Rock and rhapsodies : the music of Queen / Nick Braae.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Braae, Nick, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Rock music--1971-1980--Analysis, appreciation.

Rock music.

Rock music--1981-1990--Analysis, appreciation.

Rock music--1971-1980--History and criticism.

Rock music--1981-1990--History and criticism.

Rock music--Analysis, appreciation.

Queen (Musical group).

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Physical Description:

xiv, 304 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York, NY: Oxford University Press, [2021]

Summary:

"Rock and Rhapsodies is the first book-length musicological study of British rock band Queen. It primarily addresses the material written, recorded, and released between 1973 and 1991. The text provides readers with a nuanced analytical account of the group's songs and illuminates the varied the stylistic and historical contexts in which Queen's music was created. The key conceptual basis for the analysis is an idiolect, which refers to the distinct musical style of a single artist. Having documented the key features of Queen's idiolect, the book further explores the nature of specific musical characteristic and uses them to respond to a range of wider analytical and discursive issues as pertaining to style, genre, form, time, voice, and historiography. Rock and Rhapsodies comprises twelve chapters. The introduction documents Queen's place in scholarly literature and unfolds the principal analytical methodology. The following three chapters address the structural details of Queen's idiolect and songs, before analyzing the voices of Queen's singers. The vocal techniques are related to discourses of authenticity and, in the case of Freddie Mercury, the queer voice. The five subsequent chapters identify the changing and myriad stylistic influences on Queen, as well as relate the band to the major rock movements of the 1970s: hard, glam, and progressive. The final chapter explores the replacement singers, Queen in wider popular media, and the influence of the band, since Mercury's death in 1991"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. Introduction

The Book

The Study of Queen

Issues of Style

2. Queen's Idiolect: A Primer

Harmonic Structure and Gestures

Textural Foundations and the Sound-Box

Arrangement and Performance Gestures

Sounds like Queen, and Other Conclusions

3. Artistic Craft And Crafted Artistry: Queen's Structural Archetypes

Introduction and Definitions

Conventional Forms

Variations on Conventional Forms

Episodic Songs

Artistic Craft and Crafted Artistry

4. Temporal Processes In Queen's Large-Scale Songs

Time and Popular Song

Phrase and Intra-Sectional Linearity

Sectional Temporality

Closure

Queen's Temporal Processes and Exceptions

5. Brian May And Roger Taylor

Analysing the Voice

The Voices of Brian May and Roger Taylor

May, Taylor, and Rock Authenticity

6. Freddie Mercury

The Voices

Structural Dynamics

Stylistic Incongruities, Queer and Camp Voices, and the `Real' Freddie

Mercury, Rock Authenticity, and Interpretation

Coda

7. Hard Rock, Glam Rock, And Progressive Rock In The 1970S

Commentary and Conceptual Considerations

Queen's `Dominant Voice': The Hard Rock Connection

The Glam Rock Connection: Exaggeration, Irony, and Play

Progressive Rock and Interplay

8. The Musical World(S) Of Queen

A `Unique' Sonic Fingerprint and Pastiche in the 1970s

Queen's Sonic Patterns and Stylistic Connections

The Musical World(s) of Queen

9. A Day At The Races And The Gestural Unity Of Queen

Queen in 1976 and the Ideal of Evolution

The Notion of Gestural Unity: Idiolect Revisited

A Day at the Races

The Gestural Unity of Queen

10. Was It All Worth It? Queen In The 1980S

A Decade of Changing Fortunes

From `Save Me' to `Staying Power'

The Rock Ballads Revisited

Hard Rock by Numbers

Was It All Worth It?

11. Queen's Jubilee: The Late Style Of Innuendo

Introduction

`Innuendo'

`The Show Must Go On'

A Late Style of Queen

12. Legacy

Post-1991

Replacing Freddie

`No One But You'

We Will Rock You

The Influence of Queen

The End of the Story.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Other Format:

Online version: Braae, Nick, Rock and rhapsodies

ISBN:

9780197526743

0197526748

9780197526736

019752673X

OCLC:

1233163991

Publisher Number:

99988334495