Rock and Rhapsodies

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 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 analysing 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.

Freddie Mercury

This chapter analyses and interprets the singing of Freddie Mercury. It is argued that the singer utilised four predominant voice types—powerful, gritty, sincere, exaggerated—which were defined by combinations of vocal techniques. These voice types often aligned with stylistic contexts but were also utilised to emphasise the structural dynamics of songs, such as moving from a lighter tone (e.g. sincere) to a powerful tone at the onset of a pre-chorus. Furthermore, Mercury’s deployment of these voice types in incongruous stylistic contexts (e.g. a breathy tone in a hard rock song), along with the ambiguity as to whether he possessed a ‘true’ voice, may be read as queer vocal strategies that challenge heteronormative conventions of male rock singing. It is argued that his vocal aesthetic was influenced by Liza Minnelli and Marilyn Monroe—theatrical voices—which underscores his ability to present a distinct performance identity.

FREDDIE MERCURY E A AIDS

“Bohemian Rhapsody” é uma cinebiografia de Freddie Mercury, lançada no Brasil, em novembro de 2018. Essa produção pode ser analisada enquanto produto histórico, possibilitando discussões acerca de suas vivências nas relações com a Síndrome da Imunodeficiência Adquirida (AIDS). Freddie, conviveu com o Vírus da Imunodeficiência Humana (HIV) e morreu em 1991, vítima de uma broncopneumonia depois de interromper seu tratamento. Para desvelar o mundo-vida de Freddie Mercury, elegeu-se a metodologia qualitativa na perspectiva da Educação Audiovisual da Sexualidade. Como forma complementar dessa proposta alternativa metodológica, as análises foram ancoradas na fenomenologia. Nas décadas que sucederam a descoberta do vírus, as pessoas com HIV eram estigmatizadas e marginalizadas, motivo que o levou a esconder sua sorologia. Hoje, na contemporaneidade, observamos que as vivências sexuais de homens com HIV/AIDS que fazem sexo com homens, permanece pautada em tabus, estereótipos e desinformação, causando nessa população, desconforto e negação para viver sua sexualidade.

The Sound Systems of Languages Adapt, But to What Extent?

The sound systems of the world’s languages adapt to biomechanical, aerodynamic and cognitive pressures associated with sound production and discrimination. Such pressures help to yield the greater frequency of some sound types and the reduced frequency of others. In this paper I explore such adaptation, pointing out that sound systems not only adapt to such pressures in ways that are clear from a typological perspective, but that they adapt in more subtle ways that are only now becoming apparent. Furthermore, I survey a host of recent studies suggesting that sound systems likely adapt to some pressures that vary across populations and environments. While the extent of adaptation to such variable pressures is certainly debatable, the mere existence of phonetic/phonological adaptation to pressures that differ across populations is increasingly well supported. The evidence in support of such adaptation ranges from large-scale quantitative data, to biomechanical modeling, to the speech of Freddie Mercury.

Bohemian Rhapsody

Es el momento en que la banda Queen inicia su intervención en el memorable concierto de rock Live Aid para combatir el hambre en Etiopía, celebrado el 13 de julio de 1985, en el estadio Wembley de Londres; recital considerado como el mejor hasta la fecha y la actuación de Queen, con un Mercury glorioso, ante un espléndido escenario, calificada como la actuación más brillante de la historia del rock. Un flashback nos remonta a los orígenes del grupo y nos guía por la trayectoria vital de su líder, Freddie Mercury.Como dicen los protagonistas, Queen es un grupo de inadaptados que toca para inadaptados. Pero también es la familia que apoya incondicionalmente, sin juzgar, y que alienta la creatividad liberadora de sus miembros. A través de la música de Queen reviviremos las luces y las sombras de las décadas de 1970 y 1980, y entenderemos las circunstancias sociales que fraguaron el “mejor grupo británico de todos los tiempos” (título otorgado tras un sondeo realizado por la emisora BBC Radio 2 en 2007). (*) Recomendación bibliográfica: A. Casas. (2018). Freddie Mercury. Una biografía. Barcelona: Penguin Random House Editorial.