Fitting tribute to a rock god

Queen needs no introduction. Thanks to Freddie Mercury’s legendary voice and unrivaled charisma, Brian May’s majestic guitar playing and operatic-level harmonies, the British quartet was one of the most popular rock bands in the 1970s and ’80s. The band had their roots in old-school hard rock, but thanks to Mercury’s flamboyant stage presence, their sound became more grandiose and theatrical than any of the other rock bands of their era. Their popularity began to wane in the early ’80s, but an ’85 jaw-dropping performance at Live Aid brought them back. Sadly, in 1991, Mercury suddenly died of AIDS, bringing their career to a halt.

A potential biopic about Queen had been in the works for a long time, but it wasn’t until 2018 that the ensuing product, Bohemian Rhapsody (named after perhaps their most iconic song), finally arrived. While the movie itself didn’t have the best reviews, it still shattered box office records, and Rami Malek’s performance as Freddie Mercury was widely praised.

As expected, the accompanying soundtrack to the film consists of a large collection of Queen’s greatest hits. But what isn’t expected is that instead of just consisting completely of studio cuts; the album brings in a large number of never heard before live recordings, including several from the aforementioned Live Aid show. This is a wonderful treat because where the band really shined was on stage. One can’t actually see Mercury performing, but his perfect vocals make the listener visualize being at a Queen show.

The studio recordings are mostly the band’s older hits, from the bouncy “Killer Queen” to the choral favorite “Somebody To Love” and from the punchy, disco-esque “Another One Bites The Dust” to the title track, the band’s swirling six-minute magnum opus. Meanwhile, the live songs are even more raucous than before. “Fat Bottomed Girls” adds, um, a fatter bottom; “Hammer to Fall” hits a harder hammer and “We Are The Champions” cements itself as the apex point of the Live Aid performance. The shining jewel, though, is ‘The Show Must Go On.” It’s a gorgeous and epic power ballad written from the perspective of a man fighting an illness, and fittingly, it was the band’s last single before Mercury’s death. The legendary singer is in top form even ’til the very end, and it’s a fitting closing track for a tribute album to a rock god.