17 February, 2015

ADATR or NOTW?

I stopped in Newbury Comics - Harvard Square Store​ last month, and there was a woman who seemed to be talking to someone next to her near the vinyl records. I perked up as soon as she mentioned Queen​ because, duh. I made my way over to her to hopefully offer suggestions. It turns out she was on the phone via headset, and the guy next to her was just a guy next to her. The only two records under the Queen label were A Day At The Races and News Of The World.

I feel really terrible for bothering this woman and possibly coming off as creepy when I told her I loved Queen (it was only then that I realized she was on the phone), but the person on the other end of her line not knowing which of those albums to pick got me thinking...

If you could only pick ADATR or NOTW to introduce someone to Queen, which would you pick? And no, there's no possible way to get around it or access any other media in this scenario. Your friend in this scenario bases their taste in music on the first two seconds of the first song on an album because this friend grew up in an anti-music/TV/internet/anything remotely fun household and is only just starting to branch out, but really can't venture all that far from their comfort zone of talk radio and audio books because they still haven't completely forgiven you for what has since become known as "The Simon & Garfunkel​ Incident", and there's no hope for even a gray area when they decide whether to write the album and band off. You have to give them a compelling and well-thought out argument. I'd love to read your responses!