Queen!

Another message board I visit once had a topic about each poster's favorite Queen song. (My personal answer: "Somebody To Love". Among other reasons, I like songs that give significant portions to the backup singers.) The person who created the topic eventually got fed up with everyone's responses.

No, not because they kept picking the same three songs, though many people did.

It was because he only considered your answer valid if you listed a song that was not on Greatest Hits I or II. (With partial credit to III, though he admitted that he was pleased that someone chose "Barcelona".)

There's a certain kind of pomposity needed to say that a person's opinion is discredited if they prefer one of a band's 34 most popular songs.

(Then again, I admit to not owning a Queen album beyond those Greatest Hits ones, so maybe he has a point.)

That's kind of lame. Like some freakish combination of No True Scotsman and It's Popular, So It Sucks!.

That being said, I'm not really a big fan of either "We Will Rock You", or "We are the Champions." They're a bit more generic than the band's other stuff, and they're rather overplayed.

As far as a favorite Queen song, either "March of the Black Queen," "or "The Show Must Go On."

Bigotry will NEVER be welcome on TV Tropes.

Interesting to see more people here mention "March Of The Black Queen". It's my second favourite Queen song, behind "In The Lap Of The Gods... Revisited". That last song is in my top-10 songs of all time - it's so bombastic and yet so soothing at the same time...

Mache dich, mein Herze, rein...

I heard "Bohemian Rhapsody" in a store once and my reaction was "what is this?!" Also heard "We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions" in a pizza place and found it boring. Haven't heard anything else by them.

I did hear Dwight Yoakam's cover of "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" a lot when it came out in 1999, and was floored when I found out that it was a Queen cover.

I always liked that cover, and Metallica's version of "Stone Cold Crazy".

I'm nuts about One Year of Love at the moment.

Come sail your ships around me, and burn your bridges down.

@Twent: "Bohemian Rhapsody" is one of those songs that you need to sit down and listen to—'tis not merely a song that you can hear in the background and follow/understand at all.

I'll admit, the only full Queen album I own is the 2011 remaster of A Night at the Opera (which I adore), but I have downloaded the three Greatest Hits albums and Live Killers. I've been meaning to listen to more of them, but I'm pretty content with what I have for now.

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

Queens pretty awesome. I went on a backpacking trip up a mountain with some friends once, and when we reached the top we started belting out we are the champions at the top of our lungs. I pity any animals in the vicinity for us butchering it :p

Some people think I'm strange. I think it's sad that they can't see all the awesome stuff going on in my head right now.

No man's existence is entirely miserable who has "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy" running through his head.

"She was the kind of dame they write similes about." —Pterodactyl Jones

I like their more epic songs. My favorites are "The Show Must Go On", "Princes of the Universe", and, above all, "Innuendo". Also "Who Wants To Live Forever", although that scene of the film is pretty lame.

The universe is under no obligation to make sense to us.

Princes of the Universe is my favorite song of this great band! Heavy metal about Highlander... 'nuff said!

"BORN TO BE KINGS! PRINCES OF THE UNIVERSE! FIGHTING AND FREE!"

I like smoke and lightning. Heavy metal thunder! Racing with the wind, and the feeling that I'm under.

Princes of the Universe is my favourite too, with We Will Rock You and Another One Bites the Dust taking the runner-up positions.

Sadly, my friends and I butcher Bohemian Rhapsody with startling regularity, and therefore I actually don't much like listening to it outside of those times.

I've rediscovered Queen recently too, and my favourite is easily Breakthru. Hearing it makes me happy. It has a killer vid, too Others I like include Fat Bottomed Girls, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Somebody to Love and Radio Ga Ga

Now I'm off to spread my teachings to more sissy do-gooders!

You should give the non-singles a listen to as well! Just avoid the ones from The Works (the album that contains Radio Gaga, for anyone who isn't aware), they range from "below average" to "absolutely unlistenable", with the exception of "Is This The World We Created...?". That one's actually a very good (if short) little epilogue.

Ah, Queen. I've been on really big Queen kick lately. My favorites by them (a little hard to do, they've got so much great stuff!) are "Innuendo," "Invisible Man," "I'm Going Slightly Mad," and "Hammer to Fall."

