Rock Royalty

Queen are frequently (and quite rightly) regarded as being among the greatest bands in musical history, responsible for what are frequently considered the best single and live performance (Bohemian Rhapsody and their Live Aid set respectively) of all time and the biggest-selling album (Greatest Hits) in history. In my household growing up, they were required listening, to the extent that a family holiday to Zanzibar (Freddie Mercury’s birthplace) was half-jokingly dubbed a ‘pilgrimage’. Not only are they popular, but they are highly respected musically; having overseen every musical revolution from punk to grunge, they were able to draw inspiration from music of all genres and adapt it to their own particular, bombastic style, and you’d be hard pressed to find even the most embittered of metal fans who didn’t rate their music.

Some weeks ago, I started to consider this fact, marvelling at the way they had managed to achieve both respect and popularity within the music world. That combination is a very rare one; many bands are respected musically and many others have enjoyed major mainstream success, but few are loved by both the ‘lay’ public and the ‘serious’ music world to such a massive extent. Hell, even The Beatles, the most successful band of all time, have more detractors (me included). So, I began to deconstruct the music of Queen, identifying common threads, themes and suchlike that might explain their appeal.

Certainly large swathes of Queen’s mass-market appeal come from their heavy pop influence, or at least the numerous pop music features that find their way into Queen music. Unlike the guitar-heavy sounds of Jimi Hendrix (so beloved by music nerds everywhere and yet never the recipient of mainstream success) and other ‘hard sounds, Queen always based their songs around vocals, with instruments frequently taking a back seat. For example, whilst Brian May guitar solos are many and varied, they are never a focal point of the song or particularly long. This vocal focus, allowing people to sing along to the melody, is a common feature of pop, made Queen’s music distinctly radio-friendly (helping from a publicity end of things) and has surely contributed to the enduring popularity of so many Queen songs- I mean, who doesn’t know the words to ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’? On the subject of vocals, Queen take another leaf out of pop’s book with regards to themes. Freddie Mercury reportedly took quite a bit of persuading to perform at Live Aid due to his reluctance to mix music and politics, and it shows in his choice of lyrics; Queen wrote possibly the least controversial music in the rock world (‘I Want To Break Free’ excepted, and that was only controversial in America by accident), despite having a gay, wildly flamboyant partygoer as a frontman. This helped them to avoid courting controversy and giving them a clean, suburbia-friendly image that kept them very much in the mainstream. The pop influences don’t stop there; whilst the hated autotune wasn’t invented in their day, they heavily experimented with the rough 70s/80s equivalents, messing around with their vocal tracks to create echo effects and endless voice looping and adding in more than a few sounds with an electronic origin. Since these couldn’t be performed live on stage, the band were not averse to using them as pre-recorded backing music in places (another hated feature of modern pop), although they did perform all the stuff that they could live.

However, Queen are quite clearly not just a pop group; indeed, much of their success could probably be put down to the way they have straddled the pop/rock boundary. They fit right into the classic rock group formula of singer/guitarist/bassist/drummer, and also adopt the tried and tested verse/chorus/solo formula that has been a rock mainstay pretty much since its inceptions. Despite a musical style that is frequently softer in nature than much of the rock world, they have their share of heavier songs with a stronger guitar lead that allow fans a chance to rock out properly; for every ‘You And I’ there’s a ‘I Want It All’, a second half of ‘Save Me’ for every opening to ‘We Are The Champions’ (and vice-versa). Crucially, it is this harder sound that tended to prevail at live shows, not only making the experience for fans more fast-paced and exciting but also increasing their reputation in ‘serious’ circles. This mixture of hard and soft sounds is really just another part of a musical style that constantly evolved and sampled from pretty much every genre imaginable, and a comparison of any two Queen songs selected at random will frequently yield wonder that they were even composed by the same band. This varied selection means Queen have something for everyone, increasing their popularity from all sides, and means their sound never grew stale throughout their long history.

