Brian May's Place in Queen

[BravadoNJ]

according to some of the interviews, there was alot of in fighting during the recording of The Works. the recording was taking too long and they had a deadline to meet. there were alot of songs unfinished and not used.. both Freddie & Roger did solo albums with their songs. Freddie always said they would play around with a song then put it away then come back to it. The Works suffered because they went with what they had finished. they should have kept working on it and make it a double album. it's no secret that the guys in Queen disagreed about their albums because each only cared about their own songs. in '89 they decided that all songs would be credited to all of them- which made a difference in the studio... but too little to late, Freddie was already ill.

Brian May wrote great rockers for the band but he also wrote some great ballads. Freddie always hated singing them because he was out of his comfort zone. but he was a professional and did it for the band. Too Much Love Will Kill You was on Brian's yet-to-be-released Back To The Light album; Brian had Freddie sing it but often said the Freddie hated the song. a song he hated and recorded vocals while on his dead bed- he sang it like an angel.

[JJ88]

I've actually never heard the Made in Heaven album. Is it good? I'm familiar with the songs from Freddie's Mr. Bad Guy album, and I like that album a lot. However, for some reason I sold my CD way back, not one of my better moves!

As far as solo Brian May I think the only one I've heard is the Star Fleet Project, which didn't do much for me.

The belief remains that it was an album of songs that he recorded before he died. The truth is that it was cobbled together from a couple of vocals he'd done in his last days, brief vocal fragments recorded in 80s Queen sessions, B-sides, solo tracks and versions of songs that turned up on May/Taylor side projects. An extraordinary amount of sources.

Oddly enough I think it ended up as being one of their best late-period albums! I think it's better as an album than most of what they did after The Game...very few weak tracks. Some of the 80s albums were singles plus filler. Quite honestly it should have been the last 'new' Queen product IMHO- it's a fitting tribute which they spent a lot of time on and they did the legacy proud. That atrocious The Cosmos Rocks should never have used the Queen name IMHO.

Their solo work, which I've heard little, has not really grabbed me. Another case of the whole being greater than the individual parts. May likes the cliched 'rock' sound, IMHO- Mercury's humorous approach stopped that happening with Queen. Meanwhile Mercury's solo work tends to be pretty 'light'.

[arabicadabra]

Fascinating thread topic. In my snobbiest days (late 20s) I made a cassette tape of just Brian May solos - no whole songs - so I didn't have to wait to hear the things I wanted. Later, I started to appreciate some entire songs. And some of the non-solo guitar playing is incredible.

[Scott Bails]

The belief remains that it was an album of songs that he recorded before he died. The truth is that it was cobbled together from a couple of vocals he'd done in his last days, brief vocal fragments recorded in 80s Queen sessions, B-sides, solo tracks and versions of songs that turned up on May/Taylor side projects. An extraordinary amount of sources.

Oddly enough I think it ended up as being one of their best late-period albums! I think it's better as an album than most of what they did after The Game...very few weak tracks. Some of the 80s albums were singles plus filler. Quite honestly it should have been the last 'new' Queen product IMHO- it's a fitting tribute which they spent a lot of time on and they did the legacy proud. That atrocious The Cosmos Rocks should never have used the Queen name IMHO.

The whole story of how this album came to be is fascinating to me. You can hear the care and effort that they took with it.

[ThomasKDye]

\Oddly enough I think it ended up as being one of their best late-period albums! I think it's better as an album than most of what they did after The Game...very few weak tracks.

I don't think it's a bad album, but it really is very sad. It just feels like an album-long eulogy apart from "I Was Born to Love You" and "You Don't Fool Me." I just wish there'd been a couple more devil-may-care rockers or something.

[Scott Bails]

I don't think it's a bad album, but it really is very sad.

"Mother Love" still gets me. When May comes in with that vocal on the last verse....

[GuitarGeek]

it's no secret that the guys in Queen disagreed about their albums because each only cared about their own songs. in '89 they decided that all songs would be credited to all of them- which made a difference in the studio... b

Yeah, it's been said one of the reasons a lot of bands break up is over songwriting credits, or more likely, the publishing revenue generated by said credits. Part of it stems from musicians making unheralded contributions to songs (eg Andy Summer's guitar part in Every Breath You Take, or in the case of Queen, the middle section of Seven Seas Of Rye, which Brian says he wrote), but you also have things like musicians fighting to get their songs recorded or used on singles or whatever.

