Recently an old friend of mine from high school had a rant on Facebook about how he hears to much Journey and Queen in the media these days, especially on the radio and in television ads. He went on about the commercialization of Queen songs, Bohemian Rhapsody in particular, and about how they, “sucked back then, and 30 years later they still suck”.  It was the type of post that got a lot of responses, both positive and negative. So, I thought in his honor I’d submit as this Week’s Runner, Queen’s 1975 landmark album A Night at the Opera, and yes it is the album that contains their avant-garde hit single Bohemian Rhapsody.

This record reiterates my speculation that the “album” is a lost art form. The single, Bohemian Rhapsody, when taken out of context from the rest of the record becomes a joke in Wayne’s World, or on YouTube when sung by a drunk guy in the back of a police car. But, when heard here as the final cut on side two of this album, it fits like a glove, and makes perfect sense.

In the 70’s, Queen was well known as the “Zeppelin” of the Glam Rock movement, combining heavy, Heavy Metal with outrageous over the top dress, theatrics and highly harmonized sound scapes. Today, with the emergence of shows like Glee and Smash, and the popularity of movies like Moulin Rouge, Fame and Chicago, it isn’t any surprise that this band (Queen) would come back in style (if in fact it ever went out). They were pioneers blending ostentatious theatrics, beautifully ornate music and hard rock to create videos and a “Killer Queen” live stage act.

A Night at the Opera is a concept album very much like Sgt. Pepper was 10 years earlier. With layer upon layer of guitar and vocal tracks this vaudevillian exposé is a tribute to the burlesque of the 20’s and 30’s, friendships, love, and of coarse sex, and tragedy. All neatly tied together on two sides of vinyl in the album format. When I listen to it, I wish it were a double LP because it is so finely crafted, well written and preformed. I wish it would go on forever. I highly recommend this one from start to finish.

Enjoy!

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Hot off the heels of their success with Adventures in Utopia, Todd Rundgren steers this ship 90 degrees right into the heart of lamestream Beatlemania by delivering what I think is probably the best parody of the Fab Four ever created.

parody noun \ˈper-ə-dē, ˈpa-rə-\ a literary or musical work in which the style of an author or work is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule

The difference here is that Rundgren did not create this work to capitalize on (remember the Rutles, or that horrible butchery of Sgt. Pepper by the Bee Gees?), or in contempt of the Lads, but rather as homage to the band that led the British Invasion 20 years earlier, and shaped the coarse of rock music throughout the 1960’s and into the 70’s.

Utopia’s Deface the Music touches on nearly every phase of the Beatles career from the early singles fresh out of Liverpool “I Just Want to Touch You” à la (I Want to Hold your Hand) to the psychedelic “Penny Lane” or (Hoi Poloi).  Each song and musical style can be attributed to a specific period within the Beatles development. John Lennon once said,

“You can be bigheaded, and say, Yeah, we’re going to last 10 years. But as soon as you’ve said that, you think, You know, we’re lucky if we last three months.”

I don’t think Deface the Music is bigheaded and its not “Strawberry Fields Forever” (Everybody Else is Wrong). It is what it is. A salutation. At 33 minutes, you just get started and before you know it, the records over. The only irony here is that it was released in October 1980, just one month before Lennon was shot dead outside his New York apartment.

I bought this album when it first came out, and every time I listen to it I pick up on something new, another detail or association back to the Fab Four that I didn’t hear before. Rundgren is a meticulous craftsman, and this album is spot-on.

Enjoy-Poloi!

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