Queen, by George Tremlett.
Chapter Three!
This chapter is informationally dense, just jam-packed with stuff. It starts with the release of ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ in July 1973, and ends with the boys returning home from Japan --where they’d been treated like they were the Beatles, if not bigger -- and the severe disconnect when they went back to the little flats and home they'd been living in for a couple of years, drawing small salaries from the record company in spite of their overseas success and their stellar moves up the charts.
Some record reviews both good and bad (and you wonder how some critics could get their music so wrong), a really good step-by-step of their rise in popularity and (almost) the top of the charts. Different poll results from the music press, Brian’s illnesses and how Queen disappearing from the public eye for six months might have happened at seemingly the worst time, yet was “the best thing that could have happened.”
There are reviews that praise Brian, some that praise Freddie, some that pan both. ;-p Bits about Roger and some about John; mostly good reviews, but as always with Queen, there are also tin-ear critics that called them “boring.”
On a hilarious note, every. single. time. Roger is mentioned, the author gives him the full name treatment: Roger Meddows Taylor.
The pictures at the center of the book are all ones we’ve seen (with maybe one of Freddie that isn’t quite as familiar?). Group shots are labeled “Queen.” A couple of pictures of Freddie and John together have both their names. Individual shots are labelled with their names. Oddly, however, two pictures of Brian and Freddie together have only Freddie identified. No idea what the hell was up with that.
The next chapter: Norm Sheffield at Trident.
