9.6.13 Adam News and Info

That beat.. 8-)That voice.The length of the snippet

Talon: "It [was going to be a hit until Capitol Records took a stand against paying radio promoters to play songs. Great sentiment, unfortunate results. Radio Ga Ga was at #16 and climbing on the charts....and then all of a sudden it was off the charts completely pretty much. I think this really hurt Queen for a while. You didn't hear them really on the radio again until Hollywood Records took over their deal and they hit with Bo Rap (although a bit with I Want It All on rock stations in 89 at the end of their Capitol deal)"

I have seen this on a few times on Queen sites, but IWTBF was not going to get played in the US and I believe that is why Capitol decided not to invest in the song.

There were so many factors going on with Queen in 1984 that it is hard to isolate one thing that caused IWTBF to be a miss in the US.

The were huge in the US from 1975-1980 -- 5 multi-platinum albums in a row, but then things shifted.

For starters, their 1982 album "Hot Space" was not a big hit in the US. The use of synthesizers was not well received by many fans. The 1984 album "The Works" was also not a big hit in the US.

The lead single for "The Works" was "Radio Ga Ga" and it did OK -- peaked at #16 in the US. Like many Queen songs, it is more popular and well known than the chart position indicates -- I think because because of concert videos. The follow-up single was "I Want to Break Free" which basically got no airplay (essentially banned in the US) and peaked at #45 in the US. The 3rd single "It's a Hard Life" peaked at #72 in the US -- and has one of the worst music videos of all time. The fourth and final single was "Hammer to Fall" which did not chart in the US but was very popular with US Queen fans (at least that is my recollection).

Even with so many moving parts, and the overall decline in sales in the US, the IWTBF music video was a turning point.

It is certain that MTV had to pull the video from the air and worked really hard to keep from having boycotts of their advertisers because they had aired it. The song, the video and Freddie being gay got all mixed up. Radio stations did not want to face license challenges if they played it.

Queen did not bring The Works Tour (1984/1985) to North America. Perhaps because of Freddie's vocal issues, perhaps it was also because of the political environment here. I think it was both.

There is a Queen documentary from the BBC called Days of Our Lives which addresses the "Break Free" controversy. On it Brian May connects the banning of the video by MTV to killing Queen's chances of bigger success in the states during those latter years.

There was a lot going on in 1984 that could have affected Queen's commercial success in America in 1984, the rise of pop music/end of the classic rock era, the AIDs Epidemic, the conservative/religious right gaining political power, and so on. Freddie being openly gay and doing a cross-dressing video that made no sense to Americans was not well-timed. To cap it all of, Queen made the decision to do the concerts in Sun City, South Africa while apartheid was still in place.

I still think that the music transition was the biggest issue in the US but hard to tell what happened.

To me the funniest thing is that in 2004 IWTBF was used for an AT&T ad campaign.

Betty THANKS!! And LMD sounds so good!!

The lyrics that I hear are.....
 
 I've been weak.... Things get tough....Sometimes my knees can barely hold me up... I'm no fool... But it's (or they) said.... gotta walk a mile 'til you're outta my head.

Goin' in ( or Go on in) .... Taste it up....  Take a little bit and baby don't you give up....  Get your life.... Give a damn.... You gotta make a move to show me where we can stand.