Stone Cold Classics

iTunes Review

Stone Cold Classics was intended as a tie-in for the 2006 season of American Idol, which featured an episode in which contestants performed Queen songs. That these songs were being played on television shows almost thirty years after their birth speaks to Queen’s enduring popularity. Even now the band’s range is astounding. “Tie Your Mother Down” and “Fat Bottomed Girls” fit in easily alongside the lewd boogie of Bad Company and Lynyrd Skynyrd, while “Stone Cold Crazy” is vicious enough to have influenced bands like Metallica and Guns ‘n’ Roses. Still, Queen’s later career cemented its legacy. A series of brilliant genre experiments brought them massive crossover success, from the rockabilly of “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” to the disco of “Another One Bites the Dust.” They stayed competitive well into the ‘80s with the power balladry of “The Show Must Go On” and the quiet storm R&B of “These Are the Days of Out Lives.” Queen’s diversity of qualities appealed to several different audiences at once, which makes the band an ideal study for the pop-star hopefuls of American Idol.