Opinion // Andrew Dansby

Queen, Polyphonic Spree each ignored the trends

The ability to draw an audience with just a few instruments - say, a voice and a guitar - is a particular gift. The ability to create a memorable song with big instrumentation and rousing vocals - is an entirely different challenge. Both come with risk.

While introspective singer-songwriters are sometimes targeted for the heart-on-sleeve transparency in their music, the architects of more ambitious songs are also sometimes viewed with misgivings. When ambition is perceived as pomp, cynics bring out their knives. In a contrived search for "authenticity" in entertainment, pomp is often considered uncool.

Two purveyors of unrepentant large-scale music play in Houston on the same night next week. One, Queen, is an English band that enjoyed international success by steering its permutation of rock away from the blues and toward flamboyant show tunes and opera - while often taking a critical beating for its unique music.

The other, the Polyphonic Spree, sprang from a lean '90s alternative rock movement that was a reaction to arena-rock excess. The Spree found a way to stand out among dour guitar bands. The group lifted itself up with animated symphonic rock music made by a choir, a harp, lots of brass, a theramin and other instrumentation that grunge had rendered gauche 10 years earlier.

More Information

The Polyphonic Spree

When: 8 p.m. Wednesday

Where: Fitzgerald's, 2706 White Oak

Tickets: $22-$27; 713-862-3838, fitzlivemusic.com

Queen & Adam Lambert

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday

Where: Toyota Center, 1510 Polk

Tickets: $35-$125; 866-446-8849, houstontoyotacenter.com

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Both bands provoke strong feelings, and both have been reassessed over time. Queen has the longer arc. Founded in 1970, the group released "Queen" in 1972, which barely hinted at the scale of music to come. But the foundation was there: Queen was a band looking to split the difference between hard rock and opera. It struck a unique sound, one that didn't rely on three chords and the truth, but rather prog-rock virtuosity and, well, not untruth, but a flamboyant presentation. Queen didn't sell sincerity.

The results were greeted joyously: The group had 12 charting hits in the U.S. between 1975 and 1984 and a reputation as one of the most dynamic live acts of its era. Each of the band's contributors was distinctive: Freddie Mercury remains one of the greatest singers and performers rock has produced; Brian May's guitar playing was like lightning; drummer Roger Taylor and bassist John Deacon brought heft and quick mobility to songs that often changed direction with no warning.

Since Queen's music drew from Broadway and opera rather than the blues - a more traditional foundation for rock bands - it was largely marginalized by critics. Even more recent comments from the establishment have rung with antiquated rock-crit tunnel vision. About Mercury, Rolling Stone's Album Guide says, "a gay man who lived out the classic straight-male fantasy of leading a rock band."

Even praise for Queen seems to be delivered at arm's length. Again, from Rolling Stone, the band is credited for "a steady flow of bombastically catchy schlock-rock hits."

Pitchfork, Rolling Stone's successor as the yardstick of the now, recently reviewed reissues of the band's '70s catalog with the comment: "Welcome to the greatest/most horrible band of the 20th century."

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame still recognized Queen, and classic rock radio has always welcomed its music, ensuring that the group's imprint has been lasting.

May and Taylor are touring now as Queen & Adam Lambert. Lambert, an "American Idol" contestant, is no Mercury, but he is a gifted showman and vocalist who has enabled the opportunity to hear the two architects of Queen's big music once again.

The Spree's roots are in a '90s Dallas alternative-rock band called Tripping Daisy. Tim DeLaughter was the irrepressible frontman for the group, which died after the overdose of guitarist Wes Berggren in 1999. DeLaughter worked through the tragedy with a set that acknowledged the darkness while still searching for the sun. The songs started as little voice and guitar skeletons, but he didn't consider them completed that way. He added instruments and then more instruments; more than 20 players became the Polyphonic Spree, a band that turns shows into joyful therapy sessions.

The Polyphonic Spree does sell sincerity. The scrap wood of life - be it personal, familial or global - is burned by this enormous machine and turned to an exhaust plume. After a few years' layoff, the band last year issued a well received album, "Yes, It's True," which is the best of the group's four recordings at capturing the sweep of its performances.

The scale of a Spree show doesn't begin to match that of Queen's - one plays clubs, the other stadiums - but similarities remain. Each band came along at a time when success could have been had by aping what was popular in the day. Both bands operated outside of trends. Both bands identified a void, then looked to fill it. And both did so as ambitiously and dramatically as possible.