Queen: Original Rock n’ Roll

Hello people (: today I will talk about one of the most amazing bands in Rock n’ Roll history: Queen! This band formed in England in 1971, when The Beatles and The Rolling Stones was what the country considered as Rock n’ Roll. Queen made history because of their originality, their music is a unique Rock n’ Roll style, and also because of the leadership and heart of their singer, Freddie Mercury himself, who provided Queen with beautiful creativeness for their songs.

Before Queen it was Smile, formed by Roger Taylor as drummer, Brian May as guitarist and another guy as the singer who later abandoned them. The band needed a new singer, and like destiny it happened that Roger Taylor had a friend called Farouk Bulsara, who became their awesome singer Freddie Mercury(: (Sánchez, 2).

Freddie gave important ideas to make Queen´s style; he had the idea of a rock band where the visual aspect was very important, a musical spectacle with powerful Rock n’ Roll different to what had been shown in England until then. After getting John Deacon as bassist, they continuing sharing ideas about the band and decided they wanted Queen to be a rocker drama band, with a lot of treatment of the voices and guitars. When they made their first record, Queen´s music was the result of all the ideas they had: in the songs there was a broad use of the voices in chorus, guitars sounding with a very special hard sound, and much orchestral richness with piano and acoustics. Queen’s original and different style was formed. However, their style changed a little or added new characteristics with their third record, and it was all because Brian May was not in complete health like to give a lot of heavy guitar contributions, so it was then when Queen got a lot of pop style, but continued with the hard guitars. An example of this is the song “Killer Queen”(Sánchez, 3).

Queen was just one step to gaining their fame definitely, so they produced their two records “A Night at the Opera” and “A Day at the Races”, which contained amazing songs like “Somebody to Love” and “Love of my Life”. But the most emblematic song in Queen’s career is “Bohemian Rhapsody”. It was recorded for one month, and released in 1975. This song was longer than the others, with complex harmony and very original because of the mix it had of heavy and operatic parts. The radio first refused to play it, but then it noticed it was one of the great songs in Rock n’ Roll (Sánchez, 6). It is a beautiful song, expressing a lot of pain and drama through Freddie’s amazing voice, and releasing it with the anger of the guitar part, and finally ending with a fragile and resigned phrase: “nothing really matters…to me”    :’ D

Queen continued with its successful career, playing live around England and the United States and giving memorable nights to the fans. They even came to Mexico and I think to Monterrey in 1982 :D my Dad told me but he could not go ): But in the beginning of the 90’s when AIDS was more frequent, Freddie Mercury got sick with it and died in 1991. His band mates continued giving concerts to remember him, with the help of other singers. Freddie is remembered as a free person, and a leader with a good heart who never gave up and always had a positive attitude, it will never matter if he was gay.

I recommend you to hear the song “Show must go on” with the lyrics, that song was made in their last record, and from what the lyrics say, Freddie knew he was going to die, but he says beautiful things (:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBOvOatPqnY&feature=related

Works Cited

Sánchez Guarneros, Israel. “Tributo a Queen”. Rock Stars. México: Guarnerius Editores, 2006.

Rock n' Roll in the 90's

Hello there! I have to tell you, I did not wanted to talk about this but later I found it very interesting…as you can see. It was in the 90’s that rock and roll took a distinctive turn. Many people became bored with the soft rock bands and singers in the charts, even with traditional Rock n’ Roll which now included not just the one of the fifties but the other variations that were out there until the 80’s. They needed something different (rocknroll123.com). New Rock n’ Roll variations came up that were very different from the ones that were sounding on the radio by the 1980’s, it was almost a new Rock n’ Roll.

Grunge became extremely popular during the 90’s and was the predominant Rock n’ Roll variation, usually credited to the success of Kurt Cobain and Nirvana. With his death came the decline of grunge music, because by the end of the decade most of these bands changed their style (rocknroll123.com). Nirvana’s song “Smells like Teen Spirit”, released in 1991, became the anthem for the rebellion against structure, conformity and commercialism (rockmem.com). This is the real meaning of this song in context of the Rock n’ Roll movement, it is not just a “headbanger song”, the reason why a lot of people like it without knowing what it really means.

British Rock n’ Roll revived in the 90’s, since in the 80’s there was not much manifestation of this music. Artists and bands were trying to emulate famous British bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, for example two bands formed in the decade, Blur and Oasis, resembled the Beatles and the Rolling Stones respectively. It was a new proposal and that made this a new sound (rocknroll123.com). Indie rock, founded in the late 80’s, intensified and became more popular in this decade and later became a mainstream, contributing to this new group of variations of Rock n’ Roll that changed it (rocknroll123.com). This is often described like a sentimental, less rude and more personal music.

Just like L.A. was home for the 80’s Rock n’ Roll (L.A. ROCKS), now Seattle became the hub of 90’s rock. Successful bands were the ones with which young people could identify, such as Nirvana, the Cranberries, Oasis and Pearl Jam. This last one became a flagship rock band in the 90’s just because of that, because their lyrics echoed the confusion, anger, heartbreak, and frustration of the lost youth (rockmem.com).

So the Rock n’ Roll movement responded to a new social attitude of the youth of this time. It gave the young people, the teenagers, anger toward government, a fight against conformity, and search for the meaning in life, a search different from the one inspired by previous Rock n’ Roll. The youth was asking where they came from, why they existed and where were they going. Most of them had no identity and Rock n’ Roll helped to create “Generation X”, a name referring to how unimportant and unknown many teenagers felt. This feeling gave a new sound to Rock n’ Roll, creating these very different styles and variations I have mentioned. Now it was a cold, dark music with deep lyrics and fearless expressionism (rockmem.com).

I’ll show you the representative song of the representative Rock n’ Roll variation of the 90’s, even though maybe you already know it because of the “headbanger” concept, but it is interesting to listen to it knowing what it means ;) haha well, I call it interesting.

Works Cited

“Rock and Roll in the 90’s”. rocknroll123.com . Rock N Roll, October 13. Web. November 3, 2011.

“How 90’s Rock and Roll Changed the World”. rockmem.com. RockMem.com: The History of Rock & Roll, October 2, 2011. Web. November 3, 2011.