Zack: This is absolutely an unfair criticism, but I
am exceedingly frustrated with this album because I listened to it on the train
and I had to constantly alter the volume. It just wouldn’t decide if it wanted
to be loud or quiet. In another setting, I would probably appreciate the
diversity. But on a train where one song I’m straining to hear over all the
choo choo’s and the next I’m trying to avoid glares coming from the lady
sitting across from me because apparently she’s a homophobe and doesn’t like
Freddy Mercury (I’m making that up. She seems like a nice lady and I’m sure any
potential disdain for Freddy Mercury has more to do with a negative opinion of
facial hair or other reason that doesn’t involve sexual preferences. Please
don’t hate me, lady sitting across from me. I want us to work this out. Don’t
go. Oh, it’s your stop? Okay, it’s cool if you go then.) The other bit of
unfair criticism I have is that I am a stormtrooper purist. I like my
stormtroopers to be tall and have terrible aim. That’s it. I don’t want them
rocking stilettos, even if that would make at least three of my fantasies come
true. Other than that, I thought Sheer Heart Attack was a solid album and a
good exposure test for me, since I used to rather anti-Queen. I also believe
Freddy Mercury is probably the greatest frontman of all time, but I’ll save
that for when we listen to A Night at the Opera.
Emily: I have been a Queen fan for a really really long time and I'm not quite sure how that came about. Maybe because Bohemian Rhapsody was and is on classic rock radio all the time, and that song's sheer awesomeness led me to listen to more. Or it was that time my mom taped (yeah, it was a long time ago) their Wembley concert from PBS and I got to watch the genius performance of Freddie Mercury in my living room. But I think I liked Queen before that, otherwise I wouldn't have watched it. Hmm. Tis a mystery. Anyway, in all of my years of Queen appreciation, somehow I had never heard all but one of the songs on Sheer Heart Attack, and of course that one song was Killer Queen. Night at the Opera tends to get all of the love, but now that I've heard all of Sheer Heart Attack I think that love deserves to be shared. Musically it's all over Queen's arena rock spectrum - boisterous rock, power ballads, and the like - and all brought together by Mercury's amazing one-of-a-kind voice. Queen was probably at their best when performing live, but since we can only do that now with aid of VHS tapes (or a DVD, that's probably out their somewhere), listening to this album a few times comes close.
Favorite Tracks: Killer Queen; Brighton Rock; Flick of the Wrist
No comments:
Post a Comment