08-26-1982 – The Daily Oklahoman
Beguiling variety crowns Queen’s divergent efforts
When a teacher holding a doctorate in astronomy, a graphic arts designer, a trained dentist and an electrician get together on a project, the inevitable result is a mesh and possible clash of four divergent viewpoints.
So it has been for the past 12 years with the British rock group Queen, featuring guitarist Brian May (the astronomer), pianist and lead vocalist Freddie Mercury (the designer), drummer Roger Taylor (the dentist) and bassist John Deacon (the electrician).
The most consistent element of their career is inconsistency.
After attracting audiences with orchestrated, choir-like vocals, Queen abruptly turned to overpowering instrumentation. After thick productions with layers upon layers of guitars, drums and singing, Queen suddenly thinned out their presentation to four-track simplicity.
And after bragging “No Synthesizers!” on elaborate albums of the mid-70s, Queen just as proudly made synthesizers the key element of its latest album.
All of that, of course, becomes secondary when England’s top foursome aided by keyboardist Fred Mandell takes the Myriad stage for a concert beginning at 8 p.m. Friday. Longtime Queen friend and studio companion Billy Squier opens the show.
On-stage, Queen offers a raft of material from its canon of 12 albums in concerts that have never lacked in elaborate staging or frantic antics by Mercury.
Their present tour features follow spotlights in groups of three which “sort of fly around over the stage,” said Deacon in a phone interview from a Houston hotel room. “They sometimes get better reviews than we do.”
But, he said, the visual effects are an added feature. The music can hold its own. “We’ve been going long enough now and we’ve got a lot of material and we do a lot of different styles on our albums. I think there’s enough musical variety that we’ll keep the interest of all.”
Variety is Queen’s most charming, and for some frustrating, quality. Except for “A Night At The Opera” in 1975 and “A Day At The Races” in ’76, no two Queen albums have been alike in anything but personnel.
Those two albums above the rest focus on Queen’s own musical inventions that defy any standard music labels. Otherwise, the group has jumped into Billie Holliday-like blues, punk rock, Spanish flamenco, jazz, heavy metal, country, ragtime, ’50s-style rock, disco and good ol’ 4/4 rock ‘n’ roll.
This is a sore spot for critics who feel musicians most grow and develop in definite directions. Queen enthusiasts say it is innovation. Deacon said in most cases it is accident.
“What happens, really, is when we go into the studio we end up doing the songs we’ve all individually written,” he said. “Each person’s songs is sort of a reflection of what they’re into at the time and what they like and what they want to do.”
“When you have a year or two between albums, you actually change what you’re thinking.”
That can be hard on their fans, though. Their first U.S. chart-topping single, the six-minute operatic “Bohemian Rhapsody” in 1976, sharply contrasts with their latest No. 1 smash, the disco-flavored “Another One Bites The Dust.”
Deacon said the musicians are aware of the image problems and that they probably lost many of their rock fans with their latest album, “Hot Space,” which features disco-oriented rhythm and blues material on all of side one.
Yet, Queen has been among the industry’s most commercially successful acts. “I think the big thing is that we’ve stayed with the same four people for 11 or 12 years now, which helps with a group identity.” Deacon said.
“I think it’s also that all of us write and we all have very different tastes in music. Everybody likes different acts. We do agree on some.”
The fact that four such diverse personalities have stayed together for 12 years is impressive in itself. The four musicians have also managed themselves since 1978.
“It’s not easy,” Deacon said. “The hard thing is to get an agreement, or even discussing anything. Everybody’s so busy, after their own thing.”