Not only are their songs varied, they are also supremely well-written. All members of the band were intelligent, aware musicians and highly gifted songwriters- Queen wrote all their music themselves, a feature that endears them to all parties, and all members individually contributed significant numbers of pieces to the band’s repertoire. But merely being good musicians or songwriters is not enough for a lot of bands to achieve success (The Velvet Underground spring to mind by reputation alone, even if I’ve never listened to their music), even though it does contribute significantly to the longevity of their music, and it isn’t really at the core of what makes Queen such a special band. To me, their own ‘X Factor’ is simply the sheer force of personality exuded by the band- and by band, I mostly mean Freddie Mercury.

John Deacon, Roger Taylor and Brian May are all extremely good musicians, as well as very skilful songwriters- but with all due respect to them, Freddie Mercury managed to overshadow the lot of them by being possibly the most charismatic, energetic and show-stealing frontman of all time. Blessed with a unique voice in its range, style and sheer power, he had an amazing ability to carry a song and hold an audience transfixed just by the energy and charisma he was able to imbue onto any show or live record. Lead by Mercury, Queen were able to put on a show, full of drama and fun and excitement, like no other band before or since, playing loud, proud and bombastic with such confidence in themselves and their music that one cannot fail to be carried along for the ride. There’s a reason why they are usually considered the highlight of Live Aid- if ever there was a band and a person destined to play for the entire world, it was Queen and Freddie Mercury. In ‘We Will Rock You’ and, to a lesser extent, ‘We Are The Champions’, Queen created music with the specific intention of being sung along to by a crowd; crowds had of course sung along before, but this was the first time they had been specifically invited to do so, to make themselves part of the experience, and that speaks volumes about the band. For Queen were never really a band- they and their music were and are an experience, and one that few will ever be able to replicate.

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Once Were Hairy

Aesthetically, humans are somewhat standout from the rest of natural creation. We are multicellular organisms, instantly making us completely different to the vast majority of the species’ currently on earth today, and warm-blooded, differentiating us from every plant, fungi, invertebrate, fish, amphibian and reptile. We stand on two legs, but at the same time cannot fly, differentiating us from almost every species of bird and mammal. But this is only so much basic classification; the one trait that aesthetically differentiates from nearly all of these is our hairlessness. Brian May excepted.

Technically, there are other members of the order mammalia who go without fur; the simultaneously cute and horrifying naked mole rat is but one land-borne example, and no swimming mammal (whales, dolphins etc.) have fur. And yes, we technically do have a full layer of fur covering us, meaning that you have more hairs (in terms of number, rather than volume) than a chimpanzee- but our hairy covering is so small as to be practically not there, and the amount of insulation and protection that it provides is minimal. Across most of our body, the only natural protection we have against our enemies and the elements is our bare skin.

Exactly why this is the case is somewhat unclear, because fur is very useful stuff. It offers a surprising degree of protection against cuts and attacks, and is just as effective at keeping out the elements, be they cold, wind or rain. Length can and does vary widely depending on location and need, and many species (including some humans) have incorporated their fur as a form of bodily decoration to attract mates and intimidate rivals; the lion’s mane is the most obvious example.

