"Bohemian Rhapsody," Queen
It was fifty years ago today (this was written on November 28) that Queen released their fourth album, A Night at the Opera, named after the Marx Brothers movie of that title. And of course, "Bohemian Rhapsody, an operatic tune that likely inspired the album title, was the huge hit single, reaching number nine in the United States and topping the British singles chart. it is probably the most played song on YouTube, as the promotional video for the song - my Music Video Of the Week - has been viewed 1,999,437.371 times since it was uploaded onto YouTube in August 2008. And it will probably break two billion views or at least get closer to that benchmark by the time you read this. Not even the promotional clip for the Beatles' "Hey Jude," their most successful single," has gotten even a billion or more views.
But what of Bohemian Rhapsody itself? Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury conceived it as a semi-serious tale about a murderer on the run that he thought could be made into a parody of highbrow music as the Marx Brothers' movie had been, and he, his bandmates - guitarist Brian May, bassist John Deacon and drummer Roger Taylor - and co-producer Roy Thomas Baker spent untold amounts of time on the pseudo-operatic session alone. Along with other songs on A Night at the Opera, Queen more or less invented prog-metal.
TO read the full story on "Bohemian Rhapsody" - and no, I don't know if the title refers to Bohemia in the Czech Republic or "bohemian" to mean a person in an unconventional and artistic lifestyle, though it's probably the latter - go to the Wikipedia page here.
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