|
"Another One Bites the Dust" is a 1980 funk/rock song from the English rock band Queen, written by bassist John Deacon and was a worldwide crossover hit (hitting number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100, hitting #2 on the R&B charts, and the Disco Top 100). It was successful on the R&B charts because some fans thought Queen was a R&B group. The song is Queen's best selling single and their biggest hit to date, with sales of over 7 million copies. The track is on the album The Game (1980).
history...
The bass line was derived from the song "Good Times" by the Disco group Chic. In an interview with England's New Musical Express the late Chic co-founder Bernard Edwards stated, "...that Queen record came about because that (Queen) bass player... spent some time hanging out with us at our studio"[1].
Recording sessions were produced by Reinhold Mack at Musicland Studios in Munich and consisted of Deacon playing almost all the instruments: bass, piano, rhythm and lead guitars and handclap percussion. Roger Taylor added a drum loop under protes and Brian May did some noises with his guitar and an Eventide Harmoniser. There are no synthesizers used in the song: all effects are obtained through the recording of pianos, guitars, and drums, with subsequent tape playback performed in reverse at various speeds. Finally, some sound effects were run through the Harmoniser for further processing. The effect of the Harmoniser can be heard clearly in the "swirling" nature of the sound immediately before the first lyric. Taylor hated the song but Freddie Mercury strongly believed in it and added some ideas. During the mix the road crew suggested it as a single but the band didn't like the idea until Michael Jackson recommended it after a concert (this was confirmed by Roger Taylor and Brian May on the U.S. radio show In the Studio with Redbeard which spotlighted the album The Game on one episode).
The song garnered Queen its only Grammy nomination for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and lost to Bob Seger's "Against the Wind".
The immense success and popularity of "Another One Bites the Dust" may be responsible for causing Queen to abandon (albeit temporarily) their hard rock roots for their next album Hot Space.
The bassline is one of the most recognisable bass lines in pop music history.[2]
The music video was filmed at the Reunion in Dallas, Texas.
uses in popular culture...
- In the game Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Yoda in duel mode will say sometimes "Bites the dust, another one does".
- During the Gulf War, the American Military FM stations would often play this, each time a Scud missile was brought down, either by Patriot or flying Coalition aircraft patrols.
- At Los Angeles Dodgers games, it can be heard after opponents strike out.
- It can be heard playing in the background of the film Biggles: Adventures in Time which John Deacon also wrote the theme for in his only solo/non-Queen collaboration with a band called "The Immortals"
- The opening bassline was inspired by Chic's (Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers) "Good Times",[citation needed] and in turn inspired the "Weird Al" Yankovic self titled debut album parody "Another One Rides the Bus".
- In the 1980s, it was used as a Detroit Lions football team fight song, which generated considerable attention from the sports media. After a series of losses, fans began singing the lyrics as "Another one beats our butts"
- In an episode of Family Guy, the opening lyrics to the song were sung by Stewie Griffin as he swept a pile of leaves over a pit he dug in a sandbox in order to trap children he found untenable.
- "Another One Bites the Dust" was on the list of songs deemed inappropriate by Clear Channel following the September 11, 2001 attacks.
- Commonly in Australian Domestic Cricket, the chorus of the song comes on when a batsman gets out and is a real crowd pleaser ("Another One Bites the Dust" topped the Australian Charts for six weeks in 1980).
- The chorus is also played in English One Day Domestic Cricket in the same way as it is in Australian Domestic Cricket. The most times it is played is probably in a Natwest Pro40 Match (40 overs), and a Twenty20 (20 overs).
- The chorus of this song was often sung in the sporting TV show Gladiators, when a Gladiator beats a challenger at a game. The gladiator would sing this song as a way to taunt, and the crowd would sing along too.
- Throughout most of the 1990s, a brief portion of the song was played at Texas Rangers home games whenever catcher Ivan Rodriguez threw out a would-be base stealer.
- Gwen Stefani's hit song "Hollaback Girl" name-checked and featured a brief snippet of the song's bassline.
- Theme song for 1980s WWF wrestler Junkyard Dog from late 1984 to early 1986.
- Kira Yoshikage from the Japanese manga JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has a Stand named Killer Queen. Killer Queen has a tertiary bomb called Another One Bites the Dust.
- Almost seven years after the death of Freddie Mercury, Wyclef Jean remixed the song using a new instrumental track and samples from the actual song for the 1998 movie Small Soldiers. This version also appeared on Queen's compilation Greatest Hits III released in 1999 and it's remixed again in 2006 by The Miami Project.
This text is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Another One Bites the Dust". |