If you insist that I list non-Greatest Hits tracks, then I would say "Football Fight," "Lazing On a Sunday Afternoon," and "Sheer Heart Attack."

edited 28th Oct '13 9:36:30 PM by ntico

I was recently listening to my vinyl copy of Innuendo and I gotta say, this is arguably their most solid album that they've ever made. Every single song (barring "Delilah") is a winner in every meaning of the word, and there's not a bad moment on this record (again, barring "Delilah"; it's not an awful song, but it's pretty much somewhat average "playing it safe" poppy rubbish, and that's just really really boring). Of course, even with "Delilah"'s mediocrity in the way, it certainly isn't enough to make me rank the album even a little low. It helps that a certain B-Side from the Innuendo sessions pretty much redeems "Delilah"'s position on the album (and, ahem, should have been on the album instead, in my humble opinion).

Aside from Innuendo, I'd also give Queen II a definite spot on my "most solid albums they ever did" list. Even the incredibly cheesy "Funny How Love Is" will always be an enjoyable listen, probably because it kind of acts as an epilogue to the crazy epic "March Of The Black Queen", in a way. It also works as a breather song after such incredible-ness, and such balance and care into track listings for an album is not only very much welcome, but is sorely lacking in today's music world since albums are an endangered species and all that :(

While we're on the subject of Queen, I've come upon what might be the weirdest licensed game I've ever seen.

Yes, apparently Queen had a licensed game that came out in 1998, called Queen: The eYe. It's connection to Queen is a bit... tenuous, to say the least. The game has you play as a guy in a dystopian future, where you battle baddies in areas that are vaguely Queen-related ("Arena" domain, "Innuendo" domain, etc.), while instrumental mixes of Queen music play. From what I've seen on You Tube and in screenshots, it looks like some sort of Resident Evil/Alone in the Dark clone in terms of gameplay.

It got next to no promotion and fairly poor reviews, so it didn't really sell that well. It's a bit of a collectors item today due to the instrumental versions of Queen tracks included with the game.

Out of curiosity, does the b-side you're talking about happen to be "Lost Opportunity"?

edited 28th Oct '13 7:52:23 PM by ntico

I haven't listened to them in a while, but my favorites are "Radio Gaga" and "Made in Heaven" (which I've lip synced to more times than I care to admit).

I'm a skeptical squirrel

The eYe is a very... odd beast. It's definitely not something I would think of when I think of a Queen video game, but that's apparently a common opinion. I would have enjoyed an overly campy game over what we ended up getting, in all honesty. From what I hear, the game isn't terrible, it's just... really average. Like, depressingly so.

Yep! It's like "The Night Comes Down"... but as a blues song! In lyrical context, that is. The two songs don't sound very similar at all, but they do share a writer. I'm beginning to think poor Brian might have had a battle with depression for a while...

edited 29th Oct '13 11:03:19 AM by LightPhaser

I listened to Killer Queen in the radio and realized. Whoah, Queen is pretty freaking great.

I've only really written one fanfic... but you can find it here http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8476612/1/After-the-Fall

I like all the usual suspects, of course, but 39 may be my favourite.

It's just so simple and tragic.

'All he needs is for somebody to throw handgrenades at him for the rest of his life...'

I've been bingeing on Queen again for the past month or so.

This time, I also started listening to Brian May's solo work. The man is a genius.

Mache dich, mein Herze, rein...

A few months ago, I decided to check out Queen's music besides the perhaps ten or so songs I already knew and loved, and I just can't believe how many great songs of theirs I had yet to discover.

And for the record, I don't think Hot Space deserves its bad reputation; both "Under Pressure" and "Back Chat" are really good songs, and the rest of them are perfectly okay.

Ceterum censeo Morbillivirum esse eradicandum.

I do like Bohemian Rhapsody and Crazy Little Thing Called Love, but I still think We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions are boring and overexposed. There's just no melody to them, and they're not fun to listen to; how did they get so popular? (I have the same feeling toward "Dancing Queen" by ABBA. I swear that song's melody has only two notes in it.)

In my opinion, "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions" are corny and hammy, but not even at the slightest bit boring. They are definitely overexposed but with good reason.

I think the reason why plenty of people can't take both songs seriously because the masses associate the songs to their respective genres that have been done numerous times to death. The genres eventually watered down to suit the audience by exaggerating their most superficial characteristics. I think you already know who to blame. Think both of the bands Europe and Survivor.

edited 13th Jan '15 10:38:37 AM by tropeslave