Queen Week: Queen II [2011 Remaster]
by Dan MacIntosh
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Roger Taylor is usually the worst part of any Queen recording. His songs are so simplistic they come off totally out of place alongside the more sophisticated Queen music. Queen II must be pretty bad to make Taylor sound so�well�good? In other words, wise listeners would take his token album cuts on all the other Queen discs over the horrible tunes on this old disc.
There's just too much fantasy literature songwriting on this album. There's "White Queen (As It Began)," supposedly the 'good guy' in our story. Then there's "The March of the Black Queen," which is not Barry White fronting the English band, but the bad guy, instead. Along the way, we get "Ogre Battle," a pre-Shrek song, perhaps? There's also "Nevermore" -- never more, please!
"Ogre Battle" features a lot of crazy time signatures and odd hard rock moments. Yes -- the band -- had its highlights, but let's all be glad Queen never went on to be a second rate Yes. One Yes was quite enough, thank you. The music on this disc is primarily good. However, it's put to such downright stupid songs; these ears had trouble listening all the way through.
Queen has always been a weird band. After all, its singer didn't just dress as if he had a confused sexuality issue � he was fairly confused sexually! He could sing like a horny, red-blooded heterosexual male one moment, and then skip around like a pretty boy � all while in a big time hard rock band � the next. However, there are many sections during Queen II when the band simply sounds stupid.
It's fun to look back on a band's formative years. However, Queen II is a lot like remembering a boy's awkward middle school years � years best forgotten by all.
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