#56 "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen

Queen was awesome. Period. For all their campy over-the-top flamboyance, mostly courtesy of frontman Freddie Mercury, Queen were phenomenal musicians, brilliant songwriters, and unbelievably entertaining performers. What's not to like?

My mom LOVED Queen. She was a huge fan of "Bohemian Rhapsody" back in the day, long before every suburban kid knew it courtesy of "Wayne's World." She was so impressed by their harmonies and used to talk about how cool "A Night at the Opera" was. Mom didn't know anything about all of the overdubbing that Queen was doing, but she knew a good song when she heard it. Their greatest hits collection got some serious airtime in her old Datsun. Whether we were driving to swim practice or hitting the road to the beach, that tape was always playing. We knew all the words to "Fat-Bottomed Girls," "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" (one of her favorites) and of course "We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions." Queen definitely knew a thing or two about writing sing-a-long arena anthems, but if you ever go deeper into their catalogue you'll find a variety of songs there.

Queen was definitely one of those bands where I thought, "If their Greatest Hits are this good, there MUST be some other quality songs on all of those other records." I was right. Queen's individual albums are fantastic and full of excellent contributions from all of the band members. If you only listen the variety of repackaged Queen hits, you'll never hear all of the great Brian May and Roger Taylor songs.

"Don't Stop Me Now" IS actually on some of the Greatest Hits collections you can get, but it wasn't on the first one that came out in the early 80's, so I never heard it until I got the album "Jazz." It personifies everything that's good about Queen. You get Freddie Mercury all over the place... on his piano to open the song and then the incredible range of his voice throughout. Who else could sing totally gay lines like "I'm a sex machine ready to reload. Like an atom bomb, I'm going to whoah Whoah WHOAH EXPLODE! I'm burnin' through the sky, yeah, 200 degrees... that's why they call me Mr. Farenheit!" You also get the fantastic Queen melodies, which are evident in most all of their work. You even get a little Brian May guitar, only played during the solo. It's campy. It's fun. Like I said before, what's not to like?

"Don't Stop Me Now" is from the album "Jazz." To hear the song, click on the icon in the widget jukebox along the side of the page.