Freddie Mercury (5 September 1946 – 24 November 1991) was a British singer, songwriter and producer, best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the rock band Queen. As a performer, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and powerful vocals over a four-octave range. As a songwriter, he composed many hits for Queen, including “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Killer Queen”, “Somebody to Love”, “Don’t Stop Me Now”, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, and “We Are the Champions”. In 2005, a poll organised by Blender and MTV2 saw Mercury voted the best male singer of all time. (More from Wikipedia)
Other 1970’s recordings have danced around gay issues, such as Rod Stewart’s 1976 minor hit “The Killing of Georgie” – about the murder of a gay friend of his in New York back when he was in Faces – and it was an open secret that Freddie Mercury was gay though closeted; he was the frontman of a band called Queen after all. It was many years later though before openly gay songs and performers would arrive on the popular music scene, such as British musician Tom Robinson in the late 1970’s (he collaborated with Peter Gabriel on one EP that I own), and mid-1980’s sensation Frankie Goes to Hollywood. By the way, it is interesting that the first hit songs by arguably the two most famous Liverpool rock bands – the Beatles’ “Please Please Me” and Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s “Relax” – deal fairly openly with the topic of oral sex.
(March 2013)
