The life of an atypical song: Killer Queen, then and now
The number “Killer Queen” was a somewhat unusual offering from the band Queen when the song first came out in 1974. It’s catchy and has a musical theater rather than hard-rock vibe:
Freddie Mercury [said]:
“People are used to hard rock, energy music from Queen, yet with this single you almost expect Noel Coward to sing it. It’s one of those bowler hat, black suspender belt numbers – not that Coward would wear that. (…) It’s about a high class call girl. I’m trying to say that classy people can be whores as well. That’s what the song is about, though I’d prefer people to put their interpretation upon it – to read into it what they like.”
Brian May [said]:
“‘Killer Queen’ was the turning point. It was the song that best summed up our kind of music, and a big hit, and we desperately needed it as a mark of something successful happening for us.”
Watiching Mercury perform the number in this 1974 video, one word that came to my mind was “camp.” Remember camp? Sort of gayish, tongue-in-cheekish, over-the-top? Mercury was in fact bisexual and then exlusively gay, but at the time this was made he wasn’t “out” and I think this was considered play-acting rather than a statement of his sexual preferences. At any rate, it’s a lot of fun, and one of the things I like about the song is the quirky rhythm and the fabulous high harmonies for which the group is known:
Notice that the above YouTube video so far has over 127 million views; not too shabby for an old group.
Now, with the Queen revival, we have another interesting YouTube phenom, that of Marc Martel, who did some of the singing in the “Bohemian Rhapsody” movie. Martel fascinates me. He actually looks like Mercury in the facial sense, but is nothing like him in personality and performing style. He’s not really a showman and doesn’t have much star quality. Far more laid back than Mercury, and not at all camp, he possesses a voice that is indeed uncannily like Mercury’s (quite a feat) but with a slightly lighter smoother tone. His musicality is astounding, though, and (also like Mercury) he plays a mean piano. He may be even better than Mercury at the piano, and Mercury was quite good.
One of the most interesting things about Martel, in my opinion, is the fact that his voice doesn’t just conjure up something of Mercury’s tones, but he manages at times to imitate—all by himself—the entire group and some of its other stellar vocalists such as drummer Roger Taylor, who had an uncannily high clear almost-metallic falsetto (you can hear this particularly on the little recurring slide on the word “queen” in the phrase “she’s a killer queeeen”). Martel also uses not just his piano, but his voice—and a stellar whistle; please pay attention to the whistle!—to recreate something of the multi-instrument arrangement of the piece:
Here’s a mashup of the Queen rendition (minus Mercury’s voice, if I’m hearing it right) and Martel’s . Somehow it’s less good than either of the other videos, I think. But it’s interesting:
This was actually their first US hit and only their second UK hit so it might have been something different for what they were doing but to the public (especially in the US) it was one of the first impressions they made. ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ would be next and they were off.
For me it’s one of the few songs of theirs that I liked. Can’t say I disliked them but could just never totally get into them as they seemed to lack an emotional depth to their music, but that’s just me.
Plus for a period of years from the late seventies through the nineties ‘We Are The Champions’ was so overplayed at every sporting event from Little League to the Super Bowl that it became a cliche and now it’s a hard pass for me the second I hear it.
Neo – so glad to see you highlighting Queen stuff. I remember when Queen first came about as I was in jr. high school and thought they were sooooo different than anything we had heard before. I loved it so much that I had to buy their “Night at the Opera” and later “News of the World” despite not having a record player! (My friends had record players though; so, I could take the album to their houses)
And then, a couple of years ago I found this on You Tube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dREKkAk628I
I couldn’t believe that this guy (Marc Martel that you mention) wasn’t just lip-syncing to Queen. He is that good.
One group I never got into.
Much prefered Roxy Music.
In 1974, those guys were skinny! They needed to be given some sammiches!
SCOTTtheBADGER:
Brian May is still pretty skinny, especially for an oldish guy. John Deacon stays out of the public eye, so I don’t know about him. Freddie Mercury is no longer with us, of course. Drummer Roger Taylor hasn’t stayed quite as thin as May, but still pretty trim. He looks especially different to me compared to his younger self. Not really anything specific; he just gives off a very different vibe.
Recently:
Way back when:
When I was young, I missed the bus with Queen, Bowie, Roxy Music, Steely Dan and glam rock. I’m irredeemably heterosexual and I could tell they were coming from somewhere else.
