Wonder Woman stopped using her golden lasso on me because she didn't like the honest comment I made about her thighs

Can't stop doing this.  I noticed that today was 4,435 days since Axl had said the new G'n'R video would be out in a week or so, "'soon' is the word."  And of course he did nothing of the sort.  So of course who do I compare that to except Queen?

Queen didn't invent music videos.  It's a great video but wasn't remotely the first.  The Beatles had done "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Hey Jude," I'm blanking on the song Bob Dylan made a video for.  Obviously bands that were recorded on tv could send the footage around on its own and one can argue that was the point of Elvis Presley movies.  But my understanding is that "Bohemian Rhapsody" was the first time that a video notably increased sales for the single.  It is a great video anyway.

So naturally I went back and counted how many videos Queen made, focusing on the last 4,435 days of Freddie Mercury's life.  Care to guess who wins that competition?  Freddie never even told us one would be out "soon."

A little over two weeks before the last 4,435 days Freddie had to live, Queen recorded the "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" video.  It's certainly fun but a fairly straightforward performance otherwise, just a bit of goofing around here and there.  Most early music videos were just a group of people playing instruments, or at least pretending to.  I would assume it came out early in the process that they should look as good as possible on film and if that means not remotely concentrating on the instrument, that's the way it goes.  Not a complaint, if I were involved in the video business I'd probably insist on it.

It was followed up with "Save Me" which I always liked a lot.  Most of the video is just the band playing but its interacted with animation that isn't very good itself but quite effective as far as I'm concerned, inventing a cartoon story that enhances the love song.  The next two videos from The Game were just band performances, "Play The Game" had simplistic video special effects behind them and interaction between the band members while singing/playing, little else.  "Another One Bites The Dust" was apparently filmed in concert, at least a few parts, and the rest was still the band playing.

I'm sure I've seen all of these videos many times but it's been a while so I'll look up what details I can but not actually watch them.  I do suspect I'll watch at least a couple before finishing this.

"Flash Gordon" was mostly the band playing and clips from the movie they were promoting.  Nothing special about that.  This was probably around the time Queen Ltd. was formed and, along with the advance of cable tv, they would soon start putting more effort into the videos.

They didn't start that way though, Hot Space had videos for its singles.  Queen didn't even appear in the "Under Pressure" video because they weren't able to work out a schedule with David Bowie so the director just put together a bunch of clips from various movies and things that had all drifted into public availability.  Still a great video though, better than the other two.  "Body Language" is Queen not playing as a band but instead promoting darkly-lit images of sexually attracted people, probably showing what Freddie's personal life was doing, "Back Chat" was a standard 'band performance' video and "Calling All Girls" remade clips from George Lucas' first movie, THX 1138.  What was that about?  Who in their right minds...?

I didn't even know there was a "Back Chat" video until I started typing this.  I may miss a few others too.  This was still Queen doing an album every year or so and they would obviously want to promote it.  It obviously worked.  They could have followed Axl Rose's example.

The Works was where they truly started making great videos, or at least really different from what people expected from most bands.  The variety alone was amazing.  Each member of the band wrote one of the singles and it's just an awesome example of knowing how the music business worked in the early-mid 1980s.

"Radio Gaga" is one of the best videos of all time, taking footage from the 1927 movie Metropolis and interacting it with the band as if they were filmed in that movie scene and including filming a family living in a disaster area.  "It's A Hard Life" was made up as if it were a party of French nobles and was really what Freddie wanted.  "I Want To Break Free" is just bizarre, the band dresses as women and they parody the British soap opera Coronation Street while the bridge shows Freddie, having shaved his beard - which he hadn't done for the dress-wearing scenes - and being part of a ballet group.    It's another one of those things that's so bizarre, why are they doing that?  Then "Hammer To Fall" was a straightforward video filmed all or mostly in-concert, something they hadn't done for a while.

By taking control, they were able to do innovative work that didn't fall into repetition.  If you're into music videos, it's about as good as it gets.

