2013
As "The Decade of Queen V" comes marching in (quite literally the opening of "Revolution Baby" features, for lack of a better descriptive term, "battle drums") you can't help but find yourself caught up in the pageantry that is this career-spanning collection. Covering Queen V's career from 2005 to 2013 this compilation is jam-packed with track after track of blissful hard rock! Forget for a second (if one can) the stunning, soulful and sensual lead vocals of Queen V herself and just focus in on the music itself. You've got the brand new cut "Cry Your Eyes Out" which should be on every radio rock station from coast to coast here in the states to all over Europe and beyond. That would be if this was a just world. With guest musicians like Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine) lending lead guitar solos to tracks like "My Machine" (from 2009) and Lemmy himself stopping by to lend co-writing credits and vocals on "Wasted" (also from 2009) it's hard to find a weak moment within these 11-tracks. Whether it's the self-reflective rock of cuts like "Good Enough" and "Right or Wrong" (both of which find emotions running wild) or the blues-rock/hard rock crunch of "Continental" (which actually opens with a sample of what sounds like a Speak and Spell (I should know as we had one in our household!) this collection of career-defining moments is damn near perfect. There's plenty of tracks here for hard rock fanatics to sink their teeth into.There's the Guns N' Roses-styled "Million To One", the beefed-up AC/DC on steroids rocker "Die For You" and the Led Zeppelin-like "Revolution Baby" (which incidentally features blues-harp by legendary blues-rocker Jon Paris!). Things do slow down with "Cry For A Minute", but when you're treated to Queen V's softer side it's hard to find room to complain. "Cry For A Minute" shows off one of Queen V's influences as it's very much in vogue with something The Pretenders would release. Other influences such as David Bowie, Queen and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts do stop in for a quick drink, but overall Queen V puts her own stamp of originally on numbers like "My Machine" so nothing here ever sounds like a carbon-copy of other artists/bands. Given the fact that Queen V is also a talented guitarist it's hard to fathom why she's not more of a household name. Wouldn't it be nice if instead of being bombarded by the same old (supposedly empowered) women on the radio day after day (whether we're talking about Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Ke$ha or however) we could actually have a real strong women like Queen V represent? Yeah, it's a pipe-dream I know, but I'd rather see young women (my 15 year old daughter) latch on to someone like Queen V who is a real musician then some of the crap (Katy Perry, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga) that passes as "music" these days. Oh well and hell, it is what it is. My soapbox rant aside, this collection really is a near perfect 11-track affair and, while I've never considered doing this before, it might just end up on my best of 2013 list at the year's end! Yes, it's that fine of a collection and no, I'm not blinded by the fact that Lemmy appears of the last track. I'd actually still love this collection even if Motörhead's main-man didn't appear on one of the songs...it just might be a little less love is all LOL!
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