by Emelia Weatherly Ryder
A young girl in platform boots takes a deep breath, tousles her big hair, and smears some dark purple glitter on her eyelids. She nods to the boy on the other side of the stage; his high hair bobs with his head, and the chains around his waist accompany them while they meet at the center stage spotlight. A cymbal crash from behind them given by their drummer signals that their section of battle of the bands has now begun. Famous figures race across those ragtag kids’ minds; what takes the girl’s thoughts are the interactions between one man and the crowd. A day in a recording studio revolves around the crowd; the crowd will be the voters; they control everything; it is never the kids on the stage.
One person that the kids had talked about was Freddie Mercury. He interacted with the crowd, arpeggiating and improvising — getting a response. That was the type of legendary energy many stars pursue, to have the crowd so enraptured, they will repeat even the most nonsensical of words.
Like the many performers after him, Freddie Mercury, the powerhouse behind the rock band, Queen was a icon. He wore flashy outfits like a yellow suit with a wifebeater shirt. Icons can bring a lot of real world issues to the public eye, why wouldn’t they? Standing on a stage in front of thousands.
Freddie Mercury in particular has left a mark on an uncountable amount of people. Between the AIDS epidemic of the 80’s, introducing an operatic style to rock and roll, and homosexuality.
The upcoming biopic movie, Bohemian Rhapsody, focuses on Mercury and his time with the band Queen. The movie itself has had a rocky journey. Brian May, the original guitar player for Queen had began to push for a movie. While getting the initial cast together there has been many struggles that have been brought to the front and center of the film world. Some say that Mercury is now being “whitewashed” after actor Rami Malek was selected. However, Brian May, someone who has interacted and grew close to Freddie Mercury says he is “the one”. There are expectations to have a revival and upsurge of new Queen fans. Such as when our beloved spaceman David Bowie died, his name on the news brought attention to his music and gained him a mass posthumous following and wave of younger generation fans. With younger fans, comes more malleable minds to influence.
While in the modern music of today, rap or hip-hop tends to be the dominant soundwaves there are new rock bands. The Struts have a hurricane of a singer, Luke Spiller, who directly credits his fashion sense, dance moves and singing voice style to the late Freddie Mercury. Spiller often glides across a stage on a fringed sequin cape with dark sparkly makeup around his glittering eyes, and of course, his hair is a mass of tousled glossy black layers like a raven’s back. Spillers has reached out to Zandra Rhodes, the same designer who suited up Queen itself. Greta Van Fleet, a new band, deemed to “save rock n roll” all tromp around stage with feathers in their hair, layers of beads, and vests without shirts. Greta Van Fleet accompanies its crooning guitar riffs with explosive vocals that cut across multi-generational appeal.
While the thoughts of Mercury’s death had been milling around for years, since his official AIDS diagnosis in 1987, the band began to take things more seriously. While the members of the band did not talk about it with Freddie, they still cared. Because the cared they did not talk about it. When it got out to the public, that Mercury did have the disease there was much unrest, although the current AIDS epidemic was already happening. That bears the idea of, when you are famous, how much of a responsibility is it to you to be someone who talks openly about real world issues or do you just keep performing? Mercury tended to keep things to himself, not necessarily something you would expect from one of the most extroverted people on stage in history. While the band confirms he was certainly bisexual he never confirmed anything, he let the people take their time and understand. Many movie critics have said that the upcoming movie downplays Freddie Mercury’s sexulaity. But perhaps because the full story is not known, no one wanted to jump to conclusions.
The same nervous kids on stage that day never got as big as Queen but decided to write, instead of about teenage romance and sexual frustration, well maybe a little frustration, about real world issues, such as how the porn industry has taken over the internet. They thought, if maybe we can make an impact on someone then we have done our job. Music is to create and raise awareness, whether it is for creativity, budding love or revolution. As a musician it is your duty to be the vessel for that. Mercury often had lovers of various binaries in and out of his dressing room, and even in the hit song, “Don’t Stop Me Now” sang about a woman, but also, “Make a supersonic man out of you”, which many took as his coming out. While working on “Another One Bites the Dust” with the legendary David Bowie eyebrows were certainly raised because the redhead was notorious for having all types in bed. Perhaps in modern day when the general public is more accepting there would have been a different response to the incredible collaboration.