so brian may posted recently on his instagram about time waits for no one (magic) and in the caption he talked about the we will rock you musical, and how it kind of predicted the resurgence of queen’s popularity recently.
if you’re not familiar with it, we will rock you was a jukebox musical using queen’s songs. the premise was that in the future, the planet has been taken over by an evil tyrant, and individuality has been eradicated. music has been forgotten, but a small group of people believe in a prophecy (issued by the members of queen) that says that music will return. eventually the protagonists discover instruments by using a statue of freddie as a landmark.
brian compared that to what’s happening now in pop culture. as he put it, freddie has been a force that has brought a whole new generation to rock music.
and i felt that. because that’s exactly what happened to me. i started out as a casual queen fan and as i moved deeper and deeper into the music, i discovered something good. then i started looking around, and i opened my mind, and i found that there was even more good to experience. so queen has been the catalyst for my enjoyment of david bowie, jimi hendrix, the velvet underground, led zeppelin, the who, the beatles, and so many more artists that i can’t even think of them all. it’s a whole new world of music that i never would have been able to appreciate otherwise.
the best part is that even after all that, i still love queen. death on two legs is still my favorite anger song. i still seek out ‘39 when i can’t sleep. there’s a special quality to queen that makes me want to come back for more, over and over again, and i think the fact that these four men gave this gift to us so many times is incredible, and not something to be forgotten any time soon.
