- Guitarist Johnny Thunders died in April 1991 of a probably overdose, although information technology was never too clear. A few months later on, Guns'n'Roses released their Use your Illusion albums which include the Duff McKagan song "So Fine", defended to him. They also covered his "Yous Tin't Put your Arms effectually a Memory" vocal for The Spaghetti Incident.
- Vocalizer David Johansen also had a sort of acting career. He appeared in a sci-fi movie that I probably remember every bit better than it was called Freejack. The cast has a couple of large names in it, such as Anthony Hopkins, Renee Russo and another sort of known musician called Mick Jagger.
- I'm putting "Trash" here, from a live TV version that pretty much shows everything you need to see. Love them or hate them. They changed music forever.
How-do-you-do earth, here'southward a song that we're singing
The Partridge Family unit - TV series - 1970 - 1974
Among all the airheaded things I have, there'south this album chosen C'mon Get Happy! The Very All-time of the Partridge Family unit, a compilation released in 2005. But it would be absurd to wait till then for a compilation virtually the music from a 1970s series.
It'due south as well absurd putting this here, I know.
The series was about this family, a mum and her 4 kids, who were a pop band, and travelled touring together. I recollect information technology beingness quite big here in the late 70s and I loved it.
Or peradventure I merely had a shell on the oldest child, David Cassidy, who was the vocalizer.
The album is a collection of mostly typical 70s pop songs that, while nothing to write home about, is actually better than I had expected. And so here's a flake of nostalgia.
- David Cassidy died on November 21st, 2017, then less than 6 months ago. It made me a scrap lamentable. RIP David, thanks for the adept memories and the good music.
Source: https://mymusicintime.blogspot.com/2018/06/mother-mercury-look-what-theyve-done-to.html