Freddie Mercury wasn’t “just” Queen’s frontman. In fact, in his career he was able to establish himself in the musical world even when he opened a soloist parenthesis. And there was no shortage of excellent musical collaborations with great performers, duets that have entered the history of music. They range from Michael Jackson to David Bowie, passing through Montserrat Caballé.
Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson
Freddie Mercury collaborated three times with pop star Michael Jackson. It was the eighties and the two artists were at the peak of their careers. The songs are born from their collaboration There Must Be More to Life Than This, State of Shock And Victory. These are songs that, however, had very troubled paths. There are those who tell of the annoyance felt by Mercury for the presence – imposed by Jacko – of a baby llama in the recording studio and those instead of Michael’s intolerance towards drug abuse by the singer-songwriter originally from Zanzibar. “We’ve never both stayed in the same country long enough to finish the job,” Mercury said shortly An intimate biography. The song There Must Be More to Life Than This, originally was to be included on the Queen album Hot Space but it was discarded. Taken from Mercury and conceived as a duet with Jackson, it ended up in his solo album Mr. Bad Guy, from 1985, but without Jacko’s vocals. The full version with the vocals of both was only released in 2014 in the collection Queen Forever. The song State of Shock, was instead recorded by the two between 1981 and 1983 but remained at the demo stage. Unable to be completed due to Mercury’s commitments, the song was then recorded by Jackson with Mick Jagger and The Jacksons group. It was then released in 1984 on the Victory album. Precisely this disc was to also contain the song of the same name, always the result of the Mercury-Jackson collaboration but this song remained unpublished and never video the light.
Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé
The artistic collaboration between Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé remains in history. Between the two it was immediately artistic love, there was an immediate musical affinity. Together the two singers made the album together Barcelona, published in 1988, which contains the homonymous song that the two performed live only on two occasions. Also famous is the video, with a Mercury without a mustache. The song, in which Freddie hit the highest note with a full voice, it also became the anthem of the 1992 Olympics.
Freddie Mercury and David Bowie
Under Pressure from 1981 is the famous duet between Freddie Mercury and David Bowie. The song is included in the album H.ot Space by Queen. It is the first time that Queen has collaborated with another great artist. The video of the song, however, does not show the “two artists” together. Both the British band and Bowie were very busy, and as time was running out, director David Mallet assembled images of explosions, passenger trains, riots, wrecked cars and silent film clips from the 1920s, including Battleship Potemkin, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Nosferatu the vampire. The song was initially played live only by Queen. Bowie chose not to perform the piece in public until the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, alongside Annie Lennox.
Source-tg24.sky.it