Freddie over-singing live in the 80s?

Freddie's voice peaked in 80s. Mack recorded the best way his vocals. The disappointment is that in the 80s they wrote clever songs and lot of fillers.... So Freddie's voice was not used the best way.

In the mid 80s 84-86 Freddie tried to sing less soft, sweet in his tone instead of more powerful and stronger way of singing.

During 1988 his vocals become again soft and sweet, songs like Heaven for everyone or Face it alone. The same did for the Miracle album but the mix is bad. The Miracle needs to be remixed along with Jazz and Live Killers.

In the 80's they had seriously hard rocking songs like the ones I listed, and also live, the focus was shifting from piano to guitar and a hard rock voice

There is no way you're going to sell me that the '80s was when Queen got to rockin'. Sorry. Not gonna happen.

Every heavy Queen '70s tune downright creams over the ones you listed with one or two exceptions.

Queen became pop at most in the '80s.

In the 80's they had seriously hard rocking songs like the ones I listed, and also live, the focus was shifting from piano to guitar and a hard rock voice

There is no way you're going to sell me that the '80s was when Queen got to rockin'. Sorry. Not gonna happen.

Every heavy Queen '70s tune downright creams over the ones you listed with one or two exceptions.

Queen became pop at most in the '80s.

80's Queen had many pop songs. On the albums.

Live, their performance can hardly be described as "pop" or even "pop rock".

Tracks like "i want to break free", which is a standard pop song on the album, is dramatically rocked up live.

Freddie went all out hard rock with his voice in the '80s. it is well documented that freddie left the piano behind to focus on the performance. it all made for a snappier, harder experience.

I'm sorry, but I don't feel it when people say Queen live in the 80s was pop rock. They easily outplayed led zeppelin at their best. no one shouts harder than freddie. plant is a school girl in comparison

Freddie went all out hard rock with his voice in the '80s. it is well documented that freddie left the piano behind to focus on the performance. it all made for a snappier, harder experience.

I'm sorry, but I don't feel it when people say Queen live in the 80s was pop rock.

Freddie's voice got rougher with smoking - and he was barking a bit more. That's about it. It sure didn't correlate to a heavier musical direction. He sure didn't use that voice on the bubblegum Mr. Bad Guy.

Freddie leaving the piano behind to showboat around doesn't make it more rock and roll. It also didn't help that they started using synthesizers in the place of the piano, so.

"I'm sorry, but I don't feel it when people say Queen live in the 80s was pop rock."

I agree! There was hardly any rock in there.

"They easily outplayed led zeppelin at their best. no one shouts harder than freddie. plant is a school girl in comparison"

Man, you've got some odd opinions.

People don't like Freddie for his shouting, by the way.

I just heard the Sheer Heart Attack album and quite a few of those songs I much prefer the live versions of from that live era. I think Q2 and SHA are both albums that have amazing studio performances but sometimes have better live ones (Rainbow, Odeon) that sound richer, more lively, and with even better sound quality - that's a contrast, especially to their 80s performances where things were much tighter and potent in the studio.

I think I would possibly like some live versions more of both decades if some of those shows were released in top-tier quality like those Rainbow and Odeon ones. It's a treat to watch decent quality live shows but if the sound is long full and clear then I can't ever enjoy it the way I could the studio cut, nor call it a definitive version for me. That's why I can't hear those muffled bootlegs or watch many of those blurry live shows, how can you enjoy it and prefer something you can barely make out?

I’d love to hear a One Vision 1985 studio Freddie tackle Stone Cold Crazy.

I’d love to hear a One Vision 1985 studio Freddie tackle Stone Cold Crazy.

I think his 74 versions were perfectly done as is. SCC sounded great in the studio and live (being short helps).

Just went back and listened to some live '70s stuff versus live '80s stuff.

It's almost like he stopped "singing" as much and started mostly to shout the songs. There's little timbre or nuance in his live singing in the '80s.

He went for power over feel, it seems.

I've never been entirely fond of Freddie's performances from 1984-1986. I can only go by the few good quality concerts I've seen on Youtube (and official releases), but he started to "shout" sing, particularly during I Want to Break Free and in parts of Hammer to Fall. Obviously, his smoking had an effect on his voice, but he made excuses for it...he said he wanted to have a more rough voice. Can't remember the source, but I know I heard him say it. There were exceptions, of course. Live Aid springs to mind, but that was a short 20 minute or so performance. I just don't think he had the same stamina.

by action » Wed Jun 13, 2018 6:52 pm
studio, I completely discard the 70s work. To me, that's a footnote. The real feddie can be heard from the game onwards.

I'm sorry. I just can't take this comment seriously.

If you've listened to a wide variety of Queen live recordings and bootlegs as I have done....then you'd know, while Freddie was probably better in some tours than others, he had his moments in each tour. I don't know, maybe he had good days and bad days, maybe he felt better for some reason or another....I'm honestly not sure what his best concert tour was vocally. He kinda went back and forth, I think. Like for one instance, there's a few concerts from 84-85 where Freddie was just signing great.


Hmm....it's almost like his live vocal performances were, uh, I dunno.....mercurial?

by action » Wed Jun 13, 2018 6:52 pm
studio, I completely discard the 70s work. To me, that's a footnote. The real feddie can be heard from the game onwards.

I'm sorry. I just can't take this comment seriously.

Following on from this, I was thinking about how I see them.
With their studio work, I'm the polar opposite of action here.. I think their absolute best work was up to and including The Game, and from there on it was pretty much a move to global stardom, more pop oriented songs and overall, much more mediocre albums (still some great songs amongst it of course). Much less creative genius. If you want to look at their career in terms of two decades (1971 - 1991), then in my view, the first decade is about twice or even three times better than the second one.

