Category Archives: TRIF

The good news is that Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ became the number one song in the UK on November 29, 1975, and it stayed there for nine weeks. Although Queen were already famous, the song made them superstars.

The song took three weeks to record, and was like nothing that came before it. Written by Freddie Mercury, it contained multiple parts that he worked on for years. After the intro, the song is a ballad. A guitar solo follows before it become an opera. The song finishes as a rock song with a killer riff thrown in for good measure.

When the band planned to release it as a single, they were shot down by the record company because they thought that, at nearly six minutes long, no radio station would ever play it. So, they gave a copy of the song on a reel to reel tape to a DJ friend of theirs. He only played sections of the song at first, but his listeners demanded to hear the song in it’s entirety. He finally played the track 14 times in two days, during his show even though it had not been released. When it finally did get released, well… the rest is history.

The bad news is that Freddie Mercury passed away on November 24, 1991.

Given the close proximity of the two events on the calendar, I thought this would be a good week to dedicate a playlist to Queen. The playlist contains songs by Queen, as well as songs by artists who influenced Queen (The Beatles, Elton John, Elvis and Tears For Fears), and artists who Queen influenced (David Bowie, Nirvana, Radiohead and The Smashing Pumpkins).

As a bonus, I have also included their set list from Live Aid, which was memorialized by the film Bohemian Rhapsody.

Rock on!

I was very sad to hear about the passing of Edward Lodewijk Van Halen this past Tuesday. As a teenager in the early 1980s, I was a huge fan of Van Halen. Especially when they burst onto MTV with all of the great videos from the album 1984.

This week’s playlist pays homage to the legendary man who made a guitar talk in a way that no one else could.

Thank you for all the amazing riffs Eddie. RIP…

On October 3, 2003 School Of Rock opened in theatres. Frank Black gave us a great performance as the infectious Dewey Finn. This week’s playlist gives a nod to Dewey, some of the music he waxed poetically about, and some of the music by artists featured in the film.

“Now raise your goblet of rock. It’s a toast to those who rock!”