Aprendizaje de Inglés a través de Queen
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IN THE STUDIO
Queen were two different bands: live, the show seemed to be the centre (especially in the 80's), and Queen were basically a rock band consisting of a power trio, a front-man and an auxiliary keyboardist. In the studio, it was very different: they often played styles different to rock, they played different instruments and Freddie was a musician rather than a showman. In general terms, the band's philosophy was based on the following principles: - The song comes first: They adapted to whatever the track demanded. For instance, Roger played Bonham-esque hard-rock (Brighton Rock), vaudeville (Leroy Brown), Latin (Who Needs You?) or even some jazz (My Melancholy Blues) depending on what the song needed. Sometimes he didn't play at all, or was restricted to overdubs, if they felt the piece "required" programmed percussion (i.e. Days of Our Lives). Likewise, Freddie could adapt his voice and piano to the style of the song, or if they felt that it sounded better with Brian or Roger singing, or Brian playing piano, they did it that way. Same for Brian and John of course... - The author of the song has the power: From the beginning they had this un-written law that consisted on giving the ultimate decision about the track, to the person who wrote it. That's why often the author came up with all the arrangements himself (for all the instruments and voices), and otherwise it was he who decided if the song could receive input from the others. When that was the case, John's contributions weren't always on bass-lines (e.g. he changed the structure of The Hitman), Brian's weren't always on guitar-parts (e.g. he wrote some lyrics to Freddie's It's a Hard Life), Roger's weren't always on the percussion-field (e.g. he put the line "we loved you madly" in Was It All Worth It) and Freddie's weren't always on vocals or keyboards (e.g. he came-up with the bass-riff for Roger's A Kind of Magic).
The sound they'd started with was, in words of Bob Harris, 'layered': they put a basic track of piano, bass and drums (or guitar, bass and drums if the song had no piano) and then overdubbed loads of things, including electric and acoustic guitars, percussion (gong, triangle, bells), non-synth keyboards (such as harpsichord, organ, jangle piano), backing vocals, screams, and of course the two most noticeable (but not most important) features of the band, Brian's solos and Freddie's lead vocals. That May+Mercury combination is the only part of Queen's trademark sound that survived all the catalogue, from their debut single Keep Yourself Alive until the last recordings, Mother Love and A Winter's Tale. It was also the only common denominator that Queen had as a live act and in the studio. As opposed to progressive bands (such as Yes, Kansas or Genesis in their progressive years), Queen's "wall of sound" didn't rely on synthesisers or bowed instruments. Another important difference was that their material was still "pop" in terms of length and metre (with some exceptions). Mercury in particular become an expert in writing pieces that were musically complex (much more than the average track by Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd) but at the same time catchy and radio-friendly. Usually they utilised half the available tracks (16 in the first two albums, 24 in 'Sheer' and 'Opera', 32 in 'Races') just laying down the live-take of piano, bass and drums, which were spread into several channels: drums were recorded with strategically-placed mics around the kit, each simultaneously sending the signal to one track; bass was stored in three different channels (DI, amp and speaker), and piano had two mics at the end of the strings recording what roughly would correspond to left and right hands. That allowed the producer and engineers to mix stereo and leave the proper foundations for overdubs to be done on. Occasionally there are some mistakes, which they didn't repair in order not to affect the "feeling" of the live-take. From then on, the order of recordings changed from one song to another: contrary to what most people believe, the lead vocal was not the last thing captured on tape. Usually it was done right after the backing track so they'd know where to harmonise it (e.g. Sweet Lady), where to add other instruments, etc. An exception is the "oh yeah" bit in Bohemian Rhapsody, where backing vocals were done first and then lead because otherwise they'd have been left without enough space. But otherwise the lead part dictated the phrasing. 'News of the World' and 'Jazz' showed a much weaker leaning towards big broad sounds, and instead featured more sparse arrangements: only All Dead All Dead, Bicycle Race and Leaving Home Ain't Easy retain multi-layered guitars, and only a handful in that period have over-the-top vocal harmonies. Keyboard instruments (besides piano) disappeared as well, and acoustic guitars were gradually less prominent - while five songs off 'Queen II' have acoustic's, only two in 'News of the World' do.
After going to Munich, the way they recorded things changed radically: while some of the live backing tracks were still being done (from Crazy Little Thing to Mother Love), they slowly became an exception rather than the rule. While half of 'The Game' is still synth-free and does have one-take backing tracks, some of the songs were based on loops (Dragon Attack, Another One Bites the Dust and both of Roger's), on top of which the band (and often only two or three members) overdubbed. It quickly became a habit (especially with the issuing of drum-machines, keyboard sequencers, samplers, MIDI and computer technology) that the composer of the song demo'd it himself, programming drums and bass, adding synth-chords and either singing it or playing melody lines. Then, theoretically, programmed drums would be replaced by Roger's acoustic kit, synth-bass would be replaced by John's electric one, demo'd guitar (by the author) would be replaced by Brian's Red Special and synths would be replaced by Freddie's piano. In practice, that seldom happened. On the contrary, many a time the released songs conserved bits of the demo stages: Body Language doesn't feature John (since the bass is done by Freddie on synthesiser) and both Brian and Roger are reduced to some occasional overdubs; Days of Our Lives has one track for Brian's guitar, one for John's bass and the rest is almost entirely programmed (drums, keyboards, conga percussion, maracas...); Pain Is So Close combines the rock band (piano, bass and drums) with the computer one (programmed bass, drums and synthesiser); Brian's I Can't Live With You has drums generated on a Korg M1 keyboard - compare the 'Innuendo' version with the 'Queen Rocks' one. Moreover, vocals and guitars were much less layered than before, often being reduced by Freddie's parallel harmonies in thirds and/or fifths (e.g. Another One Bites the Dust, Staying Power, I Want to Break Free, Scandal, Days of Our Lives) and Brian's rhythm and/or lead tracks. Only a few songs of that era feature Queen's early big-choirs - Sail Away Sweet Sister (bridge), Flash (bridge), Life Is Real (break), It's a Hard Life (intro), Keep Passing the Open Windows (re-intro), Who Wants to Live Forever (ending), Princes of the Universe, I Want It All, Show Must Go On and All God's People - or multi-layered guitars - Sweet Sister, Flash, Dancer, It's a Hard Life, Scandal, Chinese Torture. Synth-layers were all over the place though, and it's interesting to analyse (with an open-mind) the thorough and meticulous work put on that side. The Miracle, Bijou, Action This Day, Radio Ga Ga are just some of the tracks with marvellous synthesiser work, and keep in mind that programming and recording synths is not easy. That's why not every bloke with MIDI software and a Casio can recreate an orchestra the way Innuendo or Was It All Worth It do. |
