As a teenager, growing up in a rural area of the UK in the 1970s, I had limited opportunity to hear new music. We couldn’t receive Capitol Radio and Radio 1 / Top Of The Pops only played chart music. We had to wait for birthdays / Xmas to get albums so our only option was to buy singles from anywhere you could get to. I was lucky; my Boots had a range of music and you could ‘pre-order’ singles. On release day (31st October, 1975), I rushed home and listened to this single for the first time.
I have just played it and even now, I get shivers. Whatever your opinion of the band I hope you have, at least once, been moved by this masterpiece. Freddie was a genius and in my opinion this wasn’t even the best song he wrote.
This was soon followed by watching the video on TOTP and seeing Queen live for the first time. November 1975 was quite a month for the ‘young me’!
Until I was just at the start of my teens when my older brother was given Dansette type record player for his birthday, the only thing on which to play records in our house was a wind-up gramophone that only played 78s. My parents’ small collection of records provided my daily music fix. From the age of just under 13 I discovered music through my brother and his friends, though I could only play his records on his record player when he wasn’t at home (and always got into trouble because he would instantly know I’d used it because I’d always turn the treble and bass to maximum to try to extend it otherwise very midrange spectrumI). Through that I discovered I liked things like Pink Floyd, the Moody Blues and Ten Years After, and didn’t like various other things that he did.
That was the background to my own music purchases. The first single I bought, which I think was the first record I bought, was a couple of years later: on a summer seaside family holiday, we’d go into some café or other for lunch. There I discovered the jukebox. In particular there was one record that stood out for me that I really liked, the Beatles’ Get back. It was a big surprise as hitherto I had developed an intense dislike of Beatles music, partly because of their earliest stuff that had blared out of every radio, creating and cementing a dislike of pop music generally. I took to going back to that café several times a day to play Get back several times while I drank a hot chocolate! After the holiday I bought it, and would play it whenever I had a chance to use my brother’s record player.
By about that time music had become a topic of conversation among friends at school, primary source of music then being radio (Luxembourg or pirate stations like Caroline). I did not buy many singles, finding that the music I was drawn to seemed focused more on albums though occasional tracks would be released as singles and appear in the charts, but I did start buying albums, albeit not many as pocket money and paper round were limited. Meanwhile the limited music playing capability at lead me towards my own record player, which to cut a long lead to learning about hi-fi, cooling two years birthday money and one years presents from anyone added to paper round earnings, and my part building parts assembling my first hi-fi system. Oh so much better than my brother’s record player! I was hooked…
Yes music, perhaps more than anything else, creates memories. Of course, Bohemian Rhapsody has always divided opinions, I think it was on a Birmingham radio station that it got voted best and worst single of all time, simultaneously!
From my point of view, I like it a lot, but much prefer the pithier Killer Queen that came 12 months before.
They were a great and of course unique band although I thought their creativity largely dried up after A Day At The Races. I had the pleasure of seeing them, with my late wonderful wife, at their last ever concert with Fred at Knebworth on 9 August 1986.
With a number of the HMV shops going/having gone it’s harder I think for the current generation to have that connection of shopping for physical media in a dedicated environment.
That doesn’t stop my daughter (18) from absorbing music across all ages/genres through Spotify at an incredible rate. If I ask her ‘have you heard (say) Don’t Fear the Reaper’ I usually get an eye roll and ‘of course, what do you think I am, a savage?’ She keeps asking about a record player though because she wants the experience/connection and memories that gives.
Indeed - I remember How Does It Feel with affection. My parents took me to the ‘Old, New, Borrowed and Blue’ tour in 1974 - my first big show and I was really grateful!. ‘Do We Still Do It’ was a great track from that album.
Sorry for not being clearer - the track came from the album that the tour supported, ie Old, New Borrowed and Blue. A fine example of the need in those days to have a ‘rabble rouser’ of a song to start side 2 of an LP.
I’ee described my first record buying, but didn’t mention Queen or Bohemian Rhapsody. When i first heard BH I was mesmerised, and bought the album instantly. The album is fine, some songs not really me but OK in context, however BH to me is the one really good thing Queen did. I had heard the album Sheer heart attack a year or so earlier. But not good enough to buy, though I dd a decade or two later. On the strength of Night at the opera I bought Game’s up when it was released, but overall found it rather disappointing. I have plated NATO quite frequently ever since getting it, though I adnit yo sometimes just st playing BR in isolation.
We have a bit of a tradition in The Netherlands. Every year, between Christmas and New Year, the public broadcaster (NPO) has a Top 2000 show on Radio 2. People vote for tracks and the 2000 most popular tracks are played. For lots of people in The Netherlands and Dutch in other countries, this is a huge party we celebrate together.
Bohemian Rhapsody always end ups on the #1 position
As expected, Roger and Brian have been interviewed about the making of Bohemian Rhapsody; specifically how earlier songs led to it. This has been said by them before but it is a concise summary if you’re less familiar with the first two albums. This is on You Tube
Interesting that Brian mentions that they have been remixing a track from Queen II. Suggests a ‘from the vaults’ release is on the way along the lines of the Queen I release. I am of course nervous as this album is as near perfect as I can imagine!
My first album purchase was Yessongs purchased from Woolworths. The purchase was prompted as a guy I new, who travelled a lot, played all of his music from a cassette deck through headphones. During one of his visits, I almost randomly selected his Yessongs tape and listened to a few minutes of “Yours is no disgrace”. That was a little over fifty years ago, and the rest as they say is history.
