In an inversion of the old saw about children, drummers are usually heard but not seen. That’s never applied, however, to Queen’s Roger Taylor — who wrote or co-wrote a number of their hits, and continues to co-lead the band today with Brian May.
When Taylor wasn’t penning “Radio Ga Ga” or “A Kind of Magic,” both of them charttoppers, he was constructing his own well-received, if sadly sporadic, solo musings. Taylor issued the Top 20 UK smash Fun in Space in 1981, then Strange Frontier in ’84, followed by Happiness? a decade later. The latter two were Top 30 UK hits, as well. Fifteen years separated Electric Fire and 2013’s Fun on Earth but, as the retro-impish title of the latter makes clear, Taylor has lost none of his wit, passion or style along the way.
Two forthcoming compilations give listeners — in particular those in the U.S., where Taylor for some reason has never quite caught on apart from Queen — the chance to put all of that into context. The 18-song Best, a first-ever such collection from Taylor, is due on October 27, 2014 via Omnivore. The Lot, a comprehensive 12CD/1DVD set encompassing all of Taylor’s work, is also seeing its first stateside release on November 11. But Best might be the best place to start for anyone who only knows Taylor as the guy bashing away behind the late Freddie Mercury.
In some ways, Queen’s essential dichotomy — between straight-ahead rock crunch and outsized pomp-pop — lives inside of Taylor has much as anyone else. He shows an affinity for the former on Best tracks like “Let’s Get Crazy,” (originally found on 1981’s Fun in Space), while making the case for his own role in the latter via rangy, conceptual moments like “Magic is Loose” or the No. 49 UK hit “Future Management (You Don’t Need Nobody Else)” from the same project — and the title track from the next.
You also get glimpses, along the way, of where Queen will go. For instance, Taylor began to illustrate an affinity for darkly emotional balladry, something that would move to the fore through Mercury’s final illness. By the time Taylor released this set’s “Foreign Sand,” a No. 26 UK hit from Happiness? in 1994, he was an old hand at it. At the same time, the No. 66 UK hit “Man on Fire,” another standout song from Strange Frontier included on Best, boasts the kind of every-man theme that would have never worked in Queen.
Meanwhile, the tougher, more techno Electric Fire found Taylor pushing back — and hard — against middle age. A surprisingly edgy attitude leaks out of “A Nation of Haircuts,” which may be his best pure rock moment since Fun on Earth. That’s balanced on Best by “The Unblinking Eye (Everything Is Broken),” a delicately tender ballad from Taylor’s gritty-voiced recent release — not to mention 1977’s “(I Wanna) Testify,” which finds Taylor turning an old Parliaments favorite into the best Queen song they never recorded.
Is there anything on Best that supersedes “One Vision” or “Under Pressure,” two more Queen songs that Taylor co-wrote? Maybe, maybe not. But there’s plenty here to frame those triumphs, in particular for anyone ignorant to Taylor’s side projects. You’re left not just with a great leaping-off point for the massive journey that is The Lot, but with a broader perspective on what Taylor — a drummer never content to bring up the rear — contributed to Queen.
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