The Wednesday Pop Culture Rant always enjoys when the kids take a slice of pop culture past and make it their own. We heartily endorse the current embrace of Queen, a group that never gets appreciated for the totality of their greatness. Meeting in art school, the band designed their own costumes for pity’s sake. Try to imagine Eddie Van Halen and the boys doing the same: “No, Michael Anthony, For the last time, putting a Jack Daniels logo on a Gap t-shirt is not fashion forward.”
The Rant enjoyed watching Brendon Urie of Panic! at the Disco channel his inner Mercury this summer, especially when he removed his shirt to more than a few awed gasps from the crowd.1 In a totally we’re-Queen-we-fear-nothing move2, the band even performed “Bohemian Rhapsody,” a song with the potential to bury your career faster than throwing up at the office Christmas party. Panic! owned it.
Indie band Lemon Twigs create a nice Queen vibe on their song “These Words,” delivering a fabulous power chorus with requisite tight harmonies. Wearing colonial garb in the video doesn’t hurt either. They’re one porn ‘stache away from perfection.
Taking an influence and gently bending, folding, and shaping it into something beautiful and new is how art gets made. Shameless mimicry is how The Voice gets made. Finding that line is what makes being creative so damn hard and explains why The Rant keeps our shirt on. Although we are contemplating a Freddie ‘stache . . .
- Yes, the Rant gasped as well. We briefly found ourselves transported back to the 12th grade when we weighed a buck twenty-five and rocked 29-inch-waist pants. We could have been a contender, although we returned to reality when Urie began doing back-flips
- Remember, this band featured a frontman that created a desire within you to grow a porn ‘stache