Then Freddie released his solo album, Mr. Bad Guy.  He had been working on it for a few years and I've said before that I don't think it's remotely as good as Queen, but it has its place.  They can't all be winners.  He made videos for "I Was Born To Love You" and "Made In Heaven" which are ok, I guess.  I haven't seen them in ages and only recall that they were less fancy than the recent Queen videos.  Gotta do something.

Queen were going to have taken another break but Live Aid made them change their minds.  They recorded "One Vision" and filmed the recording so the video is just footage of that.  It's certainly another twist from the standard.  That would be the first single from A Kind Of Magic which is kind-of a soundtrack for the first Highlander movie.  Also at some point Freddie appeared and sang "Time" in a video for the title track of a Dave Clark musical.

"A Kind of Magic" had another clever take, set in an old English building with bums sleeping there, Freddie walks in as a magician and brings them up as band members.  Animation dances around the band, it's a fun video, then the song ends, Freddie leaves and the bums go back to sleep.  "Princes of the Universe" continued to promote the movie, with the band performing amid special effects, movie clips and Freddie having a sword fight with the star of the movie in character.

"Friends Will Be Friends" was another performance video, this time played for an audience of Queen fanclub members who worked for free and, if I remember, were given a few extra songs to reward them for standing around through the filming.  That's a nice way to treat fans.  "Who Wants To Live Forever" is another performance video and one I love because they're playing with an orchestra in a very formal setting but designed for visual effect.  Another album, another batch of videos which were all noticeably different from each other and the rest.

The band took another break and Freddie finished his solo career, recording a video for "The Great Pretender" which even parodied previous Queen videos like "I Want To Break Free" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love."  Roger even took part in some of the parody scenes.  This is where finishing work is shown as a positive thing, one can make references to previously finished work.  I'm not claiming Queen videos are artistic or intellectually brilliant but they're fun to watch and usually accompanies by songs that are good to hear.  An audience prefers that, especially when the alternative is getting nothing.

The Miracle had five videos, most of which were different versions of the band performing.  "The Invisible Man" wasn't, it showed a kid playing video games with then-current special effects and Freddie was one of the visuals.  The others probably were as well but it's not one of my favorites so I haven't even tried to see it in ages.  "Scandal" had them all changing clothes and playing on a set that looked like a newspaper page, "Breakthru" had them playing atop a moving train, "I Want It All" was just a great-looking performance and "The Miracle" is probably one of the favorite fan videos, it has four kids acting like one of the band members and is generally fun, then the adult versions show up halfway through for a nice ending.  The kid who played Freddie is probably still famous for it.

The Innuendo videos had to be different.  "Headlong" did try to have a performance or look like footage from the studio although I've never really thought it looked real.  The band was acting up for the camera and Freddie's trying to look healthy.  The band doesn't even appear in "Innuendo" except for old footage turned into animation but I think it's one of the best videos ever and for one of their greatest songs.  "I'm Going Slightly Mad" was just goofy fun, black-and-white to help Freddie look healthy and "These Are The Days Of Our Lives" was his last performance.  There are a couple different versions of the video, one with Disney animation as they had just given Queen a new recording contract.  I think the other version just replaced the animation with clips of old videos but I haven't seen it in ages and don't remember.  Obviously Freddie couldn't do any more and he was dead by the time "The Show Must Go On" video came out, just very well-edited clips of previous videos.

So...  Freddie didn't insist that his next work would be out "soon," he just lived the rest of his life productive and putting out new material for his fans.  Queen was a business and had to deal with more areas than just recording tunes, they had to promote their work in ways that promotion is accomplished.  I'm sure he wouldn't be remotely as productive today if he were still alive but he did what he could to finish as much as possible as we all should in our brief lifespans.

So that's 31 videos he specifically appeared in - not counting "Innuendo" or "Under Pressure" - or about one every 143 days for the last twelve years of his life.  That's not counting writing and recording songs for the nine albums he released in that time, plus non-album singles.  That's not counting working with his band-mates.  Roger appeared in some of his solo videos and during the filming of "These Are The Days..." Brian was in the USA promoting his upcoming solo album so they had to add him to the footage afterwards.  Then there's the rest of their company that needs to be overseen.  They did a lot of concerts through A Kind of Magic too.  And yes, he did take time off to party.

Maybe he should have followed Axl's example.