Queen the band sucks. I don't get why anyone likes them. Aside from Bohemian Rhapsody, their songs are bland and fall short. Their rock is dry. And the opera-style singing is cringe. Examples:
Another One Bites the Dust
Catchy bass line, fun to direct at an opponent, CORNY AF. The song is about people being killed, but sounds like a funky Michael Jackson song with an Opera singer.
We Will Rock You
Good solo, repetitive and annoying simple beat. Boom-boom-ch. So lame.
We Are the Champions
Such a self-aggrandizing and braggy song. "No time for losers"? Okay, Donald Trump.
Bicycle Race
I don't even have to say anything about this one. Everyone knows how corny this song sounds.
Somebody to Love
Touching topic, cheesy lyrics and even cheesier choir-like singing. It's cringe.
I am happy for the band and their success. I admire Freddie Mercury's unapologetic flamboyance. The dude kept it real. But, I just can't like the music.
I'm sorry if I've offended anyone. I understand we all have different taste and respect everyone's freedom to like and enjoy what they want. I'm not trying to insult anyone for their taste, but merely expressing my own in a somewhat humorous attempt.
To be fair, if someone listens to the six best known songs by a band and only likes one of them, it's no surprise they wouldn't bother digging into the catalogue further
I love Queen, but (with the exception of Somebody To Love) I feel like youâve picked out the worst and most overplayed Queen songs. If youâre open to seeing why folks like them so much, Iâd suggest the following (in my order of preference):
Under Pressure
I Want To Break Free
Radio Gaga
Stone Cold Crazy
Killer Queen
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Youâre My Best Friend
Donât Stop Me Now
Who Wants To Live Forever
Thereâs a pretty good mix in there. Some are more operatic than others. Some go pretty hard.
The songs that become popular aren't the "best", they're the ones that cater to the biggest audiences. That often makes them a bit more bland and "safe"
I just donât understand how you could describe them as dry?
Like, in my mind if you were to criticise them it would be that theyâre too over the top. Theyâve got punchy vocals, in your face solos, and most of the songs you listed are stadium rock.
Thereâs a bravado and flamboyance to everything they do, so itâs kinda supposed to be corny and fun. Not all music needs to be sad and have deep meaning, sometimes you need to let loose.
I just donât understand how you could describe them as dry?
To answer your question as written, yes: you apparently don't understand, as supported by the paragraph that followed this one. And that's okay: I don't understand either, for instance.
As many others have pointed out, you list a lot of their radio hits that I suppose can be overplayed and have become cliche in a way. But BORING? I will have to draw the line there. That music is nothing if not lively and full of spirit. Usually doing something unique with it's themes and style.
Don't tell me you are bored by Fat Bottomed Girls and Killer Queen?
I think sometimes some artists need a guide - I didn't care much for Springsteen until someone lent me We Shall Overcome, based on folk working songs and mythology from Appalachians.
And then I've heard Tom Morello introduce a few of Springsteen's songs with some socio-political context on his radio show and enjoyed them more with that insight.
As he himself says, he writes songs about the working man, but has never held the job in his life.
However I did go to see him this summer for the first time. The cheesy Rock Icon bit is tedious, but by the middle of the show I was enjoying myself. He really is an excellent showman.
Gonna play two chords
Gonna sing real hoarse
Gonna brush my teeth and wipe my butt
An I'm gonna say! ....
This ones for you
[18 bars of rhythm guitar]
Got me a band
Everybody knows how to play
Gonna drive em crazy
Cuz we're gonna just keep on playing this same hook over two chords for four and a half minutes!
...
This ones for you
I like Queen as much as any person but I can understand some do the complaints in this post. But I would LOVE to hear some complaints about Bohemian Rhapsody. Even when I was too young to understand music I was like âthis is a mastapieceâ
I don't like queen and I hate that stupid song every time I hear it somewhere I cringe. Blows my mind how it's considered a masterpiece or even good. This is not rage bait. I listen to basically every genre but this song is overrated and silly af.
This just looks like a 14 year old trying to shit on older music to sound cool. I get it's bait and all, but it was kinda boring, standard internet vapor.
