#best of queen
it’s so strange to me to see how many people in the fandom simply aren’t aware that crowley doesn’t like queen, and that’s a big part of why it’s so funny that they’re pretty much all he’s been able to listen to since the 1970s.
like. nothing against people who do like queen, but our demon boi does not.
Do we know whythe Bentley turns everything to Queen? He’d had that car for decades before Queen even existed. Before Queen, did the radio stations all, say, turn to Bluegrass in the Jazz era? Was it a punishment, or has his radio always been haunted? Did that just happen when he installed his first 8-track player? If it was the former, what transgression did he commit that this was inflicted on him? Or was it just an inexplicable phenomenon resulting from his gayness for Aziraphale? Like the Bentley just absorbed the radiated gayness for decades and now is expending all the pent up gayness in the form of Queen music, like the body releases excess chemicals through its pores, because Queen music is the most pure expression of that gayness. Does it play Queen because Crowley expects it to, and so it does? And what first caused him to expect such an odd occurrance? Could he not convince himself otherwise and cause it to stop?
I just….I have so many questions.
It’s not just the Bentley. All tapes left in any car for more than a fortnight turn into Best of Queen. So, canonically, every person in the Good Omens Universe with a car faces this problem, not just Crowley (though he gets the most angry about it and notices it more than most other people). You do pose a good question, though: what did it turn into before, if anything?
i mean, we don’t actually ever see it happen to anyone else, it honestly could just be that Crowley believes it does, even he knows he unconsciously influences reality
ido want to know when it started though
That’s true! We don’t actually know that it happens to anyone else. The line in the book says that it’s alltapes left in acar, implying any and all cars, but we also know the narrator isn’t a fully reliable one. We can assume it happens to everyone else and no one else pays enough attention to know or care except Crowley and a select few others. Or it could be, like you said, only happening to Crowley, and he just assumes it’s a problem everyone faces.
Personally, I think Crowley probably heard “Bohemian Rhapsody” one too many times and was like, “You know, this shit is so annoying. You know what would be even more annoying? If everyone who was dumb enough to leave their tapes in the car too long had to listen to it.” And he forgot he is someone who is dumb enough to leave his tapes in the car too long, and has had to listen to it ever since. So…at least since 1975, since that’s when that particular song was released.
I’m personally of the opinion that Crowley doesn’t hate Queen so much as he just can’t stand listening to it anymore. He would like to be able to have other options when it comes to music, but it’s been several decades and now he’s pissed.
I think this is a joke which makes more sense to those of us who are older, and possibly of British location (I’m Australian but a lot of things extend to here from the UK). To me it’s funny because back when we had tape players in cars, it was highly likely the car you were in HAD a Best of Queen tape in it, it was just… ubiquitous.
So the thought that it used to be a different tape and just transmogrified over a period of time was both funny and plausible. I always took it to be all cars, and also that yes, Crowley definitely doesn’t like Queen because he’s heard it so many times (like lots of other normal humans who wonder how this tape ended up in their car when they don’t remember buying it).
tl;dr it’s an early 90s joke which makes sense to people who were adults at that time. Cassette players man, what a concept.
Yes, exactly! It’s a funny little bit that not only got lost in translation from book to screen, but is also a relic of the time when the book was written. It was meant to be one of those very relatable annoyances in life that are funny to explain through supernatural means, like the fabled portal to an alternate dimension in the laundry room where all your missing socks end up.
It feels like more of an absurdist non-sequitur in the show, especially since there is absolutely zero attempt to explain what’s going on. By all appearances, he’s just an unfathomably ancient demon who happens to blast thematically appropriate Queen songs wherever he goes.
