Like May, Freddie Mercury, and John Deacon, Taylor was not only highly skilled in his chief instrument, but he could play several others, including guitar and keyboards. Also like May, he sang lead vocals on a number of Queen songs, chiefly ones he wrote himself. In fact, his vocals were featured even more prominently than May’s. Even though he wrote fewer songs in the group’s early days, he sang almost all of the ones he did write, unlike May, who only sang a small proportion of his songs. Furthermore, while both he and May did a lot of the backing vocals, Taylor sang the high harmonies, which gave his voice a prominent role even on songs where lead vocal duties were entirely handled by Freddie Mercury. Examples of this include the high notes on songs like “In the Lap of the Gods” and “Bohemian Rhapsody”. At least one reviewer that I read remarked that Taylor had a better voice than the lead vocalists for many other bands; of course with Freddie Mercury available, he didn’t use it as often as he might otherwise have.
Taylor was also a talented songwriter. In fact, Queen is one of very few groups in which every member wrote hit songs for the group. As I noted in my article on Brian May, in the group’s early years, the songwriting was dominated by May and Mercury. Taylor wrote at least one song on each album from the beginning (unlike John Deacon, whose first composition appeared on Queen’s third album), but it wasn’t until the late 1970s that he (and Deacon) started writing two songs per album. Also, though Taylor wrote some excellent album tracks such as “Tenement Funster”, “Drowse” and “Sheer Heart Attack”, he didn’t write any of the group’s hit singles (though he did famously get his “I’m in Love with My Car” onto the B side of “Bohemian Rhapsody”, thus earning a lot of royalties). But in the 1980s, Taylor was writing as much as Mercury or May – sometimes even more – including hits such as “Radio Ga Ga” (the song that Lady Gaga got her name from), “A Kind of Magic”, “The Invisible Man”, “Breakthru” (except for the opening section, written by Mercury) and “Heaven For Everyone” (though this song was originally written for his band The Cross and only later reworked for release by Queen). He was the main writer of Queen’s holiday song “Thank God It’s Christmas” (with some help from May) and he was the primary lyricist on the hits “One Vision” and “Innuendo”. He also wrote the hit single “C-lebrity” from the Queen + Paul Rodgers collaboration, as well as the album's other single, "Say It's Not True". In fact, Taylor wrote or was at least one of the main writers of the title track and/or lead single for all but one of Queen's albums starting with 1984's The Works (though I should note that on his first two hits, "Radio Ga Ga" and "A Kind of Magic", Mercury helped to polish the songs to bring out their hit potential). There was a noticeable change in Taylor’s songwriting style in the 1980s when he started using keyboards to compose, as the resulting songs were often very different from the guitar-based songs he wrote in the 1970s (though he continued to compose on guitar in the 1980s and afterwards). Like May, Taylor occasionally has addressed social and political issues in his lyrics, such as on “One Vision”, “Heaven for Everyone” and “Say It’s Not True”, as well as some of his solo tracks.
Taylor also has had the most prolific solo career of any of the members of Queen. He has released four solo albums and a long-delayed fifth one is supposedly nearing release (a single from it was released back in 2009). In the late 1980s, he also formed a band called The Cross in which he played rhythm guitar and sang lead vocals, and he wrote almost all the songs on their first album, though he contributed much less to their second and third albums. None of the other members of Queen released nearly as much solo material (unless the 10-CD Freddie Mercury box set is included, but most of that consisted of demos and unfinished material). However, except for a few songs here and there, I haven’t heard much of Taylor’s solo material, so my list of his best songs (including a few which others had a hand in writing, but Taylor wrote the vast majority of) is taken from his work with Queen, including the Queen + Paul Rodgers collaboration between Taylor, May and vocalist Paul Rodgers. In the future I may do an updated list incorporating some of his best solo tracks.
The Best of Roger Taylor
(All songs written by Roger Taylor and performed by Queen except where otherwise noted)
Tenement Funster (Lead vocals by Taylor)
I'm in Love with My Car (Lead vocals by Taylor)
Drowse (Lead vocals by Taylor)
Sheer Heart Attack
Fun It (Lead vocals by Taylor and Mercury)
Rock It (Prime Jive) (Lead vocals by Taylor, except opening section sung by Mercury)
Action This Day (Lead vocals on some lines by Taylor)
Radio Ga Ga
Thank God It's Christmas (Written with assistance from May)
A Kind of Magic
Breakthru (Intro written by Mercury)
These Are the Days of Our Lives
Heaven for Everyone (First recorded by the Cross, later re-recorded by Queen; lead vocals on Cross single version by Taylor)
C-lebrity (Queen+Paul Rodgers)
Say It’s Not True (Queen+Paul Rodgers; lead vocals by Taylor, May and Rodgers)
Modern Times Rock 'n' Roll (Lead vocals by Taylor), Coming Soon (Lead vocals on some lines by Taylor), The Invisible Man (Lead vocals on some lines by Taylor), Small
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