Another One Bites the Dust by Queen

Song #5

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This song is Queen’s biggest hit in the United States, even though its funky disco sound was a major departure in style for this British hard rock band. Another One Bites the Dust actually led to a dwindling of Queen’s popularity in the U.S., as a part of the backlash toward disco in that genre’s dying days. Another One Bites the Dust hit #1 on the U.S. Billboard Top 40 in 1980, and was even a surprise crossover hit, peaking at #2 on two other U.S. Billboard charts: the Hot R&B/Soul Singles chart and the Hot Dance/Disco Club Play chart. Fans of the song who didn’t know the band were convinced that the singer was black. The song was also a hit in Belgium, Ireland, Germany, Canada, Austria, South Africa, Australia, Spain, Israel, Sweden, Switzerland, France, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and the U.K. Another One Bites the Dust is the highest ranking of three Queen songs on this list of THE TOP 500 POPULAR SONGS OF THE 1980S, and all three songs are in the Top 100. The other songs are Under Pressure with English singer/songwriter David Bowie at #44, and Crazy Little Thing Called Love at #70.

Queen is a British rock band that formed in London in 1970. The band’s music is difficult to classify. Queen’s earliest work is oriented toward hard rock and heavy metal, but the band’s sound evolved dramatically over the years, incorporating elements of symphonic rock, glam rock, operatic pop, arena rock, dance/disco, and rockabilly. The band is known for complex multi-layered vocal harmonies and elaborate, orchestral production values. The original lineup was Brian May (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Roger Taylor (drums, guitar, keyboards, vocals), Freddie Mercury (lead vocals, keyboards, piano, guitar), and John Deacon (bass, guitar, keyboards). Before forming Queen, Brian May and Roger Taylor were in the band Smile, which formed in 1968 and disbanded in 1970. They met Freddie Mercury, who suggested forming a new band. John Deacon join the band in 1971. Freddie Mercury and Brian May wrote the bulk of the band’s material, but all four contributed to the songwriting. In 1991, at the age of 45, Freddie Mercury died of bronchopneumonia, a complication of HIV/AIDS. John Deacon retired from music in 1997. Brian May and Roger Taylor have continued to tour as Queen, with English-Canadian singer Paul Rodgers from 2004 to 2009, and American singer Adam Lambert from 2011 to present.

Another One Bites the Dust was written and composed by John Deacon. He plays most of the instruments: bass, lead and rhythm guitars, reversed piano, and extra percussion. “I listened to a lot of soul music when I was in school, and I’ve always been interested in that sort of music,” he told Bassist & Bass Techniques in 1996. “I’d been wanting to do a track like Another One Bites the Dust for a while, but originally all I had was the line and the bass riff. Gradually I filled it in and the band added ideas. I could hear it as a song for dancing but had no idea it would become as big as it did. The song got picked up off our album and some of the black radio stations in the U.S. started playing it...” Brian May contributed some of the sound effects, running his guitar through an Eventide Harmonizer processor. No synthesizers were used when the song was recorded. All of the effects were created with piano, electric guitars, and drums. Sound effects were run through the harmonizer for extra processing. Subsequent tape playback of some of the sounds in reverse and at various speeds added to the song’s unique sound. And of course, Freddie Mercury’s vocals are over-the-top and irresistible. About Freddie Mercury’s vocals, Brian May said, “A fantastic bit of work from Freddie really... Fred just went in there and hammered and hammered until his throat bled... He really was inspired by it and took it to a new height, I think.”

According to Brian May, “John Deacon, being totally in his own world, came up with this thing, which was nothing like what we were doing. We were going for the big drum sound: you know, quite pompous in our usual way. And Deakey says, ‘No, I want this to be totally different: It’s going to be a very tight drum sound.’ It was originally done to a drum loop. This was before the days of drum machines. Roger did a loop, kind of under protest, because he didn’t like the sound of the drums recorded that way. And then Deakey put this groove down. Immediately Freddie became violently enthusiastic and said, ‘This is big! This is important! I’m going to spend a lot of time on this.’ It was the beginning of something quite big for us, because it was the first time that one of our records crossed over to the black community. We had no control over that; it just happened. Suddenly we were forced to put out this single because so many stations in New York were playing it. It changed that album from being a million-seller to being a three-million seller in a matter of three weeks or so.”

John Deacon’s bassline in Another One Bites the Dust was inspired by R&B group Chic’s #1 1979 hit song Good Times. In an interview with the New Musical Express, Chic bass player Bernard Edwards said, “Well, that Queen record came about because that bass player spent some time hanging out with us at our studio. But that’s okay. What isn’t okay is that the press started saying that we had ripped them off! Can you believe that? Good Times came out more than a year before, but it was inconceivable to these people that black musicians could possibly be innovative like that. It was just these dumb disco guys ripping off this rock ‘n roll song.” In 2014, Chic guitarist Nile Rodgers told The Guardian, “John Deacon was with me in the studio when I wrote the damn thing.” Good Times was one of the biggest hits of the summer of 1979. The Sugar Hill Gang’s landmark hip-hop song Rapper’s Delight (song #195 on this list) uses the bassline of Good Times (and Chic members Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards received songwriting credits on the song). Interestingly, when Another One Bites the Dust hit #1 in the U.S., it replaced Diana Ross’ Upside Down (song #160 on this list), which was written and produced by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards.