Also confusing is why we have hair where we do; upon our heads and around the pubic regions. It is thought that hair on the head may be either an almost vestigial thing, left over from the days when our ancestors did have hair, although this theory doesn’t explain why it remained on our head. Better explanations include the slight degree of extra shielding it provides to our brain, our greatest evolutionary advantage, or because the obviousness of the head makes it a natural point for us to rig our hair into elaborate, ceremonial styles and headdresses, raising the social standing of those who are able to get away with such things and helping them attract a mate and further their genes. However, the pubic region is of particular interest to evolutionary biologists, in part because hair there seems counter-productive; the body keeps the testicles outside the body because they need to be kept slightly cooler than the body’s interior temperature in order to keep sperm count high and ensure fertility (an interesting side effect of which is that people who take regular hot baths tend to have a lower sperm count). Surrounding such an area with hair seems evolutionarily dumb, reducing our fertility and reducing our chances of passing our genes onto the next generation. It is however thought that hair around these regions may aid the release of sexual pheremones, helping us to attract a mate, or that it may have helped to reduce chafing during sex and that women tended to choose men with pubic hair (and vice versa) to make sex comfortable. This is an example of sexual selection, where evolution is powered by our sexual preferences rather than environmental necessity, and this itself has been suggested as a theory as to why we humans lost our hair in the first place, or at least stayed that way once we lost it; we just found it more attractive that way. This theory was proposed by Charles Darwin, which seems odd given the truly magnificent beard he wore. However, the ‘chafing’ theory regarding pubic hair is rather heavily disputed from a number of angles, among them the fact that many couples choose to shave their pubic region in order to enhance sexual satisfaction. Our preferences could, of course, have changed over time.

One of the more bizarre theories concerning human hairlessness is the ‘aquatic apes’ theory; it is well known that all swimming mammals, from river dolphins to sea lions, favour fat (or ‘blubber’) in place of fur as it is more streamlined and efficient for swimming and is better for warmth underwater. Therefore, some scientists have suggested that humans went through a period of evolution where we adopted a semi-aquatic lifestyle, fishing in shallow waters and making our homes in and around the water. They also point to the slight webbing effect between our fingers as evidence of a change that was just starting to happen before we left our waterborne lifestyle, and to humanity’s ability to swim (I am told that if a newborn baby falls into water he will not sink but will instinctively ‘swim’, an ability we lose once we become toddlers and must re-learn later, but I feel it may be inappropriate to test this theory out). However, there is no evidence for these aquatic apes, so most scientists feel we should look elsewhere.

Others have suggested that the reason may have been lice; one only needs to hear the horror stories of the First World War to know of the horrible-ness of a lice infestation, and such parasites are frequently the vectors for virulent diseases that can wipe out a population with ease. Many animals spend the majority of their time picking through their fur to remove them (in other apes this is a crucial part of social bonding), but if we have no fur then the business becomes infinitely simpler because we can actually see the lice. Once again, adherents point to sexual selection- without hair we can display our untarnished, healthy, parasite-free skin to the world and our prospective mates (along with any impressive scars we want to show off), allowing them to know they are choosing a healthy partner, and this may go some way to explaining why the ultimate expression of male bodily beauty is considered a strong, hairless chest and six-pack, symbolising both strength and health. Ironically, a loss of fur and our subsequent use of clothes developed an entire new species; the body louse lives only within the folds of our clothes, and was thought to have evolved from hair lice some 50,000 years ago (interestingly, over a million years passed between our African ancestors passing through the hairless phase and our use of clothes, during which time we diverged as a species from Neanderthals, discovered tools and lived through an Ice Age. Must have been chilly, even in Africa). It’s a nice theory, but one considered redundant by some in the face of another; homeostasis.

Apart from our brainpower, homeostasis (or the ability to regulate our body temperature) is humanity’s greatest evolutionary advantage; warm blooded mammals are naturally adept at it anyway, giving us the ability to hunt & forage in all weathers, times and climates, and in cold weather fur provides a natural advantage in this regard. However, without fur to slow the process of heat regulation (sweating, dilation of blood vessels and such all become less effective when insulated by fur) human beings are able to maintain an ambient bodily temperature almost regardless of the weather or climate. African tribesmen have been known to run through the bush for an hour straight and raise their body temperature by less than a degree, whilst our ability to regulate heat in colder climates was enough for scores of Ice Age-era human bones to be found across the then-freezing Europe. Our ability to regulate temperature surpasses even those other ‘naked’ land mammals, the elephant and rhinoceros, thanks to our prominent nose and extremities that allow us to control heat even more precisely. In short, we’re not 100% sure exactly why we humans evolved to be hairless, but it has proved a surprisingly useful trait.