Queen Members, Songs, Albums, & Facts

In 2002, Mercury was voted number 58 in the BBC’s poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. Since 2012 Queen have enjoyed a fruitful collaboration with US singer/songwriter Adam Lambert and have toured extensively across North and South America, Europe, the UK, Asia and Australia and New Zealand. Brian and Roger continue to be ambassadors for the Mercury Phoenix Trust, the HIV/AIDS charity set up following the death of Freddie in 1991. To date the charity has helped over 800 projects worldwide and raised over $16 million in the fight against the disease.

Freddie Mercury Facts: 15 Things You Never Knew About Queen’s Frontman

“I have to be surrounded by something, even if it’s just objet d’art. So, I collect a lot, and my whole house is filled with beautiful Japanese art and antiques,” said Mercury. At school in India, the young Freddie Mercury was a good table tennis player. He used to play tennis sometimes, especially when he was on holiday, and enjoyed watching Wimbledon.

While singing for Wreckage, a fellow student introduced Freddie to Roger Taylor and Brian May, founder members of a band called Smile. Smile metamorphosed into Queen when Freddie joined Roger and Brian as the lead vocalist. The final member of the band, which was to stay together for the next 20 years, was bassist John Deacon, who joined the band on 1st of March 1971. The Freddie Mercury Album is a posthumous solo project with material from Queen frontman and vocalist Freddie Mercury released in 1992, to observe the anniversary of his death.

He played with a few other bands before joining forces with his future Queen bandmates. His mother Jer Bulsara died in 2016, aged 94 while his father Bomi passed away in 2003, aged 95. Freestone recalls that Mercury was so weak towards the end of his life that a bodyguard had to carry the singer downstairs so that he could view his art collection. Others continued to visit Mercury, including Dave Clark (pictured above, center) of the Dave Clark Five, who was reportedly at Mercury’s bedside when he died. Indeed, Mercury had been sick for several years by the time 1990 rolled around, but it was only in November 1991 that he would finally go public with his illness, just hours before his tragic death on November 24, 1991, at the age of 45.

As shallow as it might be, it’s frankly, a positive thing. Positive in the sense that it drives musicians to create better music. Nevertheless, these three musicians weren’t fans of Freddie Mercury and Queen for their own reasons, and they range across the spectrum quite drastically. Freddie Mercury’s strange and intimate request to his former partner is due to the fact that the singer did not want anyone to know where he would rest eternally.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye’s mysterious paintings of people who never existed are “outside of history and beyond geography”, writes Kelly Grovier. In socially conservative Tblisi there is a thriving LGBTQ+ scene, with comedy, clubbing and art at its core. If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter. “I am a bit reclusive actually, yes,” he said presciently in 1985. But they have to coax me to go out and volunteer myself into every day sort of way.

• Sometimes when I buy people presents, I love it far more than they do.
• From working as a baggage handler at Heathrow airport to hiding his HIV diagnosis from the public until just before his death, Mercury’s life was filled with adventure, publicity, and perhaps above all a clear duality.
• Greatest Flix was the first collection of promo-videos released commercially by any band.
• In 1969, Mercury joined a group called Ibex as their lead singer.
• The all-star choral cast features Madeline Bell, Lance Ellington, Miriam Stockley’s vocalese and old songwriting friend, Jamaican-born singer and actor Peter Straker.

He designed the Queen logo

Like many very famous people, there was a hubbub about him, and a sense of expectation. One of his pet queenzone.com hates was supposed to be getting recognised in public, but as the bystanders spotted him he gave everyone a small wave and a flash of those big old gnashers before gliding off. Freddie looked back and smiled again, obviously pleased. This was post- Queen’s Live Aid triumph and pre-AIDS, and smack in the middle of Queenʼs second golden era, a time when this seemingly unimposing man could hold football stadiums full of people in his thrall. Queen won the BRIT Award in 1990 for Outstanding Contribution to British Music.

The party for the release of Jazz, for example, was on Halloween in 1978 in New Orleans, and featured a man who sat nude in a pile of chopped liver, lesbian double acts and transvestites. And yet such was the bandʼs joy in their own excesses, such was the force of their momentum, they breezed through. One day back in the late 80s, I saw Freddie Mercury in the street.

His own tastes were eclectic, ranging from the classical masters to the rock era of The Beatles, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and kindred spirit David Bowie though his own keyboards prowess shouldn’t be underestimated. He didn’t shy away from synthesizers but still loved the Concert Grand and the harpsichord whose textures gave Queen and his own work a romantic slant. Released in 2018, the movie Bohemian Rhapsody, starring Mr. Robot’s Rami Malek as Mercury, follows the rise of Queen leading up to their legendary Live Aid performance in 1985. In 1973 Mercury proposed; the wedding was called off when he revealed to her that he was bisexual. The pair remained close, and Austin tended to Mercury after his AIDS diagnosis.

Sheer Heart Attack later that year and A Night at the Opera in 1975 brought them international success. The latter featured “Bohemian Rhapsody”, which topped the UK singles chart for nine weeks and helped popularise the music video format. The band’s 1977 album News of the World contained “We Will Rock You” and “We Are the Champions”, which have become anthems at sporting events.

Just 24 hours after Freddie Mercury told the world that he was HIV positive and had AIDS, he was on his deathbed at his London home, succumbing to the effects of bronchial pneumonia. With a weakened immune system, the illness took hold of him quickly. Freddie returned to the studios to record Innuendo with Queen in 1990. Very soon Queen’s popularity extended beyond the shores of the UK as they charted and triumphed around Europe, Japan and the USA where in 1979 they topped the charts with Freddie’s song Crazy Little thing Called Love. Listen to the best Freddie Mercury songs on Apple Music and Spotify, and scroll down for our 15 Freddie Mercury facts you never knew.

For lifelong fans of Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody is certainly worth watching, particularly as it invokes both nostalgia and admiration for the music and its legacy. Many viewers, especially the younger generation who grew up borrowing their parents’ CDs, experience what some call ‘anemoia’ — feeling nostalgic for times they never experienced themselves. The film allows them to connect with the vibrant yet fleeting moments of Queen’s existence. Freddie Mercury was known for his kindness and generosity, which included countless charitable donations and extravagant gifts for his friends. At the time of his death, his net worth was believed to be in the region of £75 million ($131 million in 1991, and over $300 million in 2024).