Queen Albums... Ranked!

[Music] hi everyone James here with another video now this video is going to be my queen rankings video I've only done one rankings video while it be on the VC and that was Pink Floyd Queen is what I've been meaning to do for a long time and I've been going around the house is making lists trying to work it out I finally have a list I'm reasonably happy with but obviously people who've done rankings videos will know that it's not always easy to do it and how the list comes out isn't always a hundred percent reflection of what you feel but you have to put them in a list you have to rank them somehow so that's what I've done so just a really quick word about Queen Queen or one of those divisive bounds some people love them some people hate them some people just don't get them I've always loved Queen to me they're like the Beatles when I used to play in bands back in the nineties made my friend we were a band together and we were both big queen fans and we would have a litmus test any musician who came to audition to be in our band the test we would always give we'd have a rehearsal with them you know whatever we take them to the pub get some drinks in and then ask them what they thought so Queen and if the person was dismissive of Queen or didn't like Queen it did it didn't matter how good they've been at the audition we didn't want them in the band because as far as we were concerned if people didn't like Queen that means they didn't like great tunes great imaginative production arrangements brilliant level of musicianship fantastic singing the greatest frontman who ever lived and also just the sheer kind of overarching ambition you know back then we wanted to be rock stars and as far as we were concerned Queen with the kind of ultimate rock stars and if somebody didn't like Queen we were always kind of suspicious you know what like what is there not to like that was just how we were you know very arrogant I still think that to an extent I still think Queen were an extraordinary band with just the most amazingly talented singer/songwriter well no the most amazing performing sing the song right so I'm not going to say that freddie was the greatest singer-songwriter who ever lived but to me he was he was kind of up there you know one of the Great's anyway so one final thing before a star I am very keen in this ranking this video not to be really critical of the albums at the bottom because just a stress I like all these albums okay I do not dislike any of them so I'm gonna hopefully try to be positive about all of them I'm only going to do the studio albums I'm not going to do the live albums not going to do the compilations or the deep cuts albums I'm also not going to do made in heaven I'm only going to do the albums that were recorded with Freddy when he was alive okay now let's start with number 14 [Music] I was thinking about putting it a number one but I couldn't do it in the end because there's only two songs I have vocals you know it's not really a full-blooded Queen album but my word what a great soundtrack this is I played it again the other day and it was always one of my favorite films but the soundtrack is just one of the best things queen ever did you know every pendant but contributes something every piece is brilliant you know so imaginative in the space capsule which is a lovely discuss it has just a lovely tune to it football fights the execution of Flash so many great pieces and it's interesting because Queen never used since in the 1970s and the synth work they went on to do in the eighties it was never all that convincing it always it was always a little bit you've got the sense that they were using kind of presets on the keyboard certain sound you know roland digital keyboard sounds but for some reason on this album they've got it absolutely right because the electronic sounds on this they don't sound like presets they sound it's almost like a kind of Vangelis kind of thing where they've they've really crafted the sounds it's kind of true electronic soundtrack music nothing like what you'd expect from Queen but it also contains some great kind of heavy heavy tracks you know crash dive on Mingo City and the battle theme where Brian May really gets to turn these down put 211 a tremendous tremendous record and a great film if you've not seen the movie of Flash Gordon for a long time stick it on it'll make your day which at the time was really heavily derided by Queen fans and the public this was when Queen decided to really play that kind of black funk disco thing it was in the wake of their hugely successful song another one bites the dust which had been written by John Deacon and released in 1980 on the game album it took the band by surprise Brian May and Roger Taylor didn't like the song at all didn't want the band to move in this direction John Deacon and Freddie Mercury won the argument they recorded this album which has one side it is a complete departure it's got all these synth you know synth bass lines and kind of be like a disco funk feel it turned off the fans it wasn't a hits album at all but looking back it's not nearly as much of a break from the Queen tradition as people said it was at the time there are still some good heavy rocking songs on here we've got to put out the fire backchat which is great John Deacon song and it contains the brilliance duet of course with David Bowie from depression [Music] [Music] kind of magic released in 1986 I should just say actually I should maybe have said at the beginning I mean you can really carve up Queens career into two phases there's the kind of critically acclaimed phase in the 1970s although it should be stressed that Queen were not critically acclaimed at the time it's only in retrospect that their seventies work is kind of held up as being this great body of work the 80s albums are a different thing altogether they're much more of a kind of pop rock more kind of mainstream less progressive you know shorter songs and everything they also do suffer a little bit from that kind of 80s production so in a way it will be easier to do a kind of best of the Queen to do a sort of ranking of the nineteen seventies albums and then do a separate ranking of the eighties albums because it's kind of hard to compare the two sets but I've got them all in together this album suffers a little from the kind of that kind of very brash 80s production Queen had started to use synths and so on so the sound was much more synthetic than it had been slightly nasty drum sounds and so on but some good songwriting some fun tracks a little bit of filler but you can't really argue with an album that contains stuff like one vision and the track kind of magic and who wants to be forever [Music] [Applause] this