Queen

English rock band Queen were one of the most popular bands in the world, and have sold an estimated 300 million records internationally. Known for their theatrical style, and the flamboyant showmanship of lead singer Freddie Mercury, the band built a reputation through the 1970s with million-selling albums and emphatic live performances.

Their breakthrough was the 1974 album Queen II, which hit No.5 in the British charts and included a Top 10 single, Seven Seas of Rhye. Third album Sheer Heart Attack (1974) was the first Queen record to win over critics as well as fans, and is often regarded as their first true classic. They embarked on a world tour and won the hearts of every crowd they played to.

A Night at the Opera (1975) was, at the time, the most expensive album ever recorded, but it proved to be worth the cost. It spent more than a year in both the UK and US charts, eventually selling over three million copies in the US. A Night at the Opera is often regarded as Queen's magnum opus, and features on many critics' lists of great albums. It also featured their signature song, "Bohemian Rhapsody", which topped the UK charts for nine weeks and is one of Britain's biggest-selling singles ever. It is also regularly voted as one of the greatest singles ever, and its video is considered to be a landmark in the history of music promotion - after "Bohemian Rhapsody", every band demanded videos for their singles.

Now one of the biggest bands in the world, Queen continued to enjoy incredible commercial success with A Day At The Races (1976) and News Of The World (1977), containing the massive hits "Somebody to Love", "We Will Rock You" and "We are the Champions". In 1976 they performed a free concert in Hyde Park, London, in front of a crowd estimated at close to 200,000. 1978's Jazz was an eclectic album that went nowhere near jazz, while the band achieved their first US No.1s at the turn of the decade with "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and "Another one Bites the Dust".

The band continued to tour in stadiums and set attendance records on a South American tour, playing to hundreds-of-thousands of fans every night. "Under Pressure" (with David Bowie) was another huge hit, as were "Radio Ga Ga" and "I Want to Break Free". 1985 was a pivotal year for the band: they broke more attendance records by twice performing in front of 325,000 fans in Rio, before their blockbusting set at Live Aid. Watched by a worldwide TV audience of over a billion, it was recently voted 'The Greatest Live Performance Ever' by a BBC poll. In 1988 Queen stopped performing live and concentrated on their studio work, which continued to yield million-selling albums.

By 1988 rumours were beginning to circulate that Mercury was suffering from AIDS. The rumours were consistently denied, but in 1991 Mercury issued a statement admitting that it was true. He died the next day, at the age of 45.

The following year a massive fundraising concert took place in Mercury's memory, featuring stars like Bowie, Robert Plant, Elton John, Guns n' Roses and Metallica. It was broadcast to over a billion viewers worldwide and raised over £20 million for AIDS charities. Later, "Bohemian Rhapsody" was featured prominently in the film Wayne's World, leading to a renaissance in the song's popularity among a new generation of fans. An album called Made in Heaven was released in 1995 comprising finished versions of tracks started with Mercury in the studio several years earlier. In 2005, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor commenced touring again with Paul Rodgers, known together as Queen + Paul Rodgers so as to avoid the impression that Mercury was being replaced by Rodgers. As everyone who has seen a Queen performance from the 70s or 80s knows, Freddie Mercury is simply irreplaceable.