Queen FAQ: All That's Left to Know About Britain's Most Eccentric Band

by Daniel Ross

Overview

Whether you think you know everything about Queen already or if you’re new to the band and want to learn more, Queen FAQ will walk you through every aspect of one of the music industry’s strangest, longest, and most successful bands of all time.

Queen is the quintessential stadium-filling live act with an impeccable musical pedigree and a penchant for extreme partying; Queen was, and still is, a complete one-off. Discover the journey from long-haired rockers obsessed with mythology to creators of slick chart-toppers, and their unexpected second life after the death of Freddie Mercury in 1991, taking them right up to date with sell-out world tours and an Oscar-winning movie to their name.

The story of Queen has been told so many times, but never quite like this: taking an exhaustive approach to every aspect of every band member, this unique book will answer all the questions you’ve ever wanted to ask about Britain’s biggest band. Did Freddie Mercury really sneak Princess Diana into a gay bar? What is Brian May’s guitar made of? Why did Roger Taylor get so many royalties for “Bohemian Rhapsody”? And what ever happened to John Deacon?

Queen is the band who conquered the US singles charts with “Another One Bites the Dust” and stole the show at Live Aid, but they’re also the band that turned their songs into a hit musical and have somehow doubled the length of their career after the death of their lead singer. Frankly, there’s no other band like them: this book reveals why.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781493051410
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	04/15/2020
Series:	FAQ
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	328
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Daniel Ross is a writer and music journalist. He was previously the digital managing editor for Classic FM, the world’s biggest classical music radio station. As a freelancer, he’s written for BBC Music, The Quietus, The Fly, Rolling Stone, and the Evening Standard; he’s also worked as a music researcher for BBC Radio 4’s Something Understood. He’s the author of two nonfiction books for Classic FM and a novel, Bobby Denise Is Reigning Rampant, published by Unbound in 2019. He lives in Bristol, UK, and runs a bookshop with his wife, Emily.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction: The Rehearsal Room 1

1 What Did Queen Do before They Were Queen? 5

2 Which Artists Influenced Queen? 15

3 Doing All Right: From Smile to Queen 21

4 Murky Beginnings: Queen's First Record 27

5 Mercury Rising: Larry Lurex 35

6 "… And Nobody Played Synthesizer": Queen the Engineers 39

7 Becoming Iconic: Queen II 45

8 Sheer Heart Attack: How Did Queen Enter the Mainstream? 55

9 How Metal Was Queen? 63

10 Pop and Circumstance: Queen's Imperial Phase 67

11 Is This Just Fantasy? An Attempted Explanation of "Bohemian Rhapsody" 77

12 Day Follows Night: Queen Coasting 89

13 Spread Your Wings: When Did Queen Truly Conquer? 95

14 Greatest Hits: Queen as a Singles Band 101

15 "Is This Man a Prat?" Queen and the Press 107

16 Jazz, Not Punk 111

17 Mountain Studios: Queen's Sanctuary 117

18 Winning the Game: Queen on Top of the World 121

19 Another One Bites the Dust: John Deacon Saves Queen 133

20 Who Really Wrote the Music from Flash Gordon? 137

21 Hot Space: Is It Really That Bad? 147

22 "I'll Pay the Bill, You Taste the Wine": Queen at Leisure 155

23 Let's Give' Em the Works! 161

24 Video Ga Ga: Queen's Greatest and Strangest Music Videos 169

25 Live Aid: Was It the Greatest Rock Performance of All Time? 175

26 Queen Reenergized: A Kind of Magic 181

27 Queen Becomes Equals 189

28 Heading Out to Sea: Innuendo 195

29 Too Much Love Will Kill You: The Death of Freddie Mercury 203

30 The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert: Who Played? 207

31 Made in Heaven: How Did Queen Record an Album without Their Singer? 213

32 Queen In-Between: What Did the Band Do from 1995 to 2005? 219

33 We Will Rock You: The Queen Musical 225

34 How Do You Replace Freddie Mercury? The Birth of Queen + 231

35 A New Muse: Adam Lambert 239

36 Is This the Real Life? The Queen Movie 249

37 The Music of Freddie Mercury 257

38 "Give It to Me One More Time!" The Greatest Voice in Rock? 267

39 The Music of Brian May 273

40 The Music of Roger Taylor 285

41 The Music of John Deacon 293

Afterword: I Still Love You 299

Bibliography 303

Index 305