music revival, day 8

as the week winds down, i've got another long day of lab work ahead of me, so i figured i'd listen to some tunes to get back into my music revival.


queen - classic queen

• favorite known tracks: bohemian rhapsody, under pressure
  
• surprise favorite unknown tracks: a kind of magic, hammer to fall, stone cold crazy, radio ga ga, slightly mad, i want it all, tie your mother down, the miracle, one vision
• comments: i found this one while putting some other cds away, and realized i'd never listened to the cd; just put it away without a second thought. i knew i liked bohemian rhapsody, and even though EVERYONE always says, "under pressure! that's by david bowie!" they would be surprised to find out that the MUSIC is by queen and it was queen's first joint venture in music with alternate artists. i was quite surprised by how much i disliked this album the first 2 times i listened to it, but by the third/fourth/fifth time, i found myself quite enjoying it. the first 2 times i thought it was too hard rock, too ballady, and too wimpy and thin sounding. however, today i had quite a different outlook on the album (the first 2 times through were on tuesday afternoon after already being kind of tired from a long day that just kept getting longer). 'hammer to fall' i'm sure relates to the cold war and the soviet union, 'stone cold crazy' is apparently done by other heavy metal artists and is, in my opinion, better during the times when there are lyrics. 'radio ga ga' reminds me a bit of dire straits, 'money for nothing' though i don't know why. 'slightly mad' brought up memories of dr. demento 'they're coming to take me away'. certainly the most poignant song for me of the album is 'i want it all' - it hits home so much for me the current generation - 'i want it all, and i want it NOW!' i'm pretty sure that's what they were getting at, though maybe it has been like that for all time. and 'tie your mother down' reminds me of billy joel's 'only the good die young' - come on out and hang out with us already! it'll be fun! and, at the end, the track 'who wants to live forever?' has a sequence in it that reminds me of led zeppelin's 'live and let die' if that's even the name of that tune, which it probably isn't. i heard the phrase, and kept waiting for the finish, but, well, this was queen's song...

i was very impressed with this album, even with it's greatest hits type status, and in the shadow of it's predecessor killer queen hogging the spotlight with the big hits, it still delivered. thursday was delightful with this album in my lab coat. :)