I AM I!
A
Progressive Metal band from Seattle, Washington, best remembered for their epic
Rock Opera Operation Mindcrime and for their Top 10 single "Silent Lucidity". The band's lineup for the majority of its career was:
- Chris DeGarmo: guitars
- Eddie Jackson: bass
- Scott Rockenfield: drums
- Geoff Tate: vocals, keyboards where necessary
- Michael Wilton: guitars
They also frequently worked with the late
Michael Kamen.
Starting out as something of an
Iron Maiden-esque Euro-metal band, Queensr˙che has experimented with many different sounds and styles over the course of their career. For example, for their second album
Rage For Order they utilized highly industrialized orchestrations (dubbed "techno-metal"); and
Hear In The Now Frontier featured a raw, stripped-back sound with little to no audio effects other than natural overdrive for the guitars. Albums such as
The Warning,
Mindcrime and
Empire, meanwhile, featured comparatively straight-forward arrangements.
Like most hard rock bands from
The Eighties, Queensr˙che's popularity waned in
The Nineties with the rise of grunge (which, ironically, has its roots in Queensr˙che's hometown of Seattle). Nonetheless, Queensr˙che continues to record and tour, although founding member Chris DeGarmo left the band in 1998 to pursue personal interests. While a number of musicians have worked with the band in his absence, a permanent replacement has yet to be hired.
Discography:
- 1983 - Queensr˙che (EP)
- 1984 - The Warning
- 1986 - Rage for Order
- 1988 - Operation: Mindcrime
- 1990 - Empire
- 1994 - Promised Land
- 1997 - Hear in the Now Frontier
- 1999 - Q2K
- 2003 - Tribe
- 2006 - Operation Mindcrime II
- 2007 - Take Cover
- 2009 - American Soldier
- 2011 - Dedicated to Chaos
Queensr˙che provides us with examples of:
- Author Tract: Some segments of both Mindcrime albums can get this way. Of course, Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped.
- Black Sheep Hit: Their one and only Top 40 single, "Silent Lucidity".
- Concept Album: Promised Land (1994) is a song cycle dealing with a man's life in general, and the theme of "be careful what you wish for" in particular. American Soldier (2009) is a collection of songs written from the point of view of U.S. military veterans and their experiences. Of course, there's also the Mindcrime saga.
- Cover Version: "Gonna Get Close to You" and "Scarborough Fair".
- Dress Rehearsal Video: "Nightrider" and "Breaking The Silence".
- Epic Rocking: "Roads To Madness" and "Suite Sister Mary".
- A Good Name for a Rock Band: in addition to the Heävy Mëtal Ümlaut, the band is named for one of its earliest songs, "Queen Of The Reich".
- Great Balls of Fire: the stage set for performing the Mindcrime shows, including twin wall-sized TV screens.
- Intercourse with You: Sacred Ground.
- Metal Scream: Early in their career, this was a frequent tool (as befitting an Iron Maiden clone); but it pretty much fell off after Empire.
- Temporarily regenerated for parts of Operation: Mindcrime II, unsuprisingly.
- New Sound Album: Rage for Order perhaps most obviously.
- Old Shame: The band excluded the video for "Queen Of The Reich"
from their video compilation Building Empires. To quote their commentary: "After that is when we grew our hair long... so no one would recognize us!" - Retail Therapy: Invoked in their song of the same name, about a character who's only happy when he's buying new electronic gadgets or apps.
- Rock Opera: Operation Mindcrime, and its sequel.
- Stalker with a Crush: "Gonna Get Close To You" and "Walk in the Shadows".
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