Queen was reluctant to release Another One Bites the Dust as a single. It was the King of Pop himself Michael Jackson who convinced them that it would be a hit. After attending a Queen concert in Los Angeles, Michael Jackson came backstage. “I remember Michael and some of his brothers in the dressing room going on and on about Another One Bites the Dust. They kept saying we must release it as a single,” Roger Taylor told the magazine Q in 2009. Freddie Mercury said, “Credit for the song should go to Michael Jackson in many ways. He was a fan and friend of ours and kept telling me, ‘Freddie, you need a song the cats can dance to.’ John [Deacon] introduced this riff to us during rehearsal that we all immediately thought of disco, which was very popular at the time. We worked it out and once it was ready, played it for Michael. I knew we had a hit as he bobbed his head up and down. ‘That’s it, that’s the gravy. Release it and it will top the charts,’ he said. So we did and it did.”

Another One Bites the Dust is notable for other reasons. In the early-‘80s, it was one of the main songs that Christian evangelists alleged contained secret subliminal messages through a technique called backmasking. They claimed that the chorus, when played in reverse, is heard as, “It’s fun to smoke marijuana.” Listen for yourself here. Another One Bites the Dust is also known for its use in the ‘80s as part of the training for medical professionals to provide the correct number of chest compressions per minute while performing CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation). The song was chosen because the bassline has close to 110 beats per minute, and 100 to 120 chest compressions per minute is the recommendation of the British Heart Foundation.

During an interview on In the Studio with Redbeard, Brian May said, “I always thought there was an instant where we were the biggest thing in the world. Another One Bites the Dust sort of clinched it because it suddenly crossed over to the black/R&B market. Suddenly instead of a million albums, we were [selling] three or four million albums. And at that time, that was about as much as anyone had ever done...” Another One Bites the Dust won an American Music Award for Favorite Rock Single of 1981, beating nominees Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall (Part II) (song #25 on this list of THE TOP 500 POPULAR SONGS OF THE 1980S), and Diana Ross’s Upside Down (song #160). Another One Bites the Dust was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, but lost to Bob Seger’s Against the Wind (song #436). The other nominees were Blondie’s Call Me (song #53), The Pretenders’ Brass in Pocket (song #162), and the Pink Floyd album The Wall, which features Another Brick in the Wall (Part II).

Another One Bites the Dust has been sampled and interpolated by many musicians, primarily comedic artists and rappers. The song is sampled in the following songs:

• American musician Jam Master Jay’s 1980 song We Are People Too

• American hip-hop group Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five’s 1981 song The Adventures Of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels Of Steel

• American hip-hop and R&B recording artist MC Shan’s 1987 song Down By Law

• French musician Mr. Oizo’s 2008 song Positif

• American rapper Flying Lotus’ 2014 song Dead Man’s Tetris​

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Another One Bites the Dust is interpolated in the following songs:

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• American comedy musician “Weird Al” Yankovic’s 1981 parody Another One Rides the Bus

• American rapper B-Legit’s 1995 song Gotta Buy Your Dope From Us

• American rappers JAY-Z and Sauce Money’s 1997 song Face Off

• Italian comedy rock band Elio e le Storie Tese’s 1999 song Bacio

• American singer Gwen Stefani’s huge 2005 hit Hollaback Girl

• German rapper Nate57’s 2017 song Bei Uns

• American rapper U-God’s 2018 song Bit da Dust

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Another One Bites the Dust has been covered by the following artists:

• German Eurodance group Captain Jack for the Queen tribute compilation album Queen Dance Traxx in 1996 (click here)

• Haitian rapper Wyclef Jean in 1998 (click here)

• Argentine music duo Illya Kuryaki and the Valderramas in 2001 (click here)

• The cast of American TV show Glee in 2010 (click here)

• Underground group Hidden Citizens in 2016 (click here)    

Another One Bites the Dust was used in a preliminary cut of the 1982 film Rocky III, in a pivotal scene in which Rocky is training for a fight, but because the producers could not get permission to use the song in the film, it was ultimately replaced with Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger (song #13 on this list of THE TOP 500 POPULAR SONGS OF THE 1980S. Another One Bites the Dust is featured in the following movies: 1981’s Modern Romance, 1989’s Sea of Love, 1998’s Small Soldiers, 1999’s 200 Cigarettes, 2000’s Circus, 2001’s The Fast and the Furious, 2010’s Iron Man 2, 2011’s Skateland, 2016’s Everybody Wants Some!!, and of course, 2018’s Bohemian Rhapsody. Another One Bites the Dust has been featured on many TV shows as well, including WKRP in Cincinnati, Fame, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Everybody Hates Chris, American Dad!, My Name is Earl, Cold Case, Family Guy, Lucifer, American Crime Story, and numerous sporting events and reality competition shows.

