Research Catalog

Title

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

Author

Braae, Nick

Publication

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

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

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

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"--

Subject

• Queen (Musical group)
• 1971-1990
• Rock music > 1971-1980 > Analysis, appreciation
• Rock music > 1981-1990 > Analysis, appreciation
• Rock music > 1971-1980 > History and criticism
• Rock music > 1981-1990 > History and criticism
• Rock music
• Rock music > Analysis, appreciation

Genre/Form

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages [285]-297) and index.

Contents

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 R̀eal' Freddie ; Mercury, Rock Authenticity, and Interpretation ; Coda -- 7. Hard Rock, Glam Rock, And Progressive Rock In The 1970S: Commentary and Conceptual Considerations ; Queen's D̀ominant 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 Ùnique' 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 S̀ave Me' to S̀taying Power' ; The Rock Ballads Revisited ; Hard Rock by Numbers ; Was It All Worth It? -- 11. Queen's Jubilee: The Late Style Of Innuendo: Introduction ; Ìnnuendo' ; T̀he Show Must Go On' ; A Late Style of Queen -- 12. Legacy: Post-1991 ; Replacing Freddie ; Ǹo One But You' ; We Will Rock You ; The Influence of Queen ; The End of the Story.

Call Number

JME 21-588

ISBN

• 9780197526743
• 0197526748
• 9780197526736
• 019752673X

LCCN

2021011275

OCLC

1233163991

Author

Braae, Nick, author.

Title

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

Publisher

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

Copyright Date

©2021

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references (pages [285]-297) and index.

Chronological Term

1971-1990

Other Form:

Online version: Braae, Nick, Rock and rhapsodies New York : Oxford University Press, 2021. 9780197526767 (DLC) 2021011276

Research Call Number

JME 21-588