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[theinevitable]

yeah, this song is definitely trying to sound like southern rock. and succeeding.

[jay-ell]

I guess Kid Rock did a cover of it, sounds pretty at home in his idiom to me.

[greenkoolayd]

I guess Kid Rock did a cover of it, sounds pretty at home in his idiom to me.

sad thing is, kid rock thinks that simply breaking the law makes you an 'outlaw'.

[AugustWest]

I guess Kid Rock did a cover of it, sounds pretty at home in his idiom to me.

Yeah, and he said he's "gonna do it country-style, gonna countrify up".  Which implies it wasn't that way to begin with.

[AugustWest]

The simple, almost stomped-out rhythm. The twangy-as-fuck bass, the country-style strumming in the rhythm guitars.

You could say the same thing about most AC/DC.  In fact, to me this song sounds more like  AC/DC than Skynryd. 

There's some twangy lead guitar, the bass is distorted but not twangy and I'm not sure what country-style strumming is.  The lyrics are way more AC/DC-like too.

I'm not trying to be disagreeable.  I'm just really intrigued by our differences in interpretation.  Based on the split you could posit not only a regional difference but also a generational one.

[pmcd9]

I'm not trying to be disagreeable.  I'm just really intrigued by our differences in interpretation.  Based on the split you could posit not only a regional difference but also a generational one.

Also the fact that the people arguing against it being southern rock are from the south.

I spent a great deal of time today listening to "southern rock" trying to see the comparison and I must admit that I can see that there may be something to what LFM is saying. 

Although, Southern Rock is really just a construct, there is no such thing as southern rock anyway, really.  It's just hard driving rock and roll with honky tonk vocals.  It's really just Lynyrd Skynyrd and all the bands that aped their sound and rode their wave of success such as Molly Hatchet, Blackfoot, The Outlaws, Point Blank, etc..

And if you want to get real picky about it Rock and Roll IS southern rock.  Almost all of the major originators of Rock  are from the south.  But that's another discussion altogether.

But Queen playing homage to southern rock?  I don't know, maybe, but I doubt it.  They've aped genres before, most famously they are almost single handedly responsible for reviving rockabilly with Crazy Little Thing Called Love.  But there are others.  Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy for instance is dead perfect Dance Hall music and My Melancholy Blues is dead on lounge music.

Fat Bottomed Girls though isn't so clearly an homage or whatever.  That and the fact that they have quite a number of songs that could fall into the same stylistic territory as FBG leads me to believe it's not meant to be considered southern rock.  Had Queen done a southern rock homage you would know it and Freddie would have paraded around the stage with a rebel flag while he sang it.

[theinevitable]

until a year or so ago, I thought that song was by Lynyrd Skynyrd or some other southern rock band. it sounds so much like "southern rock" to me.

edit: it is very possible that because of where i grow up, I lump a lot of stuff that sounds similar to me together as being "southern" because very southern dudes at my high school liked it.

[littlefallsmets]

Don't backtrack, Dan!

You're right and you need to OWN being right.

[jay-ell]

Yeah, and he said he's "gonna do it country-style, gonna countrify up".  Which implies it wasn't that way to begin with.

Country =/= Southern Rock.

Also the fact that the people arguing against it being southern rock are from the south.

I may not have been born here, and I may not live in the "deep south," but I have lived in NC more than half my life now, and so-called "classic rock" is my genre of choice, so I think I know a little bit about it. Not as much as you, Paul, but enough to have an opinion.

Although, Southern Rock is really just a construct, there is no such thing as southern rock anyway, really.  It's just hard driving rock and roll with honky tonk vocals. 

Sounds like a point in our favor, then. I mean, Freddy's vocals aren't exactly honky tonk, but how country can you expect a British queer to sound?

And if you want to get real picky about it Rock and Roll IS southern rock.  Almost all of the major originators of Rock  are from the south.  But that's another discussion altogether.

No point in discussing that at all; it's a fact, pure and simple.

[wombat]

OK, coming late to the party, I have finally watched the video that started the conversation, at which point I realized that I had no recollection of what the original Queen version sounded like, so I listened to that too.

And, yeah, if there is such a thing as 'southern rock' that is definitely it. And I will argue that as a total non-Southerner, I am the best person to judge that. See, there is this recurring joke in my household: If we hear soneone talking with a strong Massachusetts accent, I say "Wow, listen to that accent" and the Technical Staff says "What accent?" And if we hear someone talking with a strong NYC accent, the conversation goes the other way round. The joke being based on the fact that it's only to an outsider that an accent sounds like an accent. To the person who talks that way, it's everyone else who has the accent.

So, exactly the same, if I stumbled across a band playing that song on the streets of Boston or NY - assuming I didn't realize it was an old Queen song - I would say to myself "I wonder where in the South they come from - or are pretending to come from?"

[pmcd9]

Although, Southern Rock is really just a construct, there is no such thing as southern rock anyway, really.  It's just hard driving rock and roll with honky tonk vocals.

Sounds like a point in our favor, then. I mean, Freddy's vocals aren't exactly honky tonk, but how country can you expect a British queer to sound?

I won't concede this point.  That being that the only concrete thing that defines a band as southern rock is being from the south and making being southern a part of their identity.

If Fat Bottomed Girls is southern rock then who else?  Foghat?  Nazareth?  Free?  Ted Nugent?  The list goes on and on.

Just because Fat Bottomed Girls bears some vague resemblance to Gimme Three Steps does not make it southern rock.

[Lister]

This Alabamian is voting on the side of "Fat Bottomed Girls" being a song in the Southern Rock style.

Stylistically, it's very similar to Seven Bridges Road* - Tight harmonic acapella intro, followed by a straight-up country guitar hook.  Change singers and add cowbell and it could fit on an album with Gimme Three Steps.  It's not pure, but Hendrix didn't play "pure" blues either.  It just seems pretty obvious that Queen meant it to follow that style of rock.

*If you want to argue against Seven Bridges Road being Southern Rock, travel to any college town in the South and play it at a party.

[greenkoolayd]

ill tell you what it is!  its some kind of a texas psychobilly freakout, thats what it is!

[theinevitable]

also, paul, any genre is a "construct," I do not really get what you are arguing.

although the more I think about it, the more I think that this song was in my head as the archetypal Southern Rock song, and that is why I think it is southern rock.

[jay-ell]

I won't concede this point.  That being that the only concrete thing that defines a band as southern rock is being from the south and making being southern a part of their identity.

If Fat Bottomed Girls is southern rock then who else?  Foghat?  Nazareth?  Free?  Ted Nugent?  The list goes on and on.

Just because Fat Bottomed Girls bears some vague resemblance to Gimme Three Steps does not make it southern rock.

Well, since "Slow Ride" is on "Goin' South Vol. 2," along with "Free Bird" and other unequivocally southern rock anthems, apparently somebody at the record label thought they qualified, too.

Is Foghat a southern rock band? No. Can they still have a coupleafew songs that fit the genre? Sure thing, man. Why not? Why be exclusive?

Weird Al is not a nerdcore artist, but "White and Nerdy" is most definitely nerdcore rap.