1 Cox
The “Forgotten” Queen
Our story begins in the year 2050, while watching the Super Bowl LXXXIV the Atlanta Falcons versus the Indianapolis Colts. After a long and hard-fought game, the Colts became victorious. The Super Bowl party which I had brought my family too, everyone went wild with excitement, and then the host played over his loudspeakers “We are the Champions”. Of course, as everyone knows this tune, I joined in and began singing this song of celebration. On the way home from the party, my youngest son had asked, “Dad, tonight at the party when the Colts won, I really liked the song that came on. What was it called?” and I naturally responded, “It’s called “We are the Champions”. He then asked the next natural question, “Well who sang it, so I can add it to my Spotify account?”. I answered “Queen” of course, but then began to do a little thinking to myself. This song was such a big part of my life growing up. I used to hear this song almost every Friday night in Autumn all the way back in high school after football games in our locker room. Or just hearing other students singing the song mockingly while playing sports or games with friends growing up. In fact, Queen was just a large part of my life in general while growing up. It was my favorite Rock N’ Roll band, and most of my friend’s favorite as well. So many hits, not only in the United States but also in the UK Queens popularity used to be something astonishing. I had never really shared too much music with my kids, or my musical tastes at all.
After being at home, I asked all my children if they knew any other songs by the band that I had brought up earlier in the evening. All of them said that they had heard “We are the Champions” before in sporting events and even in some movies, but as far as who Queen was, they acted as if I were silly for thinking they would know. After thinking a bit more I realized that the fact of the matter is that Queen’s first album came out 25 years before I was even alive, titled Queen in 1973 (Queen | Album Discography, 2020). I guess I could understand how some music does not stand the testament of time but Queen? How could my own children not know about Queen? I started to feel like a bad father almost and was wondering if maybe the whole world forgot about Queen. So, I decided that I will introduce them to the world that was Queen. Not only introduce them to Queen but show them how important their music is and how Rock N’ Roll is anything but dead.
The next day I began by asking them who were some of the best musicians they knew were. They named a few but none that I had really heard of. To myself I knew that this might go this way because some types of music seem to just be generational. I asked what genres they listened too, I got typical responses, rap, pop, a little bit of country. I asked them what about rock? To my fascination once again, they said, “what’s rock?”. “Well Rock N’ Roll of course”. They all looked at me as if I were crazy, they said that they have heard of that genre, but it was not really popular, and no one made that music anymore. I could not believe this, was rock dead? I used to think this wasn’t possible, but I guess thinking back, even movie culture in my teenage years, began to make music about famous musicians and bands, and I wonder now if that’s because they were seen as dying? The only good thing that came out of this conversation was a thought, a thought to show them a classic movie that would be almost 20 years old now, Bohemian Rhapsody! The response after telling them about the film was, “Bohemian whatsody?”. I immediately searched all streaming services until I found this masterpiece film to show them.
They really had no interest in watching though, disappointed I still tried to sell them the movie. I explained that it was not really all about the band, and I began to explain as much as I could about the focus of the film, the life of Freddy Mercury. I also explained that when this movie came out Queen reached a 38-year chart high in the United States with the soundtrack “Bohemian Rhapsody” (Sexton, 2018).
I explained he wasn’t born onto fame or being a star, he was someone from Tanzania, originally named Farrokh Bulsara. I explained that he had an extraordinary voice that he had a four octave vocal range, which was something out of the ordinary for most musicians. He joined two band members named Brian May and Roger Taylor and would eventually go on to pick up the fourth member John Deacon and form the quartet that was known as Queen (Freddie Mercury, 2020). They dropped their first album called Queen and then soon after Queen II. These were not too terribly popular, however the third released album was immediately got a lot of attention, Sheer Heart Attack (Freddie Mercury, 2020). Queens style was unlike any other rock that had been heard, it was rock n’ roll, glam rock and a mixture of genres. They experimented with rock, combining genres from techno in their later albums to even opera, giving them an extremely unique sound and production. However, their secret weapon if you will was their lead vocalist Freddy Mercury, who the music was often focused to accompany his dynamic and unique voice. And if the vocals were not enough, Mercury was a complete showman and was a performer just as much as a singer. Part of his performance was of course his often-striking appearance not from physical looks, but from his outfits and how he took control of the stage and audience.