I think that might be the main reason I'm In Love With Car ended up being the B-side of Bohemian Rhapsody, because Roger was probably kvetching about the extra revenue Brian and Freddie were no doubt making from the singles (all of which up to then had been written either by the singer or the guitarist). And I think John Deacon "broke his vows of silence" for similar reasons to express his desire that You're My Best Friend be issued as a single.

So it makes sense there'd be a lot of fighting over getting songs onto the albums, and then fighting to get them on the singles. John Deacon said once they eventually came up with "a formula", whereby Brian and Freddie each got three songs, and John and Roger each got two songs. After that, there was less fighting, because each would just pick the two or three songs he thought was best for the album that was being recorded.

And although the songs were credited to all four on The Miracle, it's been said that most of them were written the way they ahd been before. The Miracle itself, for instance, is a Freddie song, I Want It All is a Brian song, etc. And in fact, I think most bands, where the songs are credited as being written communally by all band members, is really just a move by management or whomever to preempt this type of fighting, versus all songs being written in the rehearsal room or whatever.

[JJ88]

I don't think it's a bad album, but it really is very sad. It just feels like an album-long eulogy apart from "I Was Born to Love You" and "You Don't Fool Me." I just wish there'd been a couple more devil-may-care rockers or something.

I don't know if they had any 'devil-may-care rockers' in the can to draw from- even several of these songs had already been released. But on that basis, I like their 'I Was Born To Love You' way more than the Mercury original which is light 80s pop. 'Made In Heaven' also had a heavier approach which to me was far superior to the keyboard-saturated original. Mercury's solo career tended to bury some good songs within now-dated keyboard sounds and programmed drums.

I'd heard 'Living On My Own' and 'Driven By You' as both had been hits in the early 90s. But I think 'Heaven For Everyone' is the first specific memory I have of hearing anything by Queen as a band. There was a big promo job on the parent album. I didn't actually get the album for many years after that and was pleasantly surprised by how good it was.

I find it telling that Deacon, who was heavily involved with the tribute concert and this, chose to get off the bus after the 'No One But You' single. He made the right decision. I don't mind the touring they do but please, nothing else like The Cosmos Rocks!

[JJ88]

"Mother Love" still gets me. When May comes in with that vocal on the last verse....

This is apparently the last thing Freddie Mercury ever sang, and he didn't complete it. That's why May sings on it, I guess. I also like the nod to the pre-Queen Larry Lurex single, 'Goin' Back'. I'm fond of that and its other side, a cover of 'I Can Hear Music'.

I believe 'Let Me Live' actually started life as a duet with another friend of Mercury's, Rod Stewart.

[ThomasKDye]

I don't know if they had any 'devil-may-care rockers' in the can to draw from- even several of these songs had already been released.

This isn't the BEST stomper they've ever done, but it would have been a nice palate-cleanser to all the melancholy:

[Scott Bails]

This is apparently the last thing Freddie Mercury ever sang, and he didn't complete it. That's why May sings on it, I guess.

That's exactly how it sounds, and the lyric is so....real.

[miamiscot]

Best live band I've ever seen and I am not a fan. At all. May is a monster and Freddie was the most magnetic front man ever (well, John Lydon, Henry Rollins, Jello Biafra and Morrissey come close!)

[Jerjo]

This isn't the BEST stomper they've ever done, but it would have been a nice palate-cleanser to all the melancholy:

I've never heard this before. Damn, that's a good one. I love the contrasting voices in there.

[GuitarGeek]

This is apparently the last thing Freddie Mercury ever sang, and he didn't complete it. That's why May sings on it, I guess. I also like the nod to the pre-Queen Larry Lurex single, 'Goin' Back'. I'm fond of that and its other side, a cover of 'I Can Hear Music'.
.

For the record, Larry Lurex was not "pre-Queen". The single was recorded at the same time as the first Queen album. Now, Smile, that was pre-Queen.