Good old Brian May is back in the news today, announcing that 'Queen' are in the process of creating a follow-up to their hugely successful musical We Will Rock You.
So there we have it; one of my guitar idols, from one of my favourite bands of all time, has again set about desecrating Queen's legacy. Not only that, but he’s doing it with such consummate ease that it wouldn't surprise me if we were to lift up his luxurious bouffy hairdo and find Chesney Hawkes hunched up in there at the controls - a bit like Remy from Pixar flick Ratatouille - the 80s pop flop deciding that he hadn't damaged the world of contemporary music enough during his own personal heyday, and had to go undercover to bring down the whole shebang from the inside.
I can almost understand May and drummer Roger Taylor - bassist John Deacon gracefully bowed out of the entire shambles long ago - trying to keep their band's legacy alive, but collaborations with atrocious boy bands such as Five and dire comedians such as Ben Elton? If they had at least a modicum of taste I could perhaps understand what was going on. A hook-up with Rufus Wainwright could actually work a treat; indeed the use of Don't Stop Me Now in Shaun of the Dead was inspired, and probably brought them exactly the sort of attention they want, just like Bohemian Rhapsody did when it was featured in
But for most of the time it's Mr Elton ludicrously trying to construct a futuristic narrative out of their best-known hits, or the absurd spectacle of them recruiting Paul Rogers and disastrously deciding to record a new album with the Queen name, even though only half of the actual band are left, an act stripped of the iconic singer that everybody associated them with. And just in case you think the forthcoming long-player could actually compare to the band's best efforts, I present you with the following evidence:
Before (one small but significant reason why the 80s didn't suck):
After (as a game, see how long you can endure the painfully obvious social commentary being offered up, on Al Murray's show of all things):
The main thing that I don't understand is that Brian May is an astrophysicist and the newly installed chancellor of Liverpool John Moores, so with his evidently enormous intellect he can surely come up with something better than this tired and trite claptrap? Maybe he and the similarly smart stand-up Dimitri Martin could come up with a complex and yet side-splitting explanation as to why Queen songs actually explain the origins of the universe, or the guitar-slinging mastermind could construct a new robotic front man who'd sing the band's songs in an identical vocal timbre and with the exactly the same onstage strut as Freddie Mercury, all while simultaneously beating Gary Kasparov at chess and making the perfect Potato dauphinoise for Gordon Ramsay to salivate over. Now THAT's how you keep Queen at the cutting edge, rather than appearing like hackneyed has-beens.
Track of the week:
Copy Haho - You Are My Coal Mine
http://www.myspace.com/copyhaho
A band that seem to be playing every which way you look at the moment, I've seen Copy Haho since before they even laid claim to that name, which makes their genesis into a great alt-indie act all thesweeter - mainly because I can now tell most people I saw band before they did. Anyway, they're playing about ten bazillion shows in the next couple of months - that's a scientific estimate - so check them out if you possibly can, it'll be well worth it. You Are My Coal Mine is especially beguiling with its incessant drive and spindling guitars lines, possessing such confidence that they’ll be more than a match for Sebadoh when they support them at The Classic Grand next Friday.
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