More importantly, they didn’t sound sincere by my stringent folk, singer-songwriter standards. They were playing with masks and theater and that made me uneasy. It was very important to me then to feel a personal connection with musicians.
It’s horrible to admit, but when I was young, I was rather lost and I had the quaint notion music could provide answers. However it was clear Queen screeching, “She’s a Killer Queeeen!” in falsetto, wasn’t going to get me there.
Eventually I grew up and now I can hear them as artists, often very accomplished, who can take one on a helluva ride. Still, Queen will never be a fave.
Neo,
It amazes me how many of these guys like Jagger and McCartney are still rail thin even into their 70s when my observations of most men is even the fittest get a little thicker in later years.
Music should be about music, and music should be musical.
The young can play but unless they are a Mozart, their “songs” and instrumentations are crap.
Why I don’t listen to “pop”, or “hip-hop” or any of that garbage.
A song had better have a melody and lyrics that one can remember and sing. What will today’s young do when it is their golden years’ turn to listen to the non-music played when they were young?
Huxley,
I always have been able to separate acts based on lyrics or music. I love Steely Dan for the sound and not the lyrics. Of course there are perfect songs that nail them both and they are classics.
Cicero,
I follow Rick Beato on YouTube and one of his big things is that rock music and the guitar specifically will be mostly forgotten in 50 years or at least will be looked at like we look back at jazz or big band music from the 1940s.
Simply put most of the people that love this kind of music will die off.
Griffin: At this point I admire Steely Dan for music and lyrics. And by God, they surpassed just about everyone in rock for sheer precision and virtuosity. But I rarely feel the impulse to listen to them. Steeleye Span is more my speed.
I imagine Rick Beato is correct. In 50 years people will remember a few emblematic songs from Chuck Berry, Elvis, the Beatles and maybe “Satisfaction” from the Stones. That’s the way it goes.
IMO rock won’t recover from its current decline. A new form will emerge (not hip-hop) and replace it.
OT, I’d like to give Bowie credit for picking Stevie Ray Vaughn out of a crowd and launching him. SRV, like Hendrix, was probably unstoppable, but everyone needs a break at the beginning.
Yep, was never a big Bowie fan and when I heard the SRV played on ‘Let’s Dance’ It didn’t compute as they seem to come from different worlds.
For me there are certain performers that I love about everything they have done like Beatles/McCartney, Zeppelin, The Who, Tom Petty and many that I like a song or two and that’s where I would put Queen or Pink Floyd (‘Wish You Were Here’ the song gets me every time, brilliant). U2 also fits this as ‘I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For’ may be my favorite song ever but the rest, meh.
Martel enunciates incredibly well. I’ve never understood most of the lyrics to that song, and even if I read them, I could hear them, much less comprehend how they fit.
Freddie Mercury was being disingenuous in that quote: in Britain a queen is a gay man, and the song is about a camp gay man, and not a call girl.
We were all very thin in Britain in the 1970s, something that strikes me when I see pictures of soccer crowds from the era. Who knows why?
Caedmon,
I hate to argue with the writer about his intent, but due to the controversial subject matter you are almost certainly right. Adult gays at the time undoubtedly interpreted the song as you do, and I imagine that added to its popularity.
Like several of you here I am not a big fan of the band Queen. But I always loved the song Killer Queen. Bohemian Rhapsody came later and was hugely popular with me and my friends; it is such a good sing-a-long song for a group of people in a car or at a party. Mercury is a special vocalist.
As I recall, that year, 1974, we were listening to a hodgepodge of music – Paul McCartney and Wings, BTO, David Bowie, Steely Dan – and funk & disco were making a splash. I could be as snobby as anyone back then about certain songs and artists, but fast forward to today and I love hearing all those songs when they come on.
“Let’s do the Time Warp, again…” Freddy’s left hand only painted nails, along with open mouth, remind me a lot of Tim Curry’s Frankenfurter (Rocky Horror Picture Show). I’m pretty sure the song is about a gay man. Probably one who “plucked her eyes and then he was a she, and said Hey man, take a walk on the wild side.”
Killer Queen was great, so I listened to their two earlier albums. Their hard rock was mostly too hard, tho the White Queen compared to the March of the Black Queen had something. But not quite hits.
Queen later had some great hits. Most of their songs were album filler. As mentioned, “We are the Champions” was way overplayed. The hugely iconic beginning pounding of “We will rock you” is also overplayed — I was very surprised at a Christian family lunch having a short version of the pounding as part of a “grace” before getting the food.
