Why is "Bohemian Rhapsody" considered the best song ever?
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Well for starters it’s not universally accepted as the best song ever. I know many people who hate it. Music is down to the individual. If you don’t like Bohemian Rhapsody but think Love Yourself by Bieber is the best song ever then your opinion is fine. You’ll just find fewer people agree with you.
Rhapsody is held in high esteem because it is different to anything previously. There had been long songs (American Pie, Hey Jude, Alice’s Restaurant), there had been complex songs (Happiness is a Warm Gun, Money, and most of King Crimson) and songs with a nod to opera (mainly in layout at this time as in Tommy or Ziggy Stardust although Lloyd Webber was fusing rock and opera in Jesus Christ Superstar), but none of these cemented these in one piece with quite the same commercial accessibility that Mercury did.
As well as being a commercial success it is also a fantastic piece of production and engineering. In the digital age over dubbing to infinity is easy. In 1975 each vocal line was laid individually and “bounced down” onto the one before. The recording system was a 24 track one, meaning there were 24 available tracks to record everything. The finished piece contains around 180 overdubs. It was a complex record to make and took around 70 hours to record the 5 minute 55 second piece.
There was nothing like BR before. It changed what people expected of music, Queen, records, videos, and producers. It meant that epic tracks previously kept to the final track of the album could be singles.
It also signalled the death knoll of Glam Rock. Already slipping from favour the musical genre had become more and more pompous and complex. Many people hated the idea of an operatic pop record. They wanted something shorter and more real. The underground movement of Pub Rock with bands like Kilburn and the Hifh Roads, Brinsley Schwarz and Doctor Feelgood were already paving the way for the more aggressive Punk Rock bands for whom the dinosaurs of the early 70s, like Queen and Floyd were the antithesis of what they wanted.
Bohemian Rhapsody polarised music. It is perhaps too much to say Punk wouldn’t happen without it, but it certainly spurred it in.