The band released their first album over fifty years ago⊠as with all music time moves forward and that which was once the future becomes the past. Delete all the music released in the past four or five decades that came after them from your head and then listen to their albums. Theyâd probably seem quite refreshing and interesting. (For what itâs worth Iâm not a fan either - but props where theyâre due)
its fun to look at old music and think of it poorly but to realize that when it was fresh it was so different that it defined a generation, that is something else
Im not a fan of Queen but I am old enough to remember their songs being new and they were a force of nature. That generation fucking LOVED them. So much so that the songs listed above are played daily in sporting events and other cultural gatherings.
You are not wrong⊠on a tangent I remember the first time I finally listened to a James Brown album and wasnât massively impressed. Then I realised I knew most of the tunes from sampling. Samples on my favourite albums.
My unpopular opinion is that inverting upvotes for unpopular opinion is stupid and only creates confusion. It was stupid on Reddit and it is even stupider on Lemmy. If an opinion is unpopular and you disagree with it, you should downvote it and reflect its popularity correctly. If you get super upvoted you failed because it means your opinion isn't unpopular at all and it is actually shared by a lot of people.
I'm losing track of your logic but I think you have it backwards. In this sub community you are supposed to upvote unpopular things. Doesn't matter if you personally agree or not.
Yes there was tendency over at the other place to upvote popular things or things you agree with. That is the inversion.
Or you can just sit the whole thing out without voting.
*I may follow your thought a bit better now. The whole point of this sub community is the get unpopular ideas out there. Challenge the status quo. See new opinions, challenge your own. Avoid group think. Otherwise you have an echo chamber. If that's what you want you should block it instead of being counterproductive for the rest of us.
One of my favorite things I've seen on the internet was a gif mashup of don't stop me now with a gif of a porn where everybody looked coked out of their minds and this girl is dancing all crazy.
Actually listening to Ogre Battle when i read your comment. So thats fun and i wanted to share and thank you.
I found a deep cuts playlist to listen to before reading This article (i didnt agree with everything the article claimed, but was a passionate take on queen which was fun in its own way)
I accidently opened up the wrong app when I finished reading it and intended to come back here. After seeing the track list Ogre Battle immediately caught my eye as it is also the name of one of my favourite video game franchises.
Now i wonder if there is any connection between the song and the game. Now I really hope(and my head cannon until proven wrong!) is that the game creator or someone on the team was a huge Queen fan
What✠đź Now I know how everyone else in this thread that disagrees with me feels. To me, Pink Floyd is on another level. There are good bands, great bands, and pioneering legends. Pink Floyd is a pioneering legend. Waaaooowwww. So interesting how something that can be deeply moving to me can feel vanilla to someone else and vice versa.
Haha I think Pink Floyd is one of the worst bands Iâve ever heard. I do not understand how anyone can like their music, voices, melodies, etc. maybe I should post that here đ
I totally agree but I suppose you have to note that at the time, it was somewhat unique.
That said, pop music has been bland since the 70s. Rock has dominated the charts for decades and anything remotely experimental is just called 'noise' by boomers who just seem to want more of the same.
The surge of dance music is a breath of fresh air that has become the same issue, but now affecting the next generation.
Pop music, by definition, is bland (or mundane anyway, in the sense of routine).
The broader the reach, the simpler it has to be.
Compare any pop artist to Miles Davis. Anyone can grok pop stuff, even if they don't care for it. Damn few people get Miles - I barely do and I have music theory training.
"Sucks" is entirely subjective when applied to musical taste, I applaud your attempt for engagement. I do believe that Queen is overhyped to hell and back but other than that, big meh, lots of people don't like the same music I do, so that is completely normal.
I wish some people that liked Queen and these styles of music would realize they are not immune from the subjectiveness of music tastes.
It's one of the bigger 'bubbles', if not the biggest, but certainly not the only one or I'd argue, the majority.
I like my choice of music to the point where most pieces invoke more joy and emotion to me than Bohemian Rhapsody, and I find it somewhat strange that even so long after it was released it still remains on top. That's completely different from what I like, where a new song can pretty much take the top spot at any time if it's good enough. If it's the same song every time, that's something I wouldn't consider a healthy level of innovation for a genre, but rather a sign that it has reached it's peak and has became seemingly permanently stale. At that point it feels to me that deep nostalgia keeps it in place, rather than it actually being the best current music has to offer.
