Music Legends Queen Special Edition 2019

of pop-tinged rock anthem ‘Radio Ga Ga’, written by drummer
Roger Taylor, who said regarding this, ‘I wrote it after watching
a lot of MTV in the States, and it seemed to me there was far too
much emphasis on a band’s visual image. I got the name “Radio
Ga Ga” from my son, Felix – he was watching TV with me and
started going around saying “radio poo poo” which changed to
“radio ka ka” and then eventually to “Radio Ga Ga”.’
Another massive number off the album, ‘I Want to Break Free’,
caused incredible controversy for the band thanks, once again,
to its controversial music video. Featuring the band dressed in
drag, in parody of a famous British soap opera, neither the band’s
fans nor the press got the joke, as Roger Taylor explained, ‘We
had done some really serious, epic videos in the past, and we just
thought we’d have some fun. We wanted people to know that
we didn’t take ourselves too seriously, that we could still laugh at
ourselves. I think we proved that.’
As with the disco-funk of ‘Hot Space’ before it, Brian May was
adamant that the ‘I Want to Break Free’ video harmed the band’s
sales in the United States in subsequent years. It didn’t much help
that, at the same time, Freddie was to appear in Vogue magazine,
modelling a diamond stud earring, enhancing the backlash against
Mercury’s at times extravagant nature.
As with ‘Hot Space’, the poor sales of ‘The Works’ prompted
the band into delving deep into their solo projects once more,
as both the critical and commercial acclaim that had come so
easily in the 1970s seemed to be on a steady decline. A successful
European tour towards the end of the year brightened things up
a little, before the band released a special edited version of ‘Live
Killers’, donating all of the proceeds to the Kultawamong School
for deaf and blind children. After dates in South Africa, however,
Queen were met with hostility on their return to England, with
both the press and the Musicians Union on their back, as Brian
May explained, ‘We’re totally against apartheid and all it stands