A few recommendations of jazz music I love, from Ashlee Craft / Assemblage, Issue 11. Many of the songs on this list are lesser-known gems, like Torben Waldorff’s beautiful & comforting Alice, while some are classics, like Dave Brubeck’s hip Take Five or George Benson’s Breezin’. Each song on the playlist is followed by one word which best summarizes the feel of the song.
I discovered Queen’s music when I was 17. I saw the song Bohemian Rhapsody on a list of best classic rock songs & I’d remembered hearing it years prior, so I decided to give it a listen (I listened to the live version at Wembley, then the album version). I fell in love with Queen right then & there. Then I listened to Somebody To Love, & watched the music video, & heard all their soaring harmonies, & I was hooked. I began listening to as much Queen music as possible. I’ve probably heard all their albums in their entireties at least a few times each, & listened to some individual songs about a million times. I’m not quite as obsessed with Queen as I used to be, but they are definitely still one of my very favorite bands.
One thing I noticed was that there are lots of Queen songs that are very much a part of popular culture, songs that people hear on the radio or in supermarkets or in movies & commercials when they’re growing up but maybe never know who the artist is. Songs like Bohemian Rhapsody, Somebody To Love, We Will Rock You, & Another Bites the Dust. Songs that everybody knows.
But hidden among their awesome popular songs are an incredible number of awesome lesser-known gems.These songs are seriously fantastic & just as good, if not better, in some cases, than their popular songs, & are filled with brilliant & moving harmonies, Brian May’s soaring & evocative guitar solos, epic instrumentation, Freddie Mercury’s unique & expressive voice, & let’s not forget about the perfect textbook examples of fantastic rhythm instrumentation by John Deacon & Roger Taylor.
Note : it’s admittedly really hard to narrow it down to only 10 songs, so at some point I will inevitably end up making ANOTHER list of more awesome-but-more-obscure Queen songs.