Queen is one of the world’s best-selling bands, with 72 singles, 15 studio albums, 11 live albums, two soundtrack albums, 16 compilation albums, and 19 box sets. Thirteen of Queen’s songs entered the U.S. Billboard Top 40 (although two pairs of those songs were “double side” singles, explained below). Queen’s first hit song in the U.K. was Seven Seas of Rhye, which peaked at #10 on the U.K. Singles Chart in 1974, but the band’s first hit in the U.S. and worldwide was 1974’s Killer Queen, which peaked at #12  on the U.S. Billboard Top 40.

Queen’s biggest worldwide hit is the six-minute rock epic Bohemian Rhapsody, which peaked at #9 in the U.S. in 1975; 16 years later, it re-entered the Billboard chart and peaked at #2 in 1992, after its use in the film Wayne’s World (watch the film clip here). In 2018, Bohemian Rhapsody actually entered the U.S. Billboard Top 40 a third time and peaked at #33, due to the release of the Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody (American actor Rami Malek won an Oscar for portraying Freddie Mercury in the film). For its original release, the song Bohemian Rhapsody stayed at #1 in the U.K. for nine weeks from November 1975 to January 1976, and then hit #1 again for another five weeks after Freddie Mercury died in 1991. Bohemian Rhapsody is one of the most popular and best-selling songs of all time, and is widely considered one of the greatest rock songs, which is why it’s odd that originally, it only got as high at #9 on the U.S. Billboard Top 40. (Incidentally, Journey’s 1981 song Don’t Stop Believin’, which is #3 on this list of THE TOP 500 POPULAR SONGS OF THE 1980S, also only got as high as #9. How is it possible that two of the most popular songs of all time barely enter the Top 10 in the U.S. when they were originally released?)

Queen’s next U.S. hits were 1976’s You’re My Best Friend and 1976’s Somebody To Love, both of which peaked at #16 on the U.S. Billboard Top 40. In 1977, We Are the Champions  and We Will Rock You together peaked at #3. We Are the Champions was the intended hit song, with We Will Rock You as the B-side of the single. During the time of vinyl records, songs were released as singles, issued as seven-inch discs that played at 45 revolutions per minute on a record player (they were called “45 rpm singles”). The singles were double-sided, but usually, the A-side was the intended side to be played on the radio. In this case, We Are the Champions was the A-side, and We Will Rock You was the B-side. But radio stations played both sides of the single (often one after the other) and both songs became huge hits, which led to them sometimes being referred to as a double A-side single. In 1978, Queen released Fat Bottomed Girls / Bicycle Race as a double A-side single, because both sides were designated A-sides, with no B-side; which meant that both songs were prospective hits and that neither song would be promoted over the other. Fat Bottomed Girls / Bicycle Race peaked at #24 on the U.S. Billboard Top 40.

Queen’s next hit was the band’s first #1 song in the U.S., Crazy Little Thing Called Love (song #70 on this list of THE TOP 500 POPULAR SONGS OF THE 1980S), which was not like anything Queen had recorded before: a catchy, ‘50s-style, rockabilly-flavored song in the vein of Elvis Presley. Crazy Little Thing Called Love was the first single released from the band’s eighth studio album The Game, which is Queen’s best-selling album in the U.S. and the band’s only album to reach #1 in the U.S. In October 1980, Queen hit #1 in the U.S. a second and final time with Another One Bites the Dust, also from The Game. After the huge success of the Another One Bites the Dust, Queen made a noticeable shift in music style, adding synthesizers and incorporating elements of disco, R&B, dance, and pop music on the band’s 1982 album Hot Space, in contrast to the traditional hard rock style that fans associated with the band. In fact, Queen had been well-known for a “no synths” rule, and Hot Space was the first Queen album to include synthesizers.

Under Pressure (song #44 on this list), was the band’s next hit, an impromptu jam session collaboration with English singer/songwriter David Bowie, who has two more songs on this list: Let’s Dance at #93 and Modern Love at #114. Under Pressure is featured on Hot Space, but it was released as a single seven months before the album was released; the song was a separate project and was recorded before the album and before the controversy over Queen’s new disco-oriented sound. Surprisingly, Under Pressure was not a big hit in the U.S., peaking at #29 on the U.S. Billboard Top 40 (of course, since the ‘80s, Under Pressure has become one of the most popular songs of that decade). Queen’s next U.S. hit was also from Hot Space: