Drum cover of Bohemian Rhapsody, a song by the British rock group Queen.
It was written by Freddie Mercury for the band's 1975 album A Night at the Opera. The song has no chorus, instead consists of several sections: a ballad segment ending with a guitar solo, an operatic passage, and a hard rock section. At the time, it was the most expensive single ever made and it remains one of the most elaborate recordings in popular music history.
Recording began at Rockfield Studio 1 near Monmouth after a 3-week rehearsal in Herefordshire. During the making of the track, an additional four studios (Roundhouse, SARM (East), Scorpion, and Wessex) were used. According to some band members, Mercury mentally prepared the song beforehand and directed the band throughout. Due to the elaborate nature of the song, it was recorded in various sections, held together by a drum click to keep all layers synchronised. So it wasn't played by the band from beginning to end, however, in this cover I played it from beginning to end in on take.
May, Mercury, and Taylor reportedly sang their vocal parts continually for ten to twelve hours a day. The entire piece took three weeks to record, and in some sections featured 180 separate overdubs.
The band wanted to create "a wall of sound, that starts down and goes all the way up." The band used the bell effect for lyrics "Magnifico" and "Let me go". Also, on "Let him go", Taylor singing the top section carries his note on further after the rest of the "choir" have stopped singing.
Since the studios of the time only offered 24-track analogue tape, it was necessary for the three to overdub themselves many times and "bounce" these down to successive sub-mixes. In the end, eighth-generation tapes were used. The various sections of tape containing the desired submixes had to be spliced (cut with razor blades and assembled in the correct sequence using adhesive tape).
Using the 24-track technology available at the time, the "opera" section took about three weeks to finish. Producer Roy Thomas Baker said "Every time Freddie came up with another 'Galileo', I would add another piece of tape to the reel." Baker recalls that they kept wearing out the tape, which meant having to do transfers
May's solo was done on only one track, rather than recording multiple tracks and wanted to compose "a little tune that would be a counterpart to the main melody; I didn't just want to play the melody." The guitarist said that his better material stems from this way of working: in which he thought of the tune before playing it: "the fingers tend to be predictable unless being led by the brain.
"It's one of those songs which has such a fantasy feel about it. I think people should just listen to it, think about it, and then make up their own minds as to what it says to them... "Bohemian Rhapsody" didn't just come out of thin air. I did a bit of research although it was tongue-in-cheek and mock opera. Why not?"
—Freddie Mercury
Queen states that "Bohemian Rhapsody" is about a young man who has accidentally killed someone and, like Faust, sold his soul to the devil. On the night before his execution, he calls for God in Arabic, "Bismillah", and with the help of angels, regains his soul from Shaitan.
The record sold more than a million copies by the end of January 1976. It reached number one again in 1991 for five weeks following Mercury's death, eventually becoming the UK's third best-selling single of all time. It topped the charts in several other markets as well, including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and The Netherlands, later becoming one of the best-selling singles of all time.
In the United States the song originally peaked at number nine in 1976; however, it returned to the chart at number two in 1992 following its appearance in the film Wayne's World which revived its American popularity.
Primary drum trigger: Steven Slate Drums 4, augmented with a track of a kit from ADpak-Metal from Addictive Drums, and a track using a kit from Rock Warehouse from Superior Drummer 2.3.
Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statue that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.
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