Диссертация (1098575), страница 50
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Instead, they released the film The Song Remains the Same, which appeared in the fallof 1976; its soundtrack peaked at number one in the U.K. and number two in theU.S. Zeppelin finally returned to the stage in the spring of 1977 with a tour of the United States(the U.K. was off limits, as the band decided to take a tax exile). The concerts raked in money butnearly three months into the tour, Plant's six-year-old son Karac died of a stomach infection. LedZeppelin immediately canceled the tour and offered no word whether or not it would be269rescheduled, causing widespread speculation about the band's future. For a while, it did appearthat Led Zeppelin were finished. Robert Plant spent the latter half of 1977 and the better part of1978 in seclusion. The group didn't begin work on a new album until late 1978, when they beganrecording at ABBA's Polar Studios in Sweden. A year later, the band played a short European tour,performing in Switzerland, Germany, Holland, Belgium, and Austria.
In August of 1979, LedZeppelin played two large concerts at Kneb worth; the shows were their first English performancesin four years and would be their last English concerts33.QueenFew bands embodied the pure excess of the '70s like Queen.Embracing the exaggerated pomp of prog rock and heavy metal, aswell as vaudevillian music hall, the British quartet delved deeplyinto camp and bombast, creating a huge, mock-operatic sound withlayered guitars and overdubbed vocals.
Queen's music was a bizarreyet highly accessible fusion of the macho and the fey. For years,their albums boasted the motto "no synthesizers were used on this record," signaling theirallegiance with the legions of post-Led Zeppelin hard rock bands. But vocalist Freddie Mercurybrought an extravagant sense of camp to Queen, pushing them toward kitschy humor and pseudoclassical arrangements, as epitomized on their best-known song, "Bohemian Rhapsody." Mercury,it must be said, was a flamboyant bisexual who managed to keep his sexuality in the closet until hisdeath from AIDS in 1991. Through his legendary theatrical performances, Queen became one ofthe most popular bands in the world in the mid-'70s; in England, they remained second only to theBeatles in popularity and collectibility in the '90s.
Despite their enormous popularity, Queen werenever taken seriously by rock critics – an infamous Rolling Stone review labeled their 1979album Jazz as "fascist." In spite of such harsh criticism, the band's popularity rarely waned; even inthe late '80s, the group retained a fanatical following except in America. In the States, theirpopularity peaked in the early '80s, just as they finished nearly a decade's worth of extraordinarilypopular records. And while those records were never praised, they sold in enormous numbers, andtraces of Queen's music could be heard in several generations of hard rock and metal bands in thenext two decades, from Metallica to Smashing Pumpkins.The origins of Queen lay in the hard rock psychedelic group Smile, which guitarist Brian May anddrummer Roger Taylor joined in 1967.
Following the departure of Smile's lead vocalist, TimStaffell, in 1971, May and Taylor formed a group with Freddie Mercury, the former lead singerfor Wreckage. Within a few months, bassist John Deacon joined them, and they began rehearsing.Over the next two years, as all four members completed college, they simply rehearsed, playingjust a handful of gigs. By 1973, they had begun to concentrate on their career, releasing their debutalbum, Queen, that year and setting out on their first tour. Queen was more or less a straight metalalbum and failed to receive much acclaim, but Queen II became an unexpected Britishbreakthrough early in 1974. Before its release, the band played Top of the Pops, performing"Seven Seas of Rhye." Both the song and the performance were smash successes, and the singlerocketed into the Top Ten, setting the stage for Queen II to reach number five.
Following itsrelease, the group embarked on its first American tour, supporting Mott the Hoople. On thestrength of their campily dramatic performances, the album climbed to number 43 in the States.33http://www.allmusic.com/artist/led-zeppelin-mn0000139026/biography270Queen released their third album, Sheer Heart Attack, before the end of 1974. The music hallmeets-Zeppelin "Killer Queen" climbed to number two on the U.K.
charts, taking the album tonumber two as well. Sheer Heart Attack made some inroads in America as well, setting the stagefor the breakthrough of 1975's A Night at the Opera. Queen labored long and hard over the record;according to many reports, it was the most expensive rock record ever made at the time of itsrelease. The first single from the record, "Bohemian Rhapsody," became Queen's signature song,and with its bombastic, mock-operatic structure punctuated by heavy metal riffing, it encapsulatestheir music. It is also the symbol for their musical excesses – the song took three weeks to record,and there were so many vocal overdubs on the record that it was possible to see through the tape atcertain points. To support "Bohemian Rhapsody," Queen shot one of the first conceptual musicvideos, and the gamble paid off as the single spent nine weeks at number one in England, breakingthe record for the longest run at number one.
