LONDON — Britain’s Royal Mint is celebrating Freddie Mercury with a new coin design that marks 40 years since his iconic Live Aid concert performance. The coin features an image of the Queen frontman, head thrown back and holding the microphone stand mid-performance. A musical stave that runs around the edge of the coin represents his four-octave vocal range. … Read more
The show must go on. Queen guitarist Brian May has shared a welcome health update following the stroke he suffered last year. “I’ve been lucky, I get these things, but I seem to be able to get out of them. They give you a wake-up call,” May, 77, said during a new interview with Alan Titchmarsh … Read more
Princess Diana’s night out at a gay bar with Freddie Mercury is making headlines again as a new book recounts the late royal’s escape from the palace dressed in male drag. The story is one of many enmeshed in Diana’s mythology dissected in “Dianaworld: An Obsession” (out Tuesday) by biographer Edward White, who cites actress … Read more
Freddie Mercury wrote “Love of My Life” — the ballad from Queen’s classic 1975 album “A Night at the Opera” — about Mary Austin, his girlfriend he met in 1969. And even after he came out as bisexual to his then-fiancée in the ’70s, ending their romantic relationship, the two retained their special, loving bond. … Read more
When Freddie Mercury was looking to break free of Queen as his band went on hiatus in 1983, he turned to a King — King of Pop, Michael Jackson. The two late music legends were mutual fans — Jackson even suggested that Queen release “Another One Bites the Dust” as a single — and MJ … Read more
It may be one of Queen’s all-time classics, but Brian May recorded “Under Pressure” under protest. The 1981 hit — a colossal collaboration between British music gods Queen and David Bowie that soared to No. 1 in the UK and has remained a class-rock mainstay — didn’t mesh as well with May as it has … Read more
You may be scratching your heard about how in the world Joni Mitchell — Joni Freaking Mitchell! — has never performed at the Grammy Awards. Talk about a case of what?? But the 80-year-old folk goddess — who represents all that is musical excellence — will make her long-overdue Grammy debut at the 66th annual … Read more
Let’s take a little walk in the desert at dark my friends, we’re talking Black Moon Lilith. If you are reading this (firstly, thank you) you are likely versed in the basics of the birth chart and are familiar with your planets, ascendants, ruling elements and zodiac houses. The banished sex magic and desire as … Read more
Fat bottomed girls are apparently no longer allowed to make the rocking world go round. That is, at least according to streaming service Yoto, which recently re-released Queen’s “Greatest Hits” album with track five — the iconic “Fat Bottomed Girls” — glaringly omitted. This callipygian ode — what today would be considered a body positivity … Read more
Is this the real life, or is this just fantasy? It turns out that Queen’s famous 1975 hit, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” was almost named “Mongolian Rhapsody” when frontman Freddie Mercury first wrote it. The inside intel comes from a new auction exhibition at Sotheby’s Auction House in London, “Freddie Mercury: A World of His Own,” which … Read more
Party time. Excellent! Leo poet and unrepentant party enthusiast Dorothy Parker wrote, “Drink and dance and laugh and lie, Love, the reeling midnight through, For tomorrow we shall die! (But, alas, we never do.)” Just as we all must die, each and every one of us is entitled to, and capable of having, a very … Read more
Since he became the de facto lead singer of Queen in 2011, Adam Lambert has often thought about what Freddie Mercury might think. “I often wonder, ‘Is Freddie’s spirit aware that we’re still celebrating him and singing his music? Would Freddie like the way I sing?’ And I hope, with all my heart, that he … Read more
Freddie Mercury is back from the grave with a haunting new single. Queen’s “Face It Alone” — a lost track from the sessions for 1989’s “The Miracle” — has been unearthed 33 years later and was released Thursday. The track finds the unmistakable Mercury — who died, at 45, from AIDS-related complications in 1991 — reflecting … Read more