Neo, thanks for these vids! I like Killer Queen more than Bohemian Rhapsody, tho I understand how the former is more an almost normal hit, and the latter is much more fun at karaoke, and even more unusual. (The movie discusses it well) You note that Roger Taylor’s pure falsetto sounds great with Freddy’s falsetto.
Great singer, surprisingly great, Marc Martel, just doesn’t have that easy slide up to falsetto that Freddy has. (Nobody else does, either.) His version is really good. But what is heard as missing in the third mashup is Taylor + falsetto blend. Martel’s fantastic voice just doesn’t blend the same, nor as well. He’s better off just with his own voice, or own voice plus Queen instrumentation.
Martel’s whistling is truly fantastic; wish I could be as lovely, musical.
I am a Flash Gordon soundtrack guy myself. I’m a child of the 80’s, I guess.
If I remember correctly, Brian May went back to school and became an astrophysicist. I always liked his guitar because it seemed you could pick it out of a crowd.
Regarding the rail-thin bodies of these rock star guys, my gut tells me metric tons of cocaine only a rock-star could purchase.
Marc Martel, just doesn’t have that easy slide up to falsetto that Freddy has. –Tom Grey
OT, but does anyone know the term for when a singer slides up to the high notes and on the way lets her voice crack artfully for a moment?
Sarah McLachlan does it throughout “Building a Mystery.” The first instance is at 0:22 on the words “vampires roam.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QUq72fla3o
It’s a great, subtle effect.
Apparently there is no technical term for it beyond voice crack or break. I read that it takes great power and control to pull it off. Pro stuff.
Famous Singers Kill SEXIEST Vocal Cracks / Octave Jump (Live)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPlgqDdKUu4
It’s singer-songwriter Sia’s bread-and-butter.
Vocal Coach Reaction to Sia’s Best Live Vocals
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NANq3K_7N8
He doesn’t address the voice break/crack but it’s a good sampler of Sia and it’s easy to hear her breaks.
Freddie was gorgeous.
I will argue that roxy music were more influential but in terms of raw musical talent and singing prowess Mercury was second to none. Average American music fans might think I am crazy for thinking some relatively unknown band in the states is more influential than Freddie and the queen but man roxy music is directly responsible for the whole music scene in 80s and trends that follow from the police to u2 to the Japan to Duran Duran to George Michael to Prince to the smiths to pulp, they were the number one pioneer of the Avant garde (ok may be second right behind velvet underground) and new wave stylish sync rock that dominated the music scene for the next two decades, almost every band or musician emerged since 80s you can find elements in their music that trace back to roxy music. Queen’s music genre never thrives after pretty much the 80s, hair bands in the 80s pretty much killed that genre, besides guns and roses and maybe distantly meatloaf or Chris Cornell I can hardly name anyone made it big after 80s that is clearly a continuation of what Freddie was doing, but roxy music’s influence lives on, even when the musicians might not even realise they were influenced by roxy music for the simple fact that they were influenced by musicians that were influenced by roxy music
There is no accounting for taste. I find Queen insipid. Same goes for Roxy and much, but not all of Bowie‘s cataloge, but not all boring. We all have taste. For me all Queen, like ABBA, is boring and lacking anything beyond pop pablum. Yuk. Gimme Shelter.
bohemian rhapsody was clearly inspired by stairway to heaven, there is no explaining away since both songs were structure wise identical, you take that song which clearly was nothing but a rip off of a much better and inspirational song the rest of queens catalogue is pretty mediocre(radio ga ga? Come on). Even taking originality out of the equation bohemian rhapsody I found to be the weakest among the other very famous progressive rock influenced conglomeration of differing musical styles rock songs (child in time, the end, shine on you crazy diamonds, band on the run, etc), not only was the structure borrowed, the operatic part was awkward, out of place and contrived. Of all other style changing songs I’d love to change the world and live or let die to me were much better as the rich musical style changes were accomplished in a much shorter time instead of needing to drag on forever.
“Flash . . . . ah ahhhh. He will save every one of us!” (memory?)
Huxley, the sopranos who can also hit lower notes have a very different sounding voice, than the tenors who can slide up thru falsetto highs.
Martel’s voice does seem to crack, where Freddie’s slides, sort of hitting all the notes in between.
George Michael, with a very different sounding voice, also slides wonderfully well.
http://djrobblog.com/archives/1212 — this guy talks a lot about falsetto singing. BeeGees and many black groups have it, but there are usually jumps from the high tenor into falsetto. What I find amazing is not the falsetto itself, but the slide up.
