Lord

47, you said some colossal nonsense in your last post, allow me to respond. Queen aren't as baroque as you might think, and Mercury's singing isn't either excessively baroque or shouted as you say: he simply had an incredibly vast range of vocal atmospheres, practically encompassing various vocal situations (sweetness, falsetto, powerful chest voice, regular singing, American-style, etc.)—something that a typical singer usually doesn't possess; Queen have never been virtuosos, least of all Mercury. The second big mistake you made is: "but the history of music is not made by fans, but by circles of true enthusiasts, critics, and musicians." I agree with you only up to "not made by fans," for the rest, I’ll pretend I didn’t read it. The history of music is made by the group or the artist and the artistic consequence they generate. To say that the history of music is made by critics seems a bit of an ill-considered statement to me. I invite you to read what Zappa thought of critics.

I think Tim Buckley had a greater overall range than Mercury, but it was the timbre that let him down. And the funny thing is, there are people out there who trash Mercury with names like Ian Gillan, Robert Plant, etc., all of whom burned out their vocal cords after 10 years of high-pitched singing. Plant, how long did it last? By '71, he was already in full decline. Gillan? He only knew how to hit high notes; the timbre is, all things considered, quite common, and anyway, by the '80s he was starting to sound a bit sad (and mind you, these singers are legends even to me). Mercury? By '73 he had a lovely little voice, very, very feminine, but by the end of the seventies it had become strong and robust; by '91, you could say he reached superhuman levels, just listen to the second half of "The Show Must Go On," it could make your head explode. Now, find me a singer who has improved over 20 years? I know there are some (Ronnie James Dio, but after a while he gives you a headache), but they are few, and very often they have studied singing (look at the various frontmen of today’s metal and prog-metal bands, etc.), while Mercury never studied anything, which just adds to his honor.

Here

One of the classics of metal history, but in my opinion inferior to the pure hard rock of "Sad Wings of Destiny."

Well, the lyrics are always excellent, but the arrangements are a bit too POPPY, which undermines the quality of the album, which, however, for me, is more than sufficient.

Slade and Sweet. We're talking about totally different bands: Slade are, as already mentioned, very likable, but it's tough to get through the end of one of their albums, and the gritty voice of their leader can't really compete with that of Connolly from Sweet. Sweet, if I may say so, are a bit more "avant-garde" and have higher compositional and performing skills. That's how I see it.

No, for me it's a great album, a 4; the 5 is deserved by Funny Adams and Desolation Boulevard. I will never stop saying it, Sweet invented metal 10 years earlier, they had a harder and more powerful sound than Judas Priest (who are always cited as the fathers of metal) and others. Very often it tends to be forgotten, but Sweet contributed a lot to what will later be called Heavy Metal: just listen to Sweet FA or Set Me Free (a devastating song, from the punch of the drums to the superhuman power of the vocals, one of the best tracks ever by Sweet) from 1974, and I emphasize from 1974, I don’t know if I make myself clear.

I correct myself, "Live killers" from 1979

I've always preferred the recordings of "Live Killers," from 1978 by far; you can really feel all the energy of the band there, and Roger Taylor plays like he has a three and eighty cable up his ass. I don't know if I'm making myself clear.

In the '70s, there was also that certain something of progressive... otherwise, what genre is "My Fairy King" and the like?