borrowed tunes

Queen's Opera lp was one of the very worst rock records ever made. The rest of Queen's records just got worse and worse. If, in 1975, I would have known I would have to listen to Queen songs at hockey games and other sporting events for the rest of my life I would have committed suicide. Patti Smith is a poet; the Boss is a lyricist; Freddy Mercury was a rock 'n' roll swindler.

It's funny, Mr. Beer N. Hockey: I love your name. If the rest of my life was beer and hockey (and a few good albums) I'd be happy.

My policy is not to reveal too many personal details, but let me simply say that I know Gerrard Gallant from Eddie Olcyk as well as I know Brian May from Bob Nastanovich.

I don't doubt that you think Queen sucks, but that kind of blanket statement (unless it's about the Kings of Leon) might mean you don't belong here.

That's a hell of a year, sure, but it's also impossible to know what's going to be remembered as classic 30 years from now. We may be telling 20-year-olds, "Actually, Sufjan Stevens was still playing pretty small theaters then".

But it's actually pretty interesting to see that critics polls included records that most people would have heard of. It seems like as the years go by, what critics like tends to get more and more specialized and with smaller audiences. Kanye West and Gwen Stefani may make some year-end polls, but it's kind of a amazing to think of when two huge artists topped critics lists.

Nice post. 1975 was a grand year. I graduated high school that year and the music from that year in particular stands out mainly for its creativity. Sure, there were a lot of band records that came out during that time. No, you're not an old fogey. There's a reason why they call it "classic" rock in all the best ways.

Me and the boys kind of liked Queen when they broke out of the gate. They were creative, played their guitars loud and Freddy was every bit the fucked up front man that Mick Jagger or Lou Reed or David Bowie was. Long before I had heard of Bukowski, however, I was a follower of his great piece of philosophical advice - Figure out where the crowd is headed and run like Hell in the opposite direction. I headed in the direction of Eddie and the Hot Rods and the Sex Pistols. I was just a little taken aback at how many people joined that stampede.
Only time I saw Queen live was their Hyde Park free show. It was free because of the obscene amounts of money Night at the Opera made them. There were perhaps half a million people there, the biggest crowd I have ever been a part of. I liked Kiki Dee's, Supercharge's and Steve Hillage's performances better.
And I was as surprized as anybody when I invented my web name that no one else had sewn it on to their e-jersey.
Cool to know you've rubbed shoulders with some very decent hockey players. I go for the Rangers myself.

Certainly '75 was, by anyone's standards, a high water mark. And '05 may go down as a bust. But I believe it is too difficult to sort this all out until at least 5 to 10 years have passed. When I listen to music that I bought in the early to mid 1990s, I'm amazed at how much my opinion of it has changed. Many records that I thought were exceptional at the time now seem trite or unlistenable; others that I thought were decent now seem unbelievably good. And by the mid 90s I never would have believed my opinion would change so much in a decade.

Case in point: 1993. I would have filled out a top 10 or 20 list that would have likely included, in various positions, Liz Phair (Exile), Nirvana (In Utero), Royal Trux (Cats and Dogs), Uncle Tupelo (Anodyne), and Mercury Rev (Boces). I hate all of those records now, other than perhaps a track or two each. I would trade them all in a hearbeat -- and by trade, I mean agree to never listen to a single note of them ever again -- for Stereolab (Transient etc.). I liked Transient then, but if you had told me that in a decade I would believe it better than all 6 of the others put together, I would have laughed.

If I've got some of the dates wrong, it's because I'm a fool, but you get the idea.

Make that "all 5 others." I really am a fool. Throw in just about any Buffalo Tom or Yo La Tengo record from that era and make it 6.

1975 was one of the peak years for the labels giving artists a lot of time, specifically studio time, to go out there and make something great. And "Rumours" or "Thriller" level sales still weren't expected in return. Artists today who haven't been established (just as Bruce and Patti were still unknown quantities in 1975) don't get that kind of break anymore. You either get stuff that's enthusiastic, but low budget, or overly professional and zombielike.