Queen (band)

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Queen played their last concert with Freddie Mercury on the 9th of August 1986, in front of more than 120,000 fans at Knebworth Park in Hertfordshire. Roadie Peter Hince stood backstage and felt, as he later put it, that it was going to be the last for all of them. Mercury, wearing a crown and gown, told the crowd goodnight and sweet dreams. Brian May remembered Mercury saying, quietly, that he was not going to be doing this forever. Five years later, on the 23rd of November 1991, Mercury issued a prepared statement confirming he had AIDS. He died the following day.

  Yet the music Mercury left behind had already done something few bands manage: it rewired the relationship between rock music and the people who listen to it. Estimates of Queen's total record sales range from 250 million to 300 million copies. Their 1981 compilation Greatest Hits is the best-selling album in UK chart history, with approximately one in three British families owning a copy. A song they recorded in three hours for £3,500 is now the third-best-selling single of all time in the UK.

  How did four young men from London build something that durable? The answer runs through a dental student who placed a classified ad, an art college in Ealing, a spontaneous weekend on a radio DJ's turntable, a rainy stadium in Budapest, and a performance at Wembley in 1985 that an industry poll would later call the greatest rock performance of all time.

• 2. Before the Name

  ›

  Brian May built his first guitar with his father in 1963, the year before the Beatles played The Ed Sullivan Show. He was still a teenager when he formed a group called 1984, named after the Orwell novel. By early 1968, he had left to focus on a physics and infrared astronomy degree at Imperial College and to find a band capable of writing original material. With singer Tim Staffell, he formed Smile, placing an advertisement on a college notice board for a "Mitch Mitchell/Ginger Baker type" drummer. Roger Taylor, then a dental student, auditioned and got the job.

  Stafell attended Ealing Art College in west London, where he became friends with a fellow student named Farrokh Bulsara. Bulsara had been born in Zanzibar, was of Indian Parsi descent, and had spent a year studying fashion design before switching to graphic art. He became an ardent fan of Smile and asked to join as lead singer, but May felt Staffell would not give up the role. In the meantime, Bulsara ran a stall in Kensington Market alongside Taylor.

  In 1970, Staffell quit Smile. His interests in soul and R&B had grown incompatible with the group's hard rock direction, and he was fed up with the lack of success. He went on to form Humpy Bong with former Bee Gees drummer Colin Petersen. His departure opened the door. The remaining members accepted Bulsara as lead singer and recruited Taylor's friend Mike Grose on bass.

• 3. The Name and the First Gigs

  ›

  On the 27th of June 1970, the newly assembled four-piece played their first gig at a fundraising event in Truro. Bulsara had a proposal for the group's name: Queen. The others were uncertain. He told them, "it's wonderful, dear, people will love it." Around the same time, he decided to change his surname. He was inspired by a line in his own song, "My Fairy King": "Mother Mercury, look what they've done to me." Farrokh Bulsara became Freddie Mercury.

  The group's first London gig followed on the 18th of July. Their early set mixed songs that would later appear on the first two albums with rock and roll covers, including Cliff Richard and the Shadows' "Please Don't Tease". Producer John Anthony noticed them but felt they had the wrong bassist. Mike Grose departed after three gigs. Barry Mitchell, formerly of Crushed Butler, played thirteen gigs with Queen between August 1970 and January 1971 before also leaving. Doug Bogie filled in for two more shows.

  In February 1971, John Deacon joined. He was an experienced bassist with a quiet demeanour that complemented the group, and he was skilled in electronics. On the 2nd of July, Queen played their first show as the classic four-piece at a Surrey college outside London.

• 4. Getting Signed

  ›

  May contacted Terry Yeadon, an engineer who had worked with Smile at Pye Studios. Yeadon had since moved to De Lane Lea Studios in Wembley, where the facility needed a band to run acoustic tests on new equipment. He had tried to reach the Kinks but could not get hold of them. He offered Queen free studio time in exchange. They recorded five original songs: "Liar", "Keep Yourself Alive", "Great King Rat", "The Night Comes Down", and "Jesus".

  Producers John Anthony and Roy Thomas Baker visited during those sessions and were taken with "Keep Yourself Alive". They began pitching the band to record companies. Promoter Ken Testi generated interest from Charisma Records, who offered an advance of around £25,000. Queen turned it down when they realised the label would prioritise Genesis. Testi then opened discussions with Trident Studios, whose owner Norman Sheffield offered a management deal under a subsidiary called Neptune Productions. The arrangement gave Queen access to high-end recording facilities during off-peak hours. Taylor later called those studio hours "gold dust".

  Queen began 1972 with a gig at Bedford College, London, where only six people turned up. They then paused live performances for eight months to record their debut album. Watching David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars during that period sharpened their ambition. Co-producers Anthony and Baker clashed with the band over direction, a tension Baker described as "kitchen sink overproduction". Trident staged a showcase gig on the 6th of November at The Pheasantry and another at the Marquee Club on the 20th of December to attract label interest. The band still had no contract when they promoted the unreleased album on BBC Radio 1 in February 1973. The following month, Trident secured a deal with EMI Records.

