Welcome back to “Queen The Greatest”,
the celebration of Queen’s most extraordinary songs,
performances and achievements.
This week we head back to 1975
and the creation of what is, for many,
Queen’s greatest ever achievement –
Bohemian Rhapsody.
Lauded as one of the best songs ever written,
the list of accolades for this
extraordinary composition is endless.
Delivering the band their first number one hit single,
it went on to become the only song to
sell over a million copies on two occasions in the UK,
is the most streamed song of the 20th Century,
and in March 2021 reached the extremely rare
RIAA Diamond status in the US –
making Queen the first British band ever
to earn such an award.
So while the weeks of painstaking work in the studio to
create this masterpiece have clearly paid off,
no one could have predicted that just
four hours spent by the band at Elstree Studios
on the 10th of November,
could change the course of music history forever…
[Roger] We made a video for Bohemian Rhapsody
simply because we were on tour,
and we weren’t able to go on Top of the Pops.
[Brian] To be honest we weren’t too keen on
going on Top of the Pops,
and standing on those little podiums
and kind of miming Bohemian Rhapsody.
It would have been really crap.
[Roger] We used an Outside Broadcast sports unit to
bring in their cameras into Elstree where we were rehearsing.
And we could go on the road
and that could be on Top of the Pops
and we realised ‘wow’ you don’t even have to be here to
promote your record now.
You know, you just make one of these little video films
and that’s got to be the way in the future,
and we were the first to do that.
[Freddie] The thing is it’s the first video
that actually took any kind of effect
into actually making sales.
[Freddie] A lot of videos were probably made before,
but they didn’t sell records,
I think that’s the first that actually,
there was this chemistry that actually
linked visuals with the music,
and it worked.
Directed by Bruce Gowers and costing just £4500,
this promo for ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is widely regarded to
have given birth to
the practice of creating music videos.
As a result, this dramatic imagery
has become as iconic and recognisable
as the song itself.
It’s no surprise then that it was the first
pre 1990’s music video to
pass the 1 billion views milestone on You Tube.
Without doubt one of
the most defining moments in Queen’s history,
there really is nothing else
quite like Bohemian Rhapsody.