Pause for one of my favorite Stone’s song “Emotional Rescue”. Great song, but Jagger’s voice is not even in the same league as Freddie. I like most album Stones songs better than most Queen; and almost every album Beatles song is much better than Queen non-hits.
Tho sometimes there’s a great lyric:
“Told my girlfriend, I’d have to forget her.
Rather buy me a new carburetor”
In rhyme. (This was the only line I remembered from the almost totally forgettable filler song, “I’m in love with my car”, which nevertheless made it onto Queen’s 3-disk Greatest Hits)
Dave, on Roxy – I’d argue that Brian Ferry was taking more from Bowie than giving out in original stuff, and also had the very strange Brian Eno to work with and against, for awhile. Eno did more original work after he left, and Ferry was more looking for hits than being so original.
VU — “they only sold about a hundred albums. But everyone who bought one then started their own band…” Definitely more influential than Roxy.
Shtick
I saw them at the Garden in early ’77 (Thin Lizzy opened and what a night it was!) and I was hooked. They toured all the time and I was at almost every Garden show they did. This song was always included in their set and Freddie’s piano numbers-as this was- always had drive and rocked with riffs from the great Brian May.
This whole album was absolutely awesome and the first side remains my favorite one LP side in history. Before this LP they were touted as the next Led Zeppelin. Well they took Zep to the next level with melodic rockers that were instant classics.
Long Live Queen!
Interesting to see the number of people here who say they never really liked Queen. Same here. They’re brilliant technically but their music never appealed to me at the time and still doesn’t. Like another commenter above, I just never cared for the whole glam-rock sub-genre.
Mac:
I’ve noticed that, too. I plan to comment on it and related phenomena in a future post.
the phenomenon is caused by a clash of expectation. Many people who were introduced to Queen by bohemian rhapsody got disappointed when they found out that their music wasn’t as they expected since that song is not an accurate representation of their music style, it was an anomaly by comparison. People who tried to get into queen because of bohemian rhapsody expecting experimental progressive music like shine on you crazy diamond with innovative and complex arrangements and structures were fated to be disappointed from the beginning as Queen’s music was mostly nothing like that but simply very generic hard rock numbers with a slight traces of glam like straight out of the rocky horror show. If you like bohemian rhapsody I actually think the works of Elton John or even meatloaf matches that style more.
I also don’t get the Zeppelin comparison, The Stones are probably the much closer comparison, with Queen being the much more technically gifted vocalist and musicians though.
I’ve been a huge fan of Queen since “News of the World” came out, but my favorite album of theirs is actually “Queen II”, which lacks the slickness and polish that they would later perfect, but contains all the creativity and energy that they would become known for.
It’s bombastic, has its operatic moments, and its beautiful ballads, and is even a concept album of sorts… well, actually two loose concept albums, since side 1 and side 2 are quite different, musically and thematically. While there’s a lot about their music that they hadn’t perfected, so much of what made them stand out in the most creative period of rock music in history was clearly evident on their second album (as well as their first for that matter).
I’ve always thought “Bohemian Rhapsody” was one of the most amazing songs of the entire decade, but I’ve heard it so many times that I’ve almost (only almost) become tired of it, and I great relish the rest of “A Night At the Opera” which is a fantastic album from start to finish.
For anyone who would like a more modern song that was clearly inspired by “Bohemian Rhapsody”, I would highly recommend Moon Safari’s “Mega Moon”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbT9GqwpWkg
While it lacks the total bombast, and over-the-top melodrama that Queen had, I think it’s a worthy spiritual successor with impressive vocals (I believe all 5 members sing), and great technical skill.
Yeah, Zeppelin took existing blues music and rock and roll and did it really well. I really enjoy Zeppelin and have all their studio albums. The Stones are the same way… they’ve been making great rock and roll for over 50 years, with a lot of variety, but I would consider Queen progressive rock (which, unlike progressive politics, is a good thing) in that they advanced the state of the art by doing things no one else had ever done before. Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones totally earned their titles of two of the greatest rock and roll acts, but they really didn’t break new ground the way Queen did. Queen did things that no one, or at least very few artists, had ever done before, and while Freddie seems to get the lion’s share of the credit for it, it was really the whole group who earned it.
Rick (also known as ConceptJunkie)
Unlike Zeppelin or the Stones, I hardly hear any blues in Queen. Which is OK. It does put Queen more in the progressive rock camp.