is the miracle from 1989 this came out when I was just about to go to university and I played it to death I just thought it was a great album it does contain a bit of filler there's the two tracks partying Kishori ship or a litt there are bits sorts of you know written on the hoof kind of track you can imagine them being worked up in the studio in the context of a jam you know rather than songs that are being kind of worked on in a kind of considered way but then you've got the miracle which is you know a nice pop rock song I want it all The Invisible Man a great tracking breakthrough rainless fool which is a bit more of a filler track scandal which is this is you know quite a good number my baby does me which is OK and then was it all worth it at the end which contains that kind of classic you know overreaching bombastic Queen Styles there we go the miracle [Music] again an album I'm really fond of this helped me through a difficult time when it came out my grandfather became ill and died and I think it was 1984 this record saw me through some lovely tracks keep passing the open windows is one of my favorites kind of Freddy power ballads it's a song of great optimism and you know courage Radio gaga which will always divide the fans I think it's just you should just take it for what it is you know it's just a big bombastic kind of silly 80s pop song but it's got rather a nice chord sequence some good Brian main rockers tear it up and Hammer to fool you know both both great Brian tracks [Music] [Music] okay so here's where some eyebrows might be raised okay so Queen I kind of known for having recorded to really kind of big 1970s monster albums and I have them kind of slap bang in the middle of my list for rather than being towards the top end so at number nine I have a day at the races which is the album they made straight after the huge success of Bohemian Rhapsody now day at the races and night of the Opera are both very expensive sounding albums they they represent Queen at their most Sergeant Pepper s caspere's you know being in in recording studio taking a very very long time to craft the music endlessly layering things multi layering and tracking I mean they're brilliant albums both of them they both contain some incredible feats of recording you know but some I've got them in the middle of the list because I've heard them so many times and also I think there is an argument that's that when you look back at so you know this album and the one that I'm going to show you in a minute they're perhaps not as fresh sounding as some of the others you know Queen did some more kind of spontaneous kind of albums where they didn't take quite so long and they kind of cut to the chase a little bit more in terms of being really good to sort of concise rock band you know and day at the races which I have at number nine and Night at the Opera which I have at number eight are the last gasp really a queen being a kind of progressive band that's why these albums normally are revered in place kind of quite high at the top you know but I've always been a fan of the more kind of pop rock side of Queen so that's why I've got these albums perhaps not as high as you would expect so day at the races at number nine and night at the opera in 1975 this is the album which contains a bohemian rhapsody' death on two legs it's a very diverse album all of it works for me I actually find it a little bit patchy on a cage and a little bit self-indulgent about the song the profit song goes on too long and there's a couple of sort of overly whimsical moments with good company which is a bit kind of bang joey and seaside rendezvous which is freddy just taking cam you know to the enth degree but it's certainly a lot of good stuff on this as well but it's down on my list [Music] [Applause] now this in a way is the kind of end of Queens 70s career they've made all these very impressively produced albums with Roy Thomas Baker but then they'd started to get tired of that big sale and sonically this album is not as good as other Queen albums it has a slightly kind of claustrophobic boxy sound to it after this record they went with Mac it's a music land and and they've got a lot more sonic precision into their record so sound wise not the best queen album but it's one of these ones that's full of just inventive songs you know it's just is there's so many different styles you've got bicycle race which is it kind of unis surreal little thing yet Mustafar which is a completely ridiculous Freddie song Let Me Entertain You which is a really edgy kind of been a rocking song fat bottomed girls which is just a complete piece of outrage from Brian May dreamers ball which is a lovely little ballad just a great deal of variety I would say it's perhaps not as cohesive as some of the albums even some of the album's I have below it on the list but it's the kind of album that you can really put it on and you never quite know what's going to happen next it's quite kind of jarring but not in a bad way [Music] the first album by Queen probably not one of the great all-time debut albums it was a record which they had to record in rather strange circumstances you downtime studio time and so on in between other recordings by other artists and it does contain some good songs keep yourself alive being that kind of standout track son and daughter which is a great rock song and liar but it's quite sort of underdeveloped you know it's not the album which you'd play to somebody saying that this is Queen at their peak you know some bands come straight out of the gate with an amazing debut album some bands take a few albums to get into their stride [Music] Hey [Music] this album I'm surprised at how high puts it but I kind of listen to it recently this is innuendo the final record Queen recorded while Freddie was alive and it's just a very strong album to bow out with when you consider how ill freddie was he was having to record in very narrow tight little windows he was happy to go lie down he was medicated he was in a really bad way they had to use I suspect a fair amount of very speed techniques on this to get his voice up but the passion of his delivery and you can hear the fact that he's just putting everything he possibly can you know into this into this last recording and the songs that they came up with are actually really strong you've got I'm going slightly mad which is a great kind of you know whimsical surreal Queen's song you've got to ride the wild wind which is one of my favorite all-time Queen songs it has the most propulsive you know there was a thread while ago about great driving songs that is a fantastic driving song and you've also got these tracks and you know the the show must go on which is a real return to