There's nothing wrong with that though, nostalgia is a valid reason to like a song. But often some people that like that kind of music become militantly angry if you point that out. And then cite popularity contests that only people that like that kind of music participate in, to somehow say that everyone likes their music. And that in turn makes those contests seem kind of disingenuous since they claim they are finding the best music of all time. It's self selecting, because anyone that can't boost their specific music to the top because their genre still has healthy levels of competition and can't produce one piece that everyone agrees on, simply won't bother.
Just my two cents to an unpopular opinion. Again I don't mind people liking Queen's music, but I've had people literally be offended because I didn't want to listen to a group of men scream "Mama mia" in an attempt to burst my ear drums because they want the volume to be at 300% when that part starts, only to then also sing along for another volume boost. Anyone else doing that with their music would be told to mind their own business and keep the volume reasonable. It's the double standard and the denial of contrary opinions that I don't like. You can't expect everyone to like your music.
I don't understand how someone can dislike the choir singing and cheesy, campy, flamboyance of a bunch of different Queen songs, but thinks it's ok in Bohemian Rhapsody. Like, cheesy, campy, flamboyance is a staple of Queen's style. It's in all of their songs
Art is subjective, so there really are no wrong opinions, just disagreements. I strongly disagree with you, but that's OK. Fist bump bro, because it's different strokes that makes the world go round.
Now, if you say such things about RUSH.... cracks knuckles. ;-)
Do you recognize their talent though? Because if you don't, then this is more of an issue with your musical knowledge and lack of appreciation than with the music. That said, their music is 50 years old now, and music has changed and progressed a lot since then. Much of that progress is due to groundbreaking artists such as Queen. Bands in the 60's and 70's were pioneering completely new sounds that would change the face of music forever. Many modern songs are derivative of Queen's music. It's understandable that you don't appreciate it like someone older would, because you've grown up listening to music that was a natural progression from this music. But in their era, they were something entirely new, fresh, daring, and awesome. Also, Freddy had one of the best voices in the history of rock and roll. I'd say he really only has 2 peers, Robert Plant, and Steve Perry.
I don't think they suck per se, but oh god i remember when the queen craze and the rage comic phase overlapped and queen became the hottest band in the universe because the reddit hivemind decided it so. Want 1million upvotes, tell people how you're 12 but love queen.
Personally i don't listen to queen at all, because i think they are pretty lame, but i don't think they suck. Their "fans" are or were turbo annoying tho.
They always were a bit of a meme band, and the charts exaggerate that somewhat. Even Crazy Frog had a number one hit, and absolutely nobody could listen to that in 2024 and think it was good.
They're not really a lot different to many other artists. Some middling songs mixed in with some bangers. And they knew how to put on a show. That Live Aid gig was fucking iconic. None of the 72,000 people standing in Wembley stadium that day were thinking "these lyrics are cringe".
Liking the song isnt that important when testing gear. The production value and its composition make it good for seeing what the gear can do.
Coincidently though when Senheiser was showcasing its $50,000 dollar Orpheus Headset, they had a pay 100 dollars to use it for 15 minutes promotion. They had it hooked up to Tidal to get their master quality audio and the most picked song for real audiophile folk was apparently Hotel California by the Eagles
So if you arent a fan or Bohemian Rhapsody, maybe Hotel California might be a better test track when/if you are testing new audio gear
I couldn't agree more. Living in the UK I can tell you this is a dangerous opinion to hold. To me, their music is like nails on a chalk board. I cannot stand their music.
I could never quite explain why. I've always just put it down to taste. But it's annoying to have to deal with just how much EVERYONE loves them for some reason.
Like, there isn't much music I'd hate to hear more than Queen. I almost find it weird that this is the case. I sort of wish I liked them, so that there weren't so many occasions where I have to listen to music that I find shockingly bad.
Itâs their importance in time and last power. You have your tastes and then we have what they mean external to you. You can choose to not like them and still value their importance to society.
Ooof. This is a good one. I appreciate your argument and reasoning. I thoroughly enjoy Queen, however I havenât spent really any time evaluating their music as critically as you likely have.
They really did suck. I tried to get into their catalog a number of times because I thought I was missing something due to the amount of people into them.
Honestly, that's the case for me. I can recognize that they were good, but I wouldn't ever choose to listen to them. I like music from that era, but Queen just isn't my sound.