"I was never too keen on the British music press. They've called us a supermarket hype, and they used to suggest that we didn't write our own songs"
About this Quote
Mercury’s complaint lands with the quiet fury of someone who’s already won the only argument that matters: the crowd. The British music press, especially in the ’70s and ’80s, loved nothing more than policing authenticity - who was “real,” who was manufactured, who deserved the pantheon. Calling Queen “a supermarket hype” is a very British insult: not just “popular,” but tastelessly, profitably popular, stacked on shelves for the masses. It reduces the band’s theatrical ambition to mere packaging.
Mercury’s wording is revealing. “Never too keen” is classic understatement, the kind that lets him sound controlled while describing a sustained campaign of dismissal. Then he shifts from taste (“keen”) to accusation (“they used to suggest”), and that’s where the subtext sharpens: the press wasn’t simply critiquing Queen’s sound; it was trying to strip them of authorship, the one credential rock criticism treats as moral currency. In a culture that fetishized the self-made guitarist-poet, implying Queen didn’t write their own songs wasn’t a bad review - it was a delegitimization.
There’s also a class and identity edge here. Queen’s grandiosity, camp flair, and willingness to court mass appeal challenged the era’s idea of rock seriousness. Mercury, an immigrant outsider with a meticulously constructed stage persona, was never going to be granted “natural” authenticity by gatekeepers. The line reads as a subtle reversal: you can sneer at the supermarket, but it’s still where the people are.
Mercury’s wording is revealing. “Never too keen” is classic understatement, the kind that lets him sound controlled while describing a sustained campaign of dismissal. Then he shifts from taste (“keen”) to accusation (“they used to suggest”), and that’s where the subtext sharpens: the press wasn’t simply critiquing Queen’s sound; it was trying to strip them of authorship, the one credential rock criticism treats as moral currency. In a culture that fetishized the self-made guitarist-poet, implying Queen didn’t write their own songs wasn’t a bad review - it was a delegitimization.
There’s also a class and identity edge here. Queen’s grandiosity, camp flair, and willingness to court mass appeal challenged the era’s idea of rock seriousness. Mercury, an immigrant outsider with a meticulously constructed stage persona, was never going to be granted “natural” authenticity by gatekeepers. The line reads as a subtle reversal: you can sneer at the supermarket, but it’s still where the people are.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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