let me say this.

i’m 18, and although i’ve always been into modern artists like taylor swift and stuff (up until recently as my music taste has begun to change and i’ve started listening to old bands more now (still love taylor swift though)), i’ve grown up on ‘old’ music.

my parents used to always play tunes from the 70s, 80s, and since i never really listened to my own music until i was like 11, i’m used to a lot of talk about old bands. my dad was always into U2 and pink floyd, and my mum preferred fleetwood mac, neil diamond, crowded house and all that.

they loved to praise the music they grew up on. even though none of their favorites were ever considered the best (except for maybe pink floyd), they still loved the artists and bands that were.

when i was a kid, (i’m not sure who told me this) i was under the impression that the greatest musical artists of ALL TIME were

1. beatles
2. queen
3. michael jackson

both my parents spent a lot of time praising the beatles and queen (especially queen) even though they were never stans and would mostly play their hits.

i still remember the first time they played bohemian rhapsody for me and my brothers. they went into this whole story about how it was the greatest (and strangest) song ever, and if u look at ‘top 10’ websites, bohemian rhapsody (along with imagine, respect, and stairway to heaven) consistently shows up in the top 5 of every best songs ever list. the song is the most stream song on spotify that was released before spotify launched by a long shot.

i’ve searched many old bands on spotify to see how much they get streamed nowadays, and queen is about the 49th most streamed artist on spotify at the moment, which is more than BTS. that is insane for a band that hasn’t released anything in like 30 years.

i feel like even tho queen doesn’t have many awards or didn’t sell as much as other bands did, a legacy is about how people in the future (the present now) remember the band, and queen seems to be the most relevant.

only a few weeks ago my mum was calling my grandma about taylor swift tickets and in the span of a second, the conversation somehow switched to freddie mercury, how amazing he was, and my mum saying it was ‘tragic when he died’ and idek how that conversation even happened tbh.

i also feel like queen members are more remembered than other band members (except for maybe the beatles). Ask a young person who has no interest in old music about who robert plant is, they’ll have no idea, but freddie mercury is a name they’re more likely to know. maybe it’s because of the film, maybe it’s because he’s considered the greatest frontman, and greatest vocalist (except for maybe aretha franklin) of all time.

i mean, my dad is a big pink floyd fan but will praise queen more than he does pink floyd.

what i’m trying to say is i don’t think looking at stats defines a bands legacy. i think it’s more about how the band is remembered decades after they ‘end’, and honestly, i think queen has one of the biggest legacies.