• 5. Bohemian Rhapsody and the Video

  ›

  "Bohemian Rhapsody" began as fragments Mercury had written during his time at Ealing College. He played it through on piano for producer Roy Thomas Baker in his flat, stopping partway to announce, "this is where the opera section comes in." When the rest of the band began recording, none of them were sure how it would be assembled. After the backing track was laid down, Baker left a 30-second section of blank tape for the operatic vocals. Reports put the total number of overdubs at 180, to the point where the original tape wore thin.

  EMI initially refused to release the song as a single, arguing it was too long, and demanded a radio edit. Queen refused. The track reached Mercury's friend Kenny Everett, a DJ at Capital London radio. He was given a promotional copy on the strict condition he would not play it. Over a single weekend he played it fourteen times. Capital's switchboard was overwhelmed with callers asking when it would be available. EMI had little choice but to release it.

  The promotional video was directed by Bruce Gowers and filmed at Elstree Studios in Hertfordshire. It cost £3,500 and was shot in three hours. The operatic section reprised the Queen II cover image, with the band members' faces layered and animated. Radio broadcaster Tommy Vance later described it as "the first record to be pushed into the forefront by virtue of a video", and Rolling Stone credited the clip with "practically inventing the music video seven years before MTV went on the air."

• 6. Live Aid and the Wembley Moment

  ›

  On the 13th of July 1985, Queen took the stage at Wembley as part of Live Aid. The television audience was estimated at 400 million, then the largest ever for a broadcast of this kind. The sold-out stadium held 72,000 people, and by accounts from multiple witnesses they clapped, sang, and swayed as one.

  Mercury led a call-and-response a cappella segment during which he sustained a single powerful note. That moment came to be referred to as "The Note Heard Round the World." Backstage, Roger Waters told reporters that everybody he had run into was buzzing about Queen and that the band had everyone completely spellbound. An industry poll in 2005 ranked the performance the greatest rock performance of all time.

  Mercury reflected on Live Aid the following year, saying, "From our perspective, the fact that Live Aid happened when it did was really lucky. It came out of nowhere to save us. For sure that was a turning point." Roger Taylor called it a "shot in the arm." Record sales for the band increased in the aftermath.

  The Magic Tour that followed in mid-1986 drew more than one million people, with 400,000 attending in the UK alone, a record at the time. A concert at Slane Castle, Ireland drew 95,000 and broke the venue's attendance record. The band performed to 80,000 behind the Iron Curtain at the Népstadion in Budapest, in one of the biggest rock concerts ever staged in Eastern Europe. The Wembley shows sold out so quickly that promoter Harvey Goldsmith said the band seemed to have an endless market.

• 7. Mercury's Final Years

  ›

  Mercury had been diagnosed as HIV positive in 1987, but kept his condition private. Only those in his immediate circle knew. In October 1986, two months after Knebworth, he was photographed by British tabloids at Heathrow Airport after reports that he had been tested at a Harley Street clinic. He told reporters he was "perfectly fit and healthy".

  By 1988 his appearance had become notably gaunt. He told the press he was simply exhausted and too busy for interviews. He was 42. That year he recorded the album Barcelona with Montserrat Caballé, one of several solo projects undertaken during the period. The band released The Miracle in 1989 and Innuendo in early 1991. When the band recorded "The Show Must Go On" in 1990, Mercury could barely walk. May had doubts about whether he could physically sing the song. May later recalled, "he completely killed it." Mercury told the band to write him more material: "Write me stuff. I want to just sing this and do it and when I am gone you can finish it off."

  The last song Mercury completed in the studio was "Mother Love". After recording the penultimate verse, he told the band he wasn't feeling that great and would finish it when he came back. He never returned. May recorded the final verse himself. The work on both halves of the song took place at the band's studio in Montreux, Switzerland.

  On the 23rd of November 1991, Mercury issued a statement from his deathbed confirming his AIDS diagnosis. He died of bronchopneumonia within twenty-four hours. His funeral on the 27th of November in Kensal Green, West London was private and conducted according to the Zoroastrian faith of his family. Initial proceeds from the re-released "Bohemian Rhapsody" single, approximately £1,000,000, were donated to the Terrence Higgins Trust.

• 8. What Came After

  ›

  Four years after Mercury's death, Queen released Made in Heaven, constructed from his final recordings, material left over from previous sessions, and reworked tracks from solo albums. The album reached number one in the UK. It was their ninth number one album.

  John Deacon made his final public appearance in January 1997 in Paris, where Queen performed "The Show Must Go On" with Elton John and the Béjart Ballet on a night honouring Mercury's memory. Deacon retired from music that year. May and Taylor continued as a duo, performing at benefit concerts and award ceremonies under the name Queen + alongside various guest vocalists.

  In November 2004, Queen were among the inaugural inductees into the UK Music Hall of Fame. The following year they launched a world tour with Paul Rodgers, founder of Free and Bad Company, billed as Queen + Paul Rodgers. They parted ways in May 2009. In June of that year, May and Taylor appeared on the American Idol season finale, performing with that season's winner and runner-up Adam Lambert. Lambert joined the band as a touring collaborator from 2011 onward, and their collaboration has continued under the name Queen + Adam Lambert.

  The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, held at Wembley Stadium on the 20th of April 1992 in front of 72,000 people, was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the largest rock star benefit concert, televised to over 1.2 billion viewers and raising over £20,000,000 for AIDS charities. On the 25th of November 1996, a statue of Mercury was unveiled in Montreux overlooking Lake Geneva, nearly five years to the day since his death. In 2025, Queen received the Polar Music Prize.