Queen as progressive band?

A lot of comments I'm reading about Queen having a lot of filler tracks on each album.  For those who think so, what are such tracks for you?

I only own the first five (I've got the Amazon box set vol.2 in my shopping cart, so will be getting albums 6 through 10 soon)

Queen (debut).
I love, love this album and listen to it all the way through most times.  Only "The Night Comes Down/Modern Times Rock N Roll" is a slight dip in the flow.

Queen II
Same as above. "Some Day One Day" is okay, but I never skip it.

Sheer Heart Attack
I rarely listen to this one. Just can't get into it. So no comment.

A Night At the Opera
No filler. A perfect album from start to finish and somewhere in my top 20 albums of all time!

A Day At the Races
Near perfect, like the first two albums. Most songs are good to my ears. "You and I" bores me a bit.


Edited by catfood03 - September 13 2011 at 21:16

I really don't care how you label them, they were an astonishing band, one of the best ever. They were sort of an operatic rock band evolving with their time. And if some people tell they lost their "bite" after the game, they should listen to songs like "innuendo", "is this the world we created", "tear it up", "gimme the prize", "who wants to live forever", "was it all worth it", "scandal", "I can't live with you", "don't try so hard", "the hitman", "the show must go on". They all showcase some tremendous musicianship and exceptional vocals, of course.

^ No. I inferred from your post that you consider such a wide diversity of classifications of their music from 3rd parties as conclusive evidence of Queen being unadulterated 'Progressive Rock'

It's not the first time I've misunderstood you is it?

Queen never, you know, really rocked me. 

Queen on RateYourMusic:

Pop/Rock, Hard Rock, Rock, Glam Rock, Pop, Soundtracks, Disco, Film Score, Art Rock, Film Soundtrack, Progressive Rock, Symphonic Rock, Synth Pop, Funk Rock, Piano Rock, Christmas Music, Rock Opera

I'd say that's fair.

10cc is also prog 

I see no issue in calling Queen PR if Tori is crossover.   The problem might simply be that Queen was and is already very well known as one of the top hard rock acts of the 70s and reclassifying them for the sake of this website seems superfluous.  As for being progressive, I think Sparks should get some of the credit that is generally reserved for Queen because they did this whole glam rock with faux-operatic vocals thing, AND anticipated New Wave, AND did it a whole lot more effectively than Queen.  As much as I like Queen, most of their memorable tracks are pastiches.

lazland wrote: I think that any album which includes their hits is a great album. Unfortunately, for me, I found that every single album they did also contained some atrocious rubbish.

yup...total agreement with you on that.

Hi,

By my take, they are as much a prog band as Uriah Heep or Atomic Rooster (both of whom I consider to be prog, but barely so). They're a whole league more prog rock than Tori Amos, Nine Inch Nails or Robert Plant. I think the root of the classification problems is the concept of "100% progressive". Few albums, and fewer albums live up to that extreme standard.