FREDDIE MERCURY - GONE FOR 30 YEARS

 

November 24th marks the 30th anniversary of the passing of Freddie Mercury at the age of 45 on this day in 1991.

After having been a rabid Queen fan in the late 1970s, by 1991, Queen were pretty well off my musical radar and had been for some time. I hadn’t bought one of their albums since The Game in 1980 and had since gone on a musical journey which had taken me into the far flung outer reaches of the most challenging and experimental music. Actually, by 1991, my attention was coming off the tail end of the Acid House movement, which had sprung up in 1988. In 1991, my interest was moving towards things like Aphex Twin and the latest in UK electronica. It all seemed miles away from Freddie, Brian, Roger and John.

I wasn’t completely unaware of Queen during the ‘80s. Occasionally I’d see a video and even find them amusing from time to time, especially the drag video for I Want to Break Free, but I wasn’t following their career at all and was oblivious to any of the rumors circulating about Freddie’s health. I had no idea he’d been diagnosed with HIV, but neither did anyone else until shortly before his death. There were only suspicious stories in the media to stoke speculation, but I didn’t encounter any of that.

The day the news broke, I remember I was hanging out at a friend’s place, having a few beers and getting a bit wasted. We had the TV on just as a news report showed the announcement that he’d died. I remember seeing shots of Brian May being ushered to a car and I think Roger Taylor was there too. It didn’t seem real to me, at first. Not having any inkling anything was wrong, it all seemed to come out of the blue. I remember feeling a weight in my stomach as I realized it was actually happening and one of the icons of my youth had just been snuffed out. It didn’t seem possible or real.

Soon enough, the news was out as to what had taken him and the true tragedy and sadness of it all came into focus. How could someone so vibrant, so brazen with LIFE not exist anymore? Since then, I’ve watched as the mythology and legend has continued to grow around him in ways that are reserved for a precious few. He’s in the ranks of the “Godstar” now, a term coined by Genesis P-Orridge for Brian Jones. It’s that echelon where celebrity meets mythology and the dead become iconography for the masses. They become something beyond human as their fame continues to grow beyond their mortality. It’s the realm of Elvis, Marilyn, James Dean, John Lennon… etc. It’s surprising to me in the sense that he died from a disease that was so stigmatized at the time, the punishment for a life of sin, according to some. It’s an end that would have buried the reputation of most along with their corpse, but the impact of Mercury was too significant to be snuffed out by the ignorance of prejudice and bigotry. Now, his fabulousness is revered rather than scorned and I’m happy for that.

Eventually, my musical tastes evolved to a point where I could rediscover my love of Freddie’s music and embrace it again, wholeheartedly. As that has unfolded, I’ve found myself reevaluating things that I’d previously dismissed. Albums like Hot Space, which I once considered the bottom of the Queen barrel, I now experience with the intent that Freddie had hoped for. As he’d say, it’s only music and a bit of fun, so why not try something new? He was always up for that, and it’s what attracted me to Queen in the first place. Of course, that appreciation only makes me feel melancholy thinking about all that he didn’t get to do. He certainly put the effort into leaving as much behind as he could. His final years were filled with him recording any time he could, banking up material for the band to finish off as much as he could, even as he struggled with the ravages of his illness. I just wish he’d been able to go further. But I do think he’d be so utterly tickled to see what his legacy has become and I know he’d be wallowing in it with both feet, darling!

THE KINKS - MUSWELL HILLBILLIES @ 50

 

November 24th marks the 50th anniversary of the release of The Kinks’ 10th studio album, Muswell Hillbillies, which was issued on this day in 1971.

Coming in with the first wave of the British Invasion of the early 1960s and following on the success of their blistering proto-metal hits like You Really Got Me, The Kinks had built a career refining their songwriting sophistication through a series of albums which brought out Ray Davies’ talents as a storyteller to a degree that was quite unequaled in the realm of pop music. Yet, while they’d had success in the UK charts throughout the latter half of the decade, the US was pretty much a lost territory after their 1965 tour resulted in the American Federation of Musicians refusing to grant them performance permits until 1969, likely due to their rowdy reputation on the road. The result was that the US mostly forgot about them for the back half of the ’60s.

That began to change in 1970 with the release of the album, Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One. The album’s title track, Lola, an account of a confused romantic encounter with a transvestite, became an unlikely top 10 hit on both sides of the Atlantic and brought the band back into the spotlight in the US. That album also signaled the ended of their contracts with Pye and Reprise Records as they signed a five album deal with RCA. That got them enough of an advance to set up their own recording studio, where they recorded Muswell Hillbillies.

Muswell Hill is the area where the Davies brothers grew up and the themes of the album delved into working class subjects reflective of their background. Critically, the album was a success and garnered glowing reviews right out of the gate and the success of its predecessor had seemingly set them on course to continue that trend as they began their tenure with their new label. Yet neither critical acclaim nor momentum from the previous album managed to secure significant sales for Muswell Hillbillies, even though it had all the earmarks to succeed. The songs are top-notch, the styles reflect both British sensibilities, when it leaned into music hall influences, while also bringing in American influences of bluegrass and country. For many, it is considered the band’s last truly “great” album! Yet it flagged in the stores and ended up signalling the band entering into a downward trend until they rebounded in 1977, reinvigorated by the “new wave” vibrancy of the times.

While the band would go on to have more hits in the late ‘70s and beyond, Muswell Hillbillies, in retrospect, seems to be a marker of the end of their “golden age” that began with Face to Face in 1966. It caps a run of music that remains peerless in terms of its visceral connection to its subjects and Ray Davies’ ability to deftly concoct his narratives around the framework of meticulously crafted, unforgettable pop music. It’s music that defined the gold standard for its genre of narrative driven, folksy realism.