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Citaat:

Queen

My presentation is about Queen. I think most of you know that I’m a huge fan of this amazing band.

Perhaps some of you think: Queen, should I know that? Or you know the name of the band, but you don’t know what kind of music they made. Well, I can tell you that Queen is well known for the song Bohemian Rhapsody, because it is on number 1 in the top 2000 every year. Unfortunately, sometimes people forget that they’ve made more genius things like We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions, Somebody To Love, Don’t Stop Me Now etc.

I got to know Queen thanks to the top 2000. I already knew Bohemian Rhapsody, but when I saw the video clip of that song on TV, I thought: ‘Yes, this is it. This is my music!’ In the year 2008 I was completely pre-occupied by Queen. So I became a fan at the 31st of December in 2007.

First, I’ll tell you some chronological history. Queen was formed in 1970 by lead singer and pianist Freddie Mercury, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor. A year later, bass player John Deacon joined the band. In 1973 their 1st album was released. But they weren’t very successful until 1974, in that year they released their 3rd album with the hit single Killer Queen. They had a final breakthrough with their 4th album, A Night At The Opera, partly because of Bohemian Rhapsody. Their success kept continuing, until the release of their 9th album, Hot Space, in 1982. It was very different from the other albums. People were used to Queen as a rockband, but now they were making soul and funk! They lost many fans. The following album was more what people usually expected from them. And after their brilliant performance at Live Aid in 1985, which is chosen as best live performance ever, they were popular as never before. From this moment they had many hits, until Freddie Mercury, the extravagant frontman, died at the 24th of November. The day before he had admitted that he had aids. Many people think he got aids because he was gay, but he was not gay, he was bisexual with a preference for men. After his death, the whole world was in shock and the band was unproductive until 2005, in that year they went on a tour again. Because there was no singer anymore, they co-operated with singer Paul Rodgers. Unfortunately John Deacon, bass player, doesn’t perform anymore. He wants to enjoy his retirement. In 2008 Queen + Paul Rogers went a tour again and I got to see them in the Ahoy. It was amazing, and even though Paul Rodgers was nearly as good as Freddie, it was great to see my heroes Brian May and Roger Taylor at the distance of 3 meters. The atmosphere was good, the fans were nice people, all wearing Queen t-shirts. I was wearing a Queen t-shirt too, but I also had a coronations cloak, ‘cause Freddie was always wearing a cloak at the end of each concert.

Queen was not a normal rockband, they had a unique sound. In the ‘70s they didn’t use synthesizers, and they are also known for the addition of many-layered background choirs in many songs. A good example of this is the middle part of Bohemian Rhapsody. You can hear a choir of 180 voices, recorded by 3 band members. In nearly every song you hear a guitar solo of Brian. His guitar is really unique, ‘cause he built it himself when he was a teenager.
They have an extremely varied repertoire, ranging from banketstaaf to hardrock, for every mood you’re in, they have a song. I think their varied repertoire is partly due to their intelligence. Freddie studied at the art academy, John studied electrical engineering, Roger studied dentistry and biology and Brian studied physics and astronomy, he got his Ph.D. in astronomy. So we can call him dr. May. He’s also in the Board of directors of the university of Liverpool.

Citaat:

I guess you all know the songs We Will Rock You and We Are The Champions. People often don’t realise that they are written by somebody. They just think this songs have always existed, but they were written by Brian May and Freddie Mercury.

Hitime schreef:

Chaotisch.


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