The album debuted in the top 10 of the UK Album Charts. He is the first and only person to have done this." In September of 2006, a compilation album featuring Mercury's solo work was released in the UK in honour of what would have been his sixtieth birthday.
He discovered a new way to bring different music styles together. Caballé considered the album to have been one of the great successes of her career and said of Mercury, "He was not only a popular singer, he was a musician, that could sit at the piano and compose. Bad Guy as "outstanding from start to finish" and expressed his view that Mercury "did a commendable job of stretching into uncharted territory." In particular, the album was heavily synthesizer-driven in a way that was uncharacteristic of previous Queen albums, save portions of 1984's The Works.īarcelona, recorded with opera singer Montserrat Caballé, combined elements of popular music and opera. All Music critic David Prato describes Mr. The song remained on the charts for thirteen weeks and garnered Mercury a posthumous Ivor Novello Award. However, in 1993, a remix of "Living on My Own", a single from the album, reached the #1 position on the UK Singles Charts. Bad Guy was not considered to have been a commercial success relative to most Queen albums. "Barcelona" was recorded with the opera singer Montserrat Caballé, whom Mercury had long admired.Īlthough it remained on the UK Album Charts for 23 weeks, Mr. The former was a pop-oriented album that emphasized disco and dance music. Bad Guy and Barcelona, released in 19, respectively. In addition to his work with Queen, Mercury produced two solo albums, Mr. Due to his basic proficiency in playing the guitar, he also wrote many lines and riffs for the instrument, including many of those heard in "Bohemian Rhapsody." He also wrote "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" on the guitar and would play a guitar on stage when performing the song. It was so unlike other bands I've worked with where there is an acknowledged songwriter and anyone else who writes one really has to hassle to get it anywhere." Mercury wrote most of his songs on the piano, often choosing keys that were technically difficult for band mate and guitarist Brian May (e.g., E flat major). Despite the fact that Mercury often wrote very intricate harmonies, he also claimed that he could barely read music.Īlthough all four members of the band Queen were songwriters, producer Gary Langan, who worked in the studio with Queen on many of their early albums, notes that "Freddie was always intensely supportive of other people's songwriting and would give as much attention to one of the others as he would to his own. On the other hand, "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" is made up of only a few chords. For example, "Bohemian Rhapsody" is acyclic in structure and comprises nearly sixty chords. Compared to many rock songwriters, Freddie Mercury tended to write musically complex material. The most notable aspect of his songwriting involved the wide range of different genres that he used, which included, among other styles, rockabilly, heavy metal and disco. However, by the 1980s, all four members of the band were writing hits. Despite this, he displayed a penchant for exploring many different vocal styles.Īs a songwriter, Mercury wrote ten out of the seventeen songs on Queen's Greatest Hits album: "Seven Seas of Rhye", "Killer Queen", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Somebody to Love", "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy", "We Are the Champions", "Bicycle Race", "Don't Stop Me Now", "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", and "Play the Game". Mercury also claimed never to have had any formal training. On the other hand, because he suffered from vocal nodules (refusing surgery for the condition), he would often lower the highest notes during live performances. Another characteristic of his voice involved his powerful delivery of technically difficult material. Although his speaking voice naturally fell in the baritone range, he delivered most songs in the tenor range. Widely considered as one of the greatest vocalists in popular music, Freddie Mercury possessed a very distinctive, almost four-octave voice. In 1991, Mercury died of bronchial pneumonia brought on by AIDS, greatly raising worldwide awareness of the disease.
As a songwriter, he composed many international hits, including "Killer Queen", "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Somebody to Love", "We Are the Champions" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love". He is remembered for his vocal abilities and charisma as a live performer. Freddie Mercury (born Farrokh Bulsara Septem– 24 November 1991) was a British musician and songwriter, best known as the lead singer and pianist of the rock band Queen.