When it comes to live, the years I would most have liked to see them would be between 74 and 79. The Rainbow 74 shows or Houston 77 etc. I did get to see them in 85 (4 times) and while they were still awesome, I think their best live stuff was behind them by that point. But as someone else pointed out, there is a lot of diversity in their gigs and there were of course not so good gigs in the seventies and some really great ones in the 80s (some of the 82 gigs I really like).

But I find it unfathomable that any serious Queen fan would think the second half of their career was better than the first.. That just does not compute for me. Unless of course, the joke is on me, and action was just taking the piss...

In the 80's they had seriously hard rocking songs like the ones I listed, and also live, the focus was shifting from piano to guitar and a hard rock voice

There is no way you're going to sell me that the '80s was when Queen got to rockin'. Sorry. Not gonna happen.

Every heavy Queen '70s tune downright creams over the ones you listed with one or two exceptions.

Queen became pop at most in the '80s.

80's Queen had many pop songs. On the albums.

Live, their performance can hardly be described as "pop" or even "pop rock".

Tracks like "i want to break free", which is a standard pop song on the album, is dramatically rocked up live.

Freddie went all out hard rock with his voice in the '80s. it is well documented that freddie left the piano behind to focus on the performance. it all made for a snappier, harder experience.

I'm sorry, but I don't feel it when people say Queen live in the 80s was pop rock. They easily outplayed led zeppelin at their best. no one shouts harder than freddie. plant is a school girl in comparison

He didn't leave the piano behind. During the Magic tour he played on 7 Seas Of Rhye, Lap Of The Gods, Bo Rhap and Champions. The set was planned around the fact they were playing mostly open air shows so it was felt the quieter p, more intricate piano led songs wouldn't work. But he certainly didn't stop playing.

Your Led Zeppelin/ Robert Plant comments don't warrant a reply

I'm going out on a limb here, but I really don't like the last three albums much at all. Really. Maybe it's because they totally lost their soft touch here and there to create a tonal contrast, but I think it's mostly just that the late 80s Rock/pop is some of the cheesiest, most dated music today and Queen couldn't escape it. It's the songs and how they became generic headbangers with no nuance or interesting texture, Freddie's voice got annoying (as I've discussed at length) and he started shouting, and they just weren't the astonishing band that a decade earlier they were. Of course there was Freddie's illness and a rush against time for two albums, but I still don't like what I hear. Innuendo is the best out of the three easily, but it feels sterile in sound, like an empty, tubey tone. Plus you can feel death hanging over the whole album which you hear in every song and it's eerie.

The Works was patchy and imperfect but it's their last great album for me. And now I'm going to really risk my fan standing when I say that I vastly prefer even Man on the Prowl to any song on those last three. I'll take the formulaic, but fun, atmospheric, authentic sounding throwback to the overdone stuff on those albums. Come at me.

An interesting thread – and I find myself agreeing with some of what the OP says (though not the argument that Freddie's vocal performance changed ‘suddenly’ between ’79 and ’80).

To be clear, I have no expert knowledge whatsoever of singing so I don’t intend to comment on Freddie’s studio recordings – except to say that I have a distinct recollection from way back when of being surprised at how ‘shouty’ Freddie’s vocal was becoming when certain songs first came out. I noticed it first, I think, with Body Language and then again when I first heard I Want To Break Free, though there were definitely others.

A factor that I think has been overlooked in the discussion so far about Freddie’s live vocals is how much depended on how rested his voice was.

When Queen On Fire came out in 2004, I wrote this on Amazon: “…he was still fit and lithe, aged 35 in 1982, the singing voice strong and assured. Only later did a combination of wear and tear, age and smoking lead to difficulties at the end of long shows and tours.”

Having listened to a lot of Queen bootlegs since then (in 2004, when I wrote that, I hadn’t heard any bootlegs, so I only had official releases and what I had actually heard live as a guide), I quickly realised how wrong this statement is. From the later-‘70s at the very latest, Freddie was often struggling with his voice on stage - particularly towards the end of long tours and particularly towards the end of the show.

Japan definitely got the shortest of short straws in this respect – unfortunate, as they were particularly keen to film the band’s concerts. With the exception of the February ’81 Budokan shows, all of the band’s tours to Japan followed on from extensive touring in other parts of the world. Listen, to take just one example, to how Freddie struggles to sing Bohemian Rhapsody during the 1979 Japanese dates. You can point to lots of similar examples from the ’82 and ’85 tours. We Are The Champions always presented problems – Roger to the rescue! – as did (from ’84 onwards) Radio Ga Ga.

Now think about the official releases. Montreal ’81 – voice superb – came after a month-long break. Milton Keynes ’82 – voice superb – came after a three-day break on a mini-British tour of just four shows. Live Aid too – voice superb - came after a very lengthy break. Hammersmith ’79 – not an official release (yet, I hope!) but generally acknowledged, I would say, to be a superb vocal performance – came after a four-day break (and Christmas dinner).

Now think of Wembley ’86. Yes, there were relatively long breaks between most shows on the Magic Tour but Freddie was older, the stage was enormous and the filmed Saturday show followed on from the additional Friday concert. Not too bad vocally, but lots of stuff sung in – what is it called? – the lower register, masked (as another contributor says) by the impressive-sounding cod-operatic delivery. True, Budapest was a stronger vocal performance than Wembley but it came, don’t forget, on the back of a five-day break.

I agree that changes in style, smoking etc. are all part of the explanation – but don’t forget the obvious too.