The song and A Night at the Opera were equallysuccessful in America, as the album climbed into the Top Ten and quickly went platinum.Following A Night at the Opera, Queen were established as superstars, and they quickly tookadvantage of all their status had to offer. Their parties and indulgence quickly became legendary inthe rock world, yet they continued to work at a rapid rate. In the summer of 1976, they performed afree concert at London's Hyde Park that broke attendance records, and they released the hit single"Somebody to Love" a few months later.
It was followed by A Day at the Races, which wasessentially a scaled-down version of A Night at the Opera that reached number one in the U.K. andnumber five in the U.S. They continued to pile up hit singles in both Britain and America over thenext five years, as each of their albums went into the Top Ten, always going gold and usuallyplatinum in the process. Because Queen embraced such mass success and adoration, they werescorned by the rock press, especially when they came to represent all of the worst tendencies of theold guard in the wake of punk.
Nevertheless, the public continued to buy Queen records. Featuringthe Top Five double-A-sided single "We Are the Champions"/"We Will Rock You," News of theWorld became a Top Ten hit in 1977. The following year, Jazz nearly replicated that success, withthe single "Fat Bottomed Girls"/"Bicycle Race" becoming an international hit despite the massivebad publicity surrounding their media stunt of staging a nude female bicycle race.Queen were at the height of their popularity as they entered the '80s, releasing The Game, theirmost diverse album to date, in 1980. On the strength of two number one singles – the campyrockabilly "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and the disco-fied "Another One Bites the Dust" –The Game became the group's first American number one album.
However, the bottom fell out ofthe group's popularity, particularly in the U.S., shortly afterward. Their largely instrumentalsoundtrack to Flash Gordon was coldly received later in 1980. With the help of DavidBowie, Queen were able to successfully compete with new wave with the 1981 hit single "UnderPressure" – their first U.K. number one since "Bohemian Rhapsody" – which was included bothon their 1981 Greatest Hits and 1982's Hot Space. Instead of proving the group's vitality, "UnderPressure" was a last gasp. Hot Space was only a moderate hit, and the more rock-oriented TheWorks (1984) also was a minor hit, with only "Radio Ga Ga" receiving much attention.
Shortlyafterward, they left Elektra and signed with Capitol.Faced with their decreased popularity in the U.S. and waning popularity in Britain, Queen begantouring foreign markets, cultivating a large, dedicated fan base in Latin America, Asia, and Africa,continents that most rock groups ignored. In 1985, they returned to popularity in Britain in thewake of their showstopping performance at Live Aid.
The following year, they released A Kind ofMagic to strong European sales, but they failed to make headway in the States. The same fate271befell 1989's The Miracle, yet 1991's Innuendo was greeted more favorably, going gold andpeaking at number 30 in the U.S. Nevertheless, it still was a far bigger success in Europe, enteringthe U.K. charts at number one.By 1991, Queen had drastically scaled back their activity, causing many rumors to circulateabout Freddie Mercury's health.
On November 23, he issued a statement confirming that he wasstricken with AIDS; he died the next day. The following spring, the remaining membersof Queen held a memorial concert at Wembley Stadium that was broadcast to an internationalaudience of more than one billion. Featuring such guest artists as David Bowie, Elton John, AnnieLennox, Def Leppard, and Guns N' Roses, the concert raised millions for the Mercury PhoenixTrust, which was established for AIDS awareness. The concert coincided with a revival of interestin "Bohemian Rhapsody," which climbed to number two in the U.S. and number one in the U.K.
inthe wake of its appearance in the Mike Myers comedy Wayne's World.Following Mercury's death, the remaining members of Queen were fairly quiet. BrianMay released his second solo album, Back to the Light, in 1993, ten years after the release of hisfirst record. Roger Taylor cut a few records with the Cross, which he had been playing with since1987, while Deacon essentially retired.
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