It didn’t take long to realize that my little history lesson was not doing me any favors and I hadn’t even began to talk about A Night at the Opera yet. Still, my children had no intentions of my idea of watching this film with me because to them it was just about an old band. So, in exchange I made a deal that if they would not watch a movie with me, until they each listened to a queen album, no more TV. What a great feeling it is to be a parent and be able to make such ridiculous rules about things you want your kids to do. I also told them to prove it, they had to find a favorite song from the album they chose, or one they hated. Truthfully, I had no idea whether this would work or not, but sometimes people need a little push in the right direction. I did agree to help them by telling them a few of my favorite albums: A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, News of the World, Jazz and The Game. After hearing these my 3 children chose News of the World, Jazz and The Game. Sadly, now I could only hope for the best.
It didn’t take half of the next day for the kids to listen to the albums and come to a conclusion, after all these days anything is just at their fingertips due to the power of the internet and streaming services that now dominate the music world. I was ready to except what seemed to be inevitable and one of my worst fears, a new generation reassuring me that one of the most popular bands worldwide would possibly be going extinct. And then something strange happened, my kids had somehow all gathered up all of Queens records. I assumed they must have come from my collection in the garage. I was excited, maybe they wanted to listen to all of them with me instead of through their headphones. They asked me to come outside to the garage with them. Somehow when I walked outside, I was extremely confused as I walked out onto the football stadium’s field I had just seen on TV 2 nights ago. Then fans from all over began to throw albums down everywhere along the ground. Looking around so confused, I wasn’t sure what was happening, but looking at these albums I saw very familiar covers and names. Queen albums, Journey, Deaf Leopard, the Styx, Areosmith, AC/DC, Metallica, hundred upon hundreds of records everywhere. Then the fans began to charge the field, and I was just paralyzed in the middle. People were saying horrible things about Rock N’ Roll, and people were lighting fires and burning so much vinyl that all you could smell was the plastic burning through the air. I then realized what a nightmare this was, like the Disco Demolition from so long ago but this was much worse. Rock n’ Roll’s time was literally up in flames, and in all the panic I finally awoke!
I almost couldn’t believe it, what was such a good dream at first to be turned into such chaos and panic. I looked at my Iphone and it read just as it should June 10th, 2020, being so thankful I didn’t have a family, wife, or a mortgage, but mostly thankful that it was just a nightmare. After reading about the Disco Demolition in a course I had once taken, I suppose subconsciously I had the question could rock have the same fate as disco? I began to really reminisce on my dream. To me Queen was never considered an “old” band, but the fact of the matter was that Queen would eventually be 77 years old in 2050, a future that is not as distant as it seems. I just can’t fathom the fact that everything becomes old at some point, even our favorite bands, music artists, or potentially even genres. It is hard to imagine Queen, such a prevalent face in Rock, having the potential to be thrown away like other genres such as disco. Heck my kids probably wont know what disco was when I get to 2050, but do I even want them to know? I personally believe that there are some Queen songs that will never go out of style just because of sporting events, “We Will Rock You” and “We are the Champions” are songs that I think will be known as long as sports are around. But what about other hits such as “Under Pressure”, “Somebody to Love”, or even “Bohemian Rhapsody.” There have been bands to do covers, of Queen, but mostly for the film industry, for example Panic at the Disco covered Bohemian Rhapsody, but I even talked to some people I knew when that song came out, and they didn’t know it was a cover. Queen is one of the most important bands in Rock n’ Roll history, but sadly the question remains, when does Queen and all these other amazing Rock n’ Roll bands become only history?
References
“Freddie Mercury.” Biography, 10 June 2020, Retrieved from www.biography.com/musician/freddie-mercury.
Sexton, Paul. “Queen Reach 38-Year US Album Chart High With ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ Soundtrack.” UDiscover Music, 13 Nov. 2018,Retireved from www.udiscovermusic.com/news/queen-reach-38-year-us-album-chart-high-bohemian-rhapsody-soundtrack.
“Queen | Album Discography.” AllMusic, 2020, Retrieved from www.allmusic.com/artist/queen-mn0000858827/discography.
“Queen.” Official Charts, Retrieved from www.officialcharts.com/artist/21275/queen/.