that kind of early 70s bombastic Queen kind of saying fracking you endo as well of course which is very it takes Queen back to that kind of progress really a very impressive piece of work it also contains the lovely song these are the days of our lives and one interesting thing about this album and also I didn't mention at the time the miracle the last two albums Queen recorded they decided finally to ditch the idea of each song being credited to an individual and they started to credit each song to the band and that led to some really good cohesiveness album hangs together really well [Music] so this album came out in 1980 hold it down it's the first record they produced in musicland studios and they did it with the engineer Mack Reinhardt who had done a lot of work with various quite big bad well very big bands he was straight off the back of doing elo he'd done some extremely big and successful albums with them Queen went into the studio with him he reinvented their sound they paired everything down the black funk influence came in with another one bites the dust which is a really brilliant track I think full of innovation and groove very competitive sounding made Queens sound hungry again as did the song Dragon attack which has a real kind of R&B vibe to it and fantastic drumming from Roger Taylor great bass work from John Deacon throughout it's got the fifties prestige crazy little thing called love which was one of the tracks apparently that inspired John Lennon to get back to songwriting again just a great kind of Elvis style number a couple of really strong Roger Taylor Tunes as well just a really good album it was a big hit in America the last big hit they had in America actually this was the first album they made after Queen and after Freddie had come out being gay as well so that was fairly significant so there we have the game [Music] a great album there's one track on it which really does not work and that is the track loser in the end by Roger Taylor which kind of sticks out like a sore thumb the rest of it is very very cohesive is Queens most cohesive album it's the one they made before they became a pop band before they decided to do more of a pop rock thing it was straight down the line progressive side to contains just some fantastic songs you know the march of the black queen and nevermore everything very very complicated I mean they they wore through the recording tape you know most of this album is a kind of trial run for Bohemian Rhapsody but it's much less poppy it's much more dark and progressive and you kind of lose yourself in it I also love side one as well the tracks and father-to-son White Queen really really kind of lovely songwriting very very interesting textures it was recorded at Trident studios it has the big kind of you know booming drum sound that we know from those records that were recorded there so many classic albums recorded at trying to think man who sold the world was recorded there and this album has a very similar sound so yeah Queen Sue didn't put it higher because ultimately because it's so cohesive it's kind of it gets a little bit OneNote sometimes it doesn't quite have that variety that you come to expect [Music] really evolved the band into more of a pop kind of thing they kept the hardrock thing but they turned it more in so it kind of pop rock but of a mixed bag you know different styles John Deacon has a track on the sheer heart attack for the first time misfire it still has all the progressive things in a Brighton Rock which is this ridiculous extended thing with all that kind of you know multi-tracked guitar pyrotechnics from Brian May he has some very cohesive songwriting on it now I'm here it has some lovely florid Freddie moments you know lily-of-the-valley flicker the wrists which is a hard-working number in the lap of the gods don't go crazy she makes me which is sort of quite an uncharacteristic Queen song quite kind of floaty and spacious just a lot of very strong ideas that keep coming out here really fast you know it's a Pacey album queen sue is not that Pacey this album is it's just track after track and you never quite know what you're going to go and it contains the immortal single Killer Queen which is one of Freddy's wittiest and kind of most lovable songs I always think [Music] so number one now some people may not agree with me but this is and always has been my own personal favorite queen album partly for nostalgic reasons is the first one I ever had got it in 1977 when it first came out from a birthday this is the album where okay so they did nights at the Opera that had the huge hit with Bohemian Rhapsody they did date the races which was a kind of softer version everything had started to go a bit flat see you know AB it's almost Gilbert and Sullivan in places Punk came along punk broke in 1976 Queen could have sunk without trace but instead they reinvented themselves tracks such as sheer heart attack written by Roger Taylor featuring guitar played by Roger Taylor very very you know fast hard Ramones sort of style riffing with a real kind of post-punk edge to it even though it was any kind of 1977 you know abrasive textures fight from the inside also by Roger you've got very clever kind of studio based track such as get down make love which contains no synthesizers at all but you sort of hear anything how on earth did they get those sounds you know very very inventive you've got loose Jam kind of tracks like sleeping on the sidewalk which is virtually made upon the spot in the studio you've got great rockers like it's late you've got the genius of Freddie doing his bluesy my melancholy blues beautiful ballad from Brian May all dead all dead which contains a lovely piano power who needs you which is a really nice John Deacon song with a slightly Latin feel to it and the album starts with we will rock you and we are the champions which I mean some people don't like those songs they think that that's where Queen tipped over into self-parody you know but I think both those records are tremendous that you know they contain such imaginative arrangements and engineering you know and just wonderful performances and just a great sound new to the world from 1977 easily my favorite queen album so there we go did you agree with my rankings I would love to hear your thoughts either in the box below or if you'd like to make a response video I would be more than happy to watch it in comments so there we go love them or hate them but you can't ignore them that was Queen thanks

Channel: James Griffiths

Views: 13,474

Rating: 4.7058825 out of 5

Keywords: Queen albums, Queen album rankings, Vinyl Community

Id: ksCunkVpJk8

Length: 24min 36sec (1476 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 17 2017