The Week in Queen (5)

I grew up around vinyl records; my dad had a fairly good-sized collection he had accumulated through the years, lots of Beatles, Stones, the Who, Zeppelin, Jefferson Starship, Cat Stevens, the original Star Wars soundtrack … and those are just the ones that stand out in my mind. But the very first vinyl LP I ever owned was Chipmunk Punk. I was six years old, it was a gift, and I loved it. You may suspect this is a delusional false memory of childhood, retrofitted with my wacky pop culture sensibilities, but it was an actual thing:

The name of the album was a bit of a misnomer, though, especially as viewed through the retrospectoscope. The cover songs peformed by Alvin, Simon and Theodore were by such notable punk rockers as Linda Ronstadt, Billy Joel and Tom Petty. There were also versions of songs by The Cars, Blondie, multiple tracks originally recorded by The Knack, and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” credited to one F. Mercury. Really, it was just a quickie cash-in on songs with available rights that were popular in 1980. “New wave” probably would have been a more apt label (though still not exactly right) but there’s always been a fair amount of both continuity and confusion between those two genres, and at the dawn of the 80’s they were indistinguishable. Plus, admittedly, “Chipmunk Punk” just has a nice ring to it.

If we zero in on the Queen track (which of course is why we’re here), it seems like an odd fit either way, neither punk nor new wave; if anything “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” is a throwback rockabilly number that borders on being a novelty piece. And Queen isn’t exactly a punk band, either. Defining labels is already a mug’s game at best, but I do believe that certain hallmarks of punk rock are essential, including the stripped down, rough-around-edges DIY sound that often resulted from the bands being far more interested in self-expression than technical proficiency. And since I’ve already staked out my opinion-turf on Queen being musically exacting in every way, they’re pretty much the opposite of a punk band, QED.

Most people (and Wikipedia) simply refer to Queen as a rock band, and rightly so since over the past five or six decades the concept of rock has evolved to be pretty all-encompassing. I have my own fair share of bands who are easier to pigeonhole amongst my favorites (glam metal and party rockers and third wave ska and whatnot) but I happily acknowledge that good bands feel the creative freedom and possess the creative chops to dabble in multiple genres. And the truly great don’t just dabble, but approach each song as a brand new starting point. There are disco-inflected Queen songs, operatic Queen songs, arena rocking Queen songs, and Queen songs that defy classification. Queen’s legacy isn’t so much how they shaped the direction of one particular approach to rock music (unless that approach is “pure bombastic awesome”); it’s much more self-contained, and maybe that’s why they continue to stand the test of time.

And I don’t think it’s just me who thinks that. One of my favorite comic novels is Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Pratchett is brilliant and Gaiman is one of my personal heroes, and their collaboration on Good Omens is another good candidate for my hypothetical Required Reading list. It’s an absurd farce that manages to dig into faith and fate while also throwing in tons of surreal gags about our ridiculous modern world. One such running joke begins thusly:

"Admittedly he was listening to a Best of Queen tape, but no conclusions should be drawn from this because all tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight metamorphose into Best of Queen albums."

Which simultaneously proves two of my points! First, that Queen’s music is ubiquitous, true in 1990 when Good Omens was published and true today. And second, that any genre of music is only two weeks of ripening away from sounding a lot like a Mercury/May jam.

And this is the week that was in Queen, for the final week of Movember!

Monday, 7:15 pm: "Bohemian Rhapsody" on Big 100 FM while putting the little girl down to sleep.

Tuesday, 5:00 am: "Under Pressure" on ??? right before I hit snooze on the alarm clock. I was so dead to the world that my subsequent attempt to hit snooze resulted in a hot mess of button mashing and inadvertent dial turning. I don't know what station my radio alarm was on before (I just need a burst of noise to wake me up) and I certainly don't know now that I can't refer to the tuner band. But I definitely recognized the bass line for the couple of seconds I came in contact with it, so I'm counting it.

Tuesday, 6:30 pm: "We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions" on Big 100 FM, followed immediately by "Crazy Little Thing Called Love". Twofer Tuesday strikes again!

Wednesday: Queen-free.

Thursday, 6:25 pm: "Under Pressure" on SiriusXM's 1st Wave station, during a little downtime between feeding the kids and getting the little girl into the bath.

Friday, 6:55 pm: "Bohemian Rhapsody" on Big 100 FM as the little girl was being put down for the night.

Saturday: Queen-free.

Sunday, 1:55 pm: "Fat Bottomed Girls" on Big 100 FM, in the car as we were leaving lunch out with some friends.

Sunday, 4:25 pm: "Another One Bites the Dust" on 102.7 Jack FM in the car as I was heading home from Costco.

But, wait! I hear you say. Movember was over as of Friday, so what am I doing chronicling encounters with Freddie Mercury's discography into December? I do love running a concept into the ground and then some, and I still have a few more random Queen-related essays in me, so this feature is going to keep going a bit longer. See you next Sunday!