Freddie Mercury held back !!!

[graystoke4]

hi, there has been a lot of excitement and coverage of Queen lately with the film an all, i have even been playing more, love them or loathe them you have to agree he has or had one of the all time great voices, which got me thinking i know queen are a pop-rock band and if he had been in a different band all rock, sang harder with more power most of the time would he have become even a better singer, so what i am asking is did queen hold freddie back, i put this to my mates over a few beers, and one said if anyone was held back it was Brian may, never really thought of him in the top league of guitarist but hay, anyway the question is did queen hold freddie back,

 

[Dougunn]

Queen did what Queen was, I don't think they 'held back' to fit in.

 

[graystoke4]

no, not the band holding back , the band holding freddie back, as would he have been even greater had he left to go to another band

 

[sq225917]

Which band had similar success in that period with a vaguely similar audience?

No one held anyone back imo.

 

[demotivated]

What bands are you thinking of? I can't think of another band he would have worked with. There are few talented 'true bands' in any era, and much less choice in the UK than the US. Queen had differences of musical taste, but were bright enough to make it work. They were also vastly hyped in the UK eg by Radio1 who wanted a token erzatz rock band to tick the 'zep/lizzy/sabbath/purple' box while playlisting their commercial pap. It was a symbiosis, much as Elton J played to.

 

[Dougunn]

no, not the band holding back , the band holding freddie back, as would he have been even greater had he left to go to another band

I think Freddie was his own man and did his thing irrespective of others. I think it is does him no credit to suggest he would have been a better singer if he had been more like Plant etc, he was who he was - and i for one love him for that!

 

[foxwelljsly]

hi, there has been a lot of excitement and coverage of Queen lately with the film an all, i have even been playing more, love them or loathe them you have to agree he has or had one of the all time great voices, which got me thinking i know queen are a pop-rock band and if he had been in a different band all rock, sang harder with more power most of the time would he have become even a better singer, so what i am asking is did queen hold freddie back, i put this to my mates over a few beers, and one said if anyone was held back it was Brian may, never really thought of him in the top league of guitarist but hay, anyway the question is did queen hold freddie back,

Nope. Whilst they all seem to be very nice people, the band were workmanlike, unexceptional musicians with a exceptional knack for translating cliché into stadium filling choruses as stirring anything by Leni Riefenstahl. They were the perfect foil to Freddie's charismatic bombast.

 

[Joe Hutch]

He could have fronted the Sex Pistols. I can just imagine him belting out 'Anarchy in the UK'. Or maybe The Fall, that Mark E Smith was a bit mumbling in his delivery, and he could have just stayed in the background, writing the songs. Mercury would have knocked 'Hip Priest' out of the park.

Or indeed, HMHB.