The British rock group Queen got its start in early 1971, when Brian May (guitar) and Roger Taylor (drums) from the defunct group Smile joined with local singer Freddie Mercury (born Freddie Bulsara) and college classmate John Deacon (bass).The group played small shows around London before a demo found its way to EMI. The group signed with the label in early 1973 and released their eponymous debut that July. The album wasn’t a huge success, but Queen got a big break by opening for Mott The Hoople on the support tour; their 1974 follow-up, Queen II, was to be followed by a U.K. and U.S. tour, but May was hospitalized with hepatitis and many of the U.S. shows were canceled.
The group’s third release, Sheer Heart Attack, came out later that same year and finally broke the band in Britain, thanks to the U.K. No. 2 single “Killer Queen.” After a sold out world tour and a change in management, Queen returned in late 1975 with the elaborately recorded album A Night at the Opera, whose advance single, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” reached No. 1 in the U.K. despite being an unwieldy six minutes long. The album was a huge success, reaching the U.S. Top 10 and going platinum. During the world tour that followed, each of Queen’s first four albums sat in the U.K. Top 20, an unprecedented feat. The band was especially popular in Japan as well, mobbed by fans at each performance.
To gear up for the late 1976 release of A Day at the Races, in September of that year Queen played a free concert in London’s Hyde Park which drew almost 200,000 fans.The album was greeted by record advance orders in Britain, and reached No. 5 in the United States. After a North American tour and a Roger Taylor solo single, the group staged an elaborate and expensive European tour, part of which was filmed for a video. 1977’s News of the World, which brazenly flew in the face of punk rock with its overblown production, contained the international No. 1 hits “We Will Rock You” and “We Are The Champions,” whose gloating strains have graced sporting events worldwide ever since.
Abandoning their manager, Queen released Jazz in 1978, which featured a controversial photo of an all-female nude bicycle race staged by the band in Wimbledon Stadium. After more extensive touring, Queen returned to London to record their double-live album, Live Killers, in 1979. The group recorded a soundtrack for the failed 1980 sci-fi movie Flash Gordon. Incorporating synthesizers into their already grandiose sound, Queen recorded 1980’s The Game, the biggest album of their career and their first U.S. No. 1 album. With the single “Another One Bites the Dust” reaching No. 1 in the U.S. Rock, Soul, and Disco categories simultaneously, Queen was more popular than ever. The quartet undertook the first-ever tour of South America by a major rock band, playing to crowds of unheard sizes, up to 130,000 people per date. In fact, the band was perhaps bigger in South America than in the rest of the world, with Queen singles staying at No. 1 for years at a time.
In early 1981 Roger Taylor released his solo debut, Fun in Space. During the group’s time off, EMI released a “greatest hits” album which stayed in the BritishTop 100 for most of the next decade. The following year Queen released Hot Space, another commercial smash. After pausing to release a Brian May solo EP, Star Fleet Project, Queen returned to the studios in late 1983 to record The Works, released early the next year; its first single “Radio Ga Ga,” reached No. 1 in 19 countries, though the album was not as popular as past Queen releases.
Following the release of another Roger Taylor solo album (Strange Frontier) in early 1984, Queen began another tour, this time heading to Africa. Their decision to include South Africa, then under worldwide boycott due to its racial policies, caused the band problems in the British Commonwealth, where they were hounded with criticism; they even faced protests at some New Zealand concert dates. Freddy Mercury’s solo debut, Mr. Bad Guy, was released in 1985, shortly before Queen appeared at the famous Live Aid show in London that July. The group took some time off before recording a soundtrack for the 1986 action film Highlander, entitled A Kind of Magic.The elaborate tour that followed included a stop in Hungary, one of the first appearances by a Western rock band in an Eastern Bloc country; the tour culminated with a massive show at Knebworth that drew 120,000 British fans. The tour was captured in the group’s second live album, Live Magic. Though Queen was as popular as ever throughout the world, in the U.S. their popularity was swiftly declining.
Queen spent much of 1987 and 1988 apart — Taylor formed a new band, the Cross, while Mercury worked on Barcelona, a duet album recorded with Spanish opera star Montserrat Caballe. Queen’s much-anticipated 16th album, The Miracle, was released in May 1989 and entered the U.K. charts at No. 1. The group took another break to pursue solo projects, signing a new U.S. deal with Hollywood Records, who released the band’s backcatalog on CD. 1991’s Innuendo once again entered the U.K. charts at No. 1, reaching the U.S. Top 30.
On November 22, 1991, singer Freddie Mercury shocked the rock world by admitting that he was a closeted homosexual and was dying of AIDS. Two days later, he passed away, effectively ending Queen. Ironically, only a few months after Mercury’s death, Queen enjoyed an amazing revival in the U.S., thanks to the appearance of “Bohemian Rhapsody” in the movie Wayne’s World. A massive Freddie Mercury memorial concert was staged in London to raise money for AIDS awareness, with appearances by acts such as Elton John, Guns `N’ Roses and David Bowie — the televised concert was reportedly seen by over one billion people worldwide.
After Mercury’s death, Brian May released his second solo album, Back to the Light, in 1993, while Roger Taylor continued performing with the Cross; Deacon retired from music. The three Queen members briefly reunited in 1994 to record music for unreleased Mercury demo tapes, creating the final Queen album, 1995’s Made In Heaven.
Queen was inducted into the Rock ‘N Roll Hall Of Fame in 2001.