With a new biopic on Freddie Mercury named for the song, much is being said about the singer's mastery that brought him to the top. And it's worth taking a closer look at how the combination of Mercury's range control and improved recording technologies and production make "Bohemian Rhapsody" one of the masterpieces of our times.
The singer had an impressive 37 semi-tone vocal range, but Mercury's pitch range was not the most important aspect of his voice. His dynamic and timbral range, and his control of these aspects of his voice were far more important. Mercury had a broad performance style perfectly suited to the increasingly complex studio productions of the s. He seemingly had a complete mastery of his voice, from the loudest to the most quiet performance intensities, and from the purest to the most pressed, harsh vocal tones.
It is this quality that places him in the most elite group of vocal performers in the history of recording production. We take for granted a huge range of vocal performance intensity the musical dynamics or loudness of the performance when recorded and timbre sound quality in modern recordings. In modern studios, we have the benefit of digital audio systems, but back then, this was still done with multitrack tape. In the UK, it went to No.
It was also the first Queen single to be released with a picture sleeve in the UK. In , it was certified diamond by the RIAA. Jason Draper. Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
Search uDiscover Music. Narrator: And to see just how over the top they went, you need to look no farther than this operatic section of the song. The lyrics name characters from classical Italian theaters, quotes from the Quran, and the demon Beelzebub. And this section that sounds like it's been sung by a roomful of choir was actually just three people: Freddie Mercury, drummer Roger Taylor, and guitarist Brian May.
It's not just the vocals; there's harmony everywhere, even in the instruments that almost sound like echoes. This technique was heavily inspired by a production method called the "Wall of Sound," developed in by producer Phil Spector. He put masses of musicians in one room, three keyboard players playing the same part but in various similar instruments, like the harpsichord or an electric piano, and recording them together to create a sound the likes of which had never been heard before.
That was exactly what Queen wanted to accomplish. Fisch: When people talk about what a great song "Bohemian Rhapsody" is, they're talking equally, or even more, about the production. Narrator: To achieve the sound that they wanted, Queen used a technique known as reduction mixing, also called ping pong recording. Most of the pop songs you listen to today use a lot of audio tracks, each track reserved for different instruments and vocals, combining to make one song.
But back then, technology limited the amount of audio tracks that could be used. For example, Beatles' legendary "Sgt. Pepper's" was recorded on an analog four-track record. And to fit more than four tracks in a four-track record, they would record all four tracks, then bounce all their tracks into one, record, bounce again, and repeat.
The bounce tracks would combine all of the tracks into one, meaning if you raise the sound of that particular track, it would raise the volume of all the individual tracks within.
Fisch: Part of the great challenge of that process was that you had to make commitments to your mix, to the blending of everything as you went along, so you needed to have a lot of foresight and a great image of where you were going. By the time Queen made "Bohemian Rhapsody," we were up to track tape. By today's standards, that's still not many tracks.
They had so many vocals and they had so many layers of guitars. I've heard that they had about individual tracks that got put onto a track, two-inch tape.
Narrator: But of course this method of bouncing tracks came with its own challenges. Once it's done, you can't go back to just fix it, like we can do now. Fisch: Two-inch, track tape that they were working on, it was a physical process. It was a razor blade. It was an edit block where the tape would sit there.
You would slice through the two-inch tape. You would cut out what you wanted to cut out. And you would splice it together with a little piece of white tape. Now it's very easy digitally.
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