And last but most certainly not least my beautiful people, we come to Freddie Mercury.
Freddie Mercury
While Brian May may have been the hard rock muscle of Queen, Freddie was the finesse and eloquence that elevated them to the royal status that a band named "Queen" should have.
Growing up as a
young, large toothed lad in India, Freddie received classical piano lessons, the fruits of such labors being a key component in Queen's music, particularly in during the 70's where it was the lead instruments in many of Queen's biggest hits. Freddie also learned how to play guitar after moving to London as many of his favorite artists where primarily guitar driven such as The Who, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Elvis, and Jimi Hendrix. Now while his playing on guitar was very limited (Freddie himself claiming that he only actually knew three chords) he still used what he knew to write guitar parts for several of Queen's recordings, most notably being the #1 single "Crazy Little Thing Called Love". Despite Freddie's success with both his piano playing and even his rudimentary knowledge of guitar he still shot down his own playing ability calling it "rubbish" and over time playing the piano less and less so that he'd have to freedom to interact with the fans and prance around the stage, like he did ever so well, much more during concerts.
Notable songs of Freddie's playing:
Seven Seas Of Rhye (Queen's breakthrough single)
Don't Stop Me Now
Killer Queen
Love Of My Life
We Are The Champions
The March Of The Black Queen
Save Me
Death on Two Legs (Dedicated To...) (He also wrote the guitar riff on piano for Brian to play)
Doing All Right
Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy
In the Lap of the Gods...Revisited
A Winter's Tale
Bohemian Rhapsody
Play The Game
It's a Hard Life
Bicycle Race
Of course Freddie's prowess as an instrumentalist will always take a backseat to his ability as a singer and frontman. While he was actually a quiet, reserved, and very private person offstage once the time came to perform Freddie shined above all others as a true showman. As a live performer he is still incredibly respected for his charisma and ability to effortlessly draw the audience into participation with sheer charm alone as he paraded across the stage with the utmost grace and held the entire stadium in the palm of his hand.
As a singer Freddie had over a four octave vocal range, something very rare for male singers particularly since Freddie had a nature baritone speaking voice. With added range from falsetto and belting his range would even extend beyond that. Freddie once confess that he had four extra teeth and he felt that they extended his vocal range. He also suffered from vocal chord nodules which is a a clump of tissue that grows on one's vocal chords and can cause hoarseness, pain while speaking, and a drastic reduction of vocal range. These nodules are frequent among people who commonly use their voice in loud settings...such as arenas full of screaming fans. Among all of this and his wide acclaim as a singer Freddie admitted to never having any formal vocal training.
Notable vocal performances from Freddie:
The Show Must Go On
The Prophet's Song
Play The Game
Bohemian Rhapsody
Who Wants To Live Forever
Let Me Live
We Are The Champions
Somebody To Love
Is This the World We Created...?
You're My Best Friend
Spread Your Wings
Breakthru
Under Pressure
Innuendo
And addition to all of his performing and playing abilities Freddie was also a versatile and natural songwriter. Freddie composed the most of Queen's hits of the band's four writers and of those hit singles alone (as opposed to the band's back catalog) his writing style spanned many genres including gospel, opera, hard rock, rockabilly, disco, progressive rock and others. The reason so many different styles apparently stemmed from his own boredom with doing the same thing over and over again. On top of his compositions being the most ranged of the four writers in Queen, Freddie's were often times very complex commonly using multiple time signatures and different keys. This was especially impressive since Freddie stated on more than one occasion that despite being trained in piano in his youth he could barely read music, much less write it. Often times when he wrote a guitar part for Brian to play he'd have to play it on piano for him as that's the one way he could convey it. Some examples of this are on the main guitar part to "Death On Two Legs" and for the guitar solo to "Bohemian Rhapsody".
So a man who hardly knew how to read music wrote some of the most well known classics in popular music? A man who never had vocal training has gone down in history as one of the greatest and most polished voices not only in rock but in music in general? And that same man who was very quiet and actually rather shy offstage was able to command hundreds of thousands of people at a time while on stage and capture the hearts of hundreds of millions around the world with the unflappable tenderness and charm of a true gentleman? Simply put, yes.
And thus concludes my summary of why each member of Queen was vital to the band's success.