Monday, August 11, 2014

"Sheer Heart Attack" (Queen)

If the song "Sheer Heart Attack" proves nothing else, it's that Queen could tackle any type of music it wanted.
Even punk.
At the height of the punk movement, Queen was catching a lot of flack from young upstarts for being too artsy, too polished.  (One popular story is that The Sex Pistols' Sid Vicious encountered Queen frontman Freddie Mercury at Wessex Recording Studios in 1977 and snarked at Mercury, "Still bringing ballet to the masses, Freddie?")
So the band answered these criticisms with the blistering "Sheer Heart Attack," a song that drummer/songwriter Roger Taylor had composed in 1974 for the album named Sheer Heart Attack but wasn't finished until 1977, when it finally was unleashed on News of the World.
Sung with balls-to-the-wall fury by Taylor (rather than Mercury), the lyrics don't really say anything; it's bits and pieces of cliched teen angst.  And that's the entire joke.  Especially the line I feel so in-ar-in-ar-in-articulate...
Taken with that manic Brian May guitar riff, the message to the punk world was blunt: don't throw the first punch unless you're ready for a throwdown. 


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