For the life of me Queen is a great band, you have Captain Beefhart and Frank Zappa ahead of them. I really don't understand what the critics are thinking about. I agree Queen does not have the melodic and haromonic greatness of the Beatles or the lyricism of Bob Dylan. Captain Beefhart was the total non meaning of music.

Lets not bash Cappy B again, we've been there. That said , I think they're a little underrated as well (Hence I had them ranked #1 in the loophole round of survivor). Here in the Netherlands there's the general consensus (among somewhat older people you've got The Beatles and The Rolling Stones as the greatest bands, and shortly after that there's Queen. I'm thinking it's somewhere in between.

They weren't a very diverse band. They had a formula and stuck to it. Also, they have a lot of singles, but do they have an album that is consistently good? I don't think so but others may disagree.

They were caricatures of glam- that's why.

"Bohemian Rapsody", "Killer queen" and "Don't stop me now" are three songs I like very much.

They might have any solid albums but I wouldn't call their singles formulaic. The differences just between Don't Stop Me Now, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Bohemian Rhapsody, Fat Bottomed Girls, Another One Bites the Dust and We are the Champions should be enough to prove their diversity.

Lots of fun singles, A Night At The Opera, Sheer Heart Attack, Live Killers.. what's not to love?

I guess it's not really a formula. All of their songs sound like they should be in a rock opera. Frankly, I'm surprised that hasn't happened yet.

i've never been a fan of buying best of CD's. for queen, though, i made an exception. i wouldn't even rate "a night at the opera highly". their best of is awesome though. they wrote a lot of awesome songs. bohemian rhapsody would have to be one of my favorite songs of all time.

The first greatest hits album is one I've still got a soft spot for and some of the later singles were ok, but the band were always to some extent a camp joke- orchestral rock delivered with a nod and a wink. Also, the studio albums never cut the mustard. 'A Night At The Opera' is a classic case in point- a few decent tracks generously padded out with some hideously misjudged nostalgia and lashings of pedestrian metal garbage.
Incidentally, John, the songs have formed the basis of a rock opera of sorts-the dimal stage musical We Will Rock You, a West End train wreck of massive proportions.

Interesting! I'm surprised that it would fail. I bet if they did a Broadway show it would succeed. That music is tailor made for such an event. I mean ABBA was able to do it...I think Queen could.

I'm not sure what kind of business it did, and actually suspect it did alright. It was written by Ben Elton, who used to be a pretty funny left wing comedian before turning into a charicature of a clueless middle-aged dipshit. One of the productions major backers was, bizarrely, Robert De Niro.
Anyway, I only bill it as a train wreck in terms of aesthetics. From what I've seen, the production numbers looked like something out of a particularly amateurish high school musical, and the crappy tagged on plot sounded like a nightmarish hybrid of Footloose and 1984.

It's been playing down the street from me since summer.

I hate Queen.

They're one of those 70s bands with a sense of self importance that over-emotes and over-sings everything because they think they posess rock and roll grandeur. Like The Eagles.

Huh. I've never heard Queen compared to the Eagles before. I don't see the connection. I don't like the Eagles at all and only like Queen a little bit, but the reasons are totally different. I never sensed grandeur from anything the Eagles did. They bug me because it's that 70's hippie attitude. The hippie that didn't want to change anything, just wanted to be a hippie. Boo.

Stylistically, Queen and the Eagles are very different. The vocal stylings of Henley & Frey are as unlike that of Freddie as they could be. And where the Eagles at their (rare) best merely settled for lonesome grandeur, Queen went completely over the top with banners flying every time. I never hear them without mentally putting the adjective "Screaming" in front of their name.

Still, I take BillAdama's point. What connects them, I think, is that they're both warmed-over versions of genres which are AOR staples. The Eagles were Allman-lite, Queen was glam-lite (Moonbeam is correct). But I'd rather have the Burrito Bros. and New York Dolls.

Most music fans aren't worried about this...They're just looking for good melodies they can sing along with - and like them or not,Queen have more memorable songs than most bands in history

It's true, they are the perfect band for the masses that only want a greatest hits album. They don't really care if their albums stink to high heaven. How can a band make 15-20 really good songs and then come up empty with the rest of their very large catalog? There wasn't a middle ground with them they were either really good or really awful.

"They weren't a very diverse band. They had a formula and stuck to it. Also, they have a lot of singles, but do they have an album that is consistently good? I don't think so but others may disagree."


This is a bad critique. They weren't a very diverse band? Im hard pressed to think of a single band that is more diverse.

They did:
Hard Rock - Death on two legs, Stone cold Crazy
Elvis Presley copy - Crazy little thing called Love
Unique progressive song-based - The Prophet Song.
Music Hall - Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon
Gospel - Somebody too Love
Power ballad - Save Me
Skiffle - 39
Funk rock - Another One Bites the Dust

I Could go on...

Regarding whether they have an album that is consistently good. Yes, they do: A Night at the Opera. If you don't count the 1 minute closer, there isn't a song on it that isn't good.


My problem with Queen is that they got eightified. After making a string of good, varied albums, they suddenly changed to play solely lame eighties pop rock. The album "The Game" was the pivotal album. It was a great album, but also the first album not to feature the sticker "No synthesizers used on this album", and they didnt make a single good, or even interesting, album.

Why are Queen rated so low? Because they are terrible just what we needed a bad imitationof opera put into rock music! USA Today music critic Ken Barnes said in an online question and answer when someone said Queen are overrated that he can't stand Queen and he said they changed music for the worst!

Also The 1992 Rolling Stone Album Guide only gives a few Queen albums 3 or 4 stars they give every other album only 1 and 2 stars. And they said that they made catchy tasteles bombastic schlock rock that could have only happened in the 1970's. They said people should use caution in buying Quen's Greatest Hits because even these sound dated!

Also I can;t understand how anyone can tolerate much less like Bohemian Rhapsody and We Are The Champions We Will Rock You,I have been turning off these songs from the second they come on the radio since I was 12 when We Will Rock You came out!

They have such obnoxious annoying words sung in an even more obnoxious loud annoying ways, Scaramouche scaramouche wil you do the fandano Galileo,Galileo Figara-magnifico

I just noticed I made a few typing mistakes. I really wish there was an edit button on here!