
1 Hits, Mercury later said that “Crazy Little Thing” is “not typical of my work, but that’s because nothing is typical of my work.” On the single, Mercury played rhythm guitar, something he’d never done on record before. But working within the boundaries of his own acoustic-guitar abilities, he came up with a relatively modest throwback shuffle of a song. Simplicity wasn’t really Mercury’s thing he tended toward extravagant multi-part fantasias.
Who sings a crazy thing called love how to#
Mercury worked the song out on guitar, which he barely knew how to play. He later claimed that it took him between five and 10 minutes. Mercury wrote “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” while taking a bubble bath at the Hilton in Munich, where Queen were recording the 1980 album The Game. So Queen were a category unto themselves - flamboyantly huge rock travelers who didn’t like any genre enough to commit to it for too long. But Freddie Mercury had a whole lot more personality than the Steve Perrys and Brad Delps of the world, and the band had more ambition. Commercially, Queen could’ve been considered peers of some of the big American rock bands of the era, the Journeys and Bostons. They sold a lot of albums - 1975’s A Night At The Opera went triple-platinum - and they toured arenas. (It’s a 7.) Their singles often landed in the top 40, but they weren’t really a singles act. It’s a 9.)īefore “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” Queen only had two top-10 US hits: “Bohemian Rhapsody” and 1977’s “ We Are The Champions,” which peaked at #4.

(In 1992, “Bohemian Rhapsody” returned to the US charts thanks to its appearance in Wayne’s World, where it peaked at #2. In the US, “Bohemian Rhapsody” was Queen’s first top-10 hit, peaking at #9. 1975’s beautifully overblown “ Bohemian Rhapsody” became one of the biggest hits of all time in the UK, where it reigned at #1 for nine weeks. As the band became more adventurous, they also got bigger. One of those early successes, 1974’s “Killer Queen,” also did well in the US, peaking at #12. Queen released their self-titled debut in 1972 and started scoring UK hits a couple years later. This was this guy’s career move.) Mercury joined Smile, changed their name to Queen, and designed their new logo. Smile were about to break up in 1970, when the original singer left to join a band called Humpy Bong. He’d then worked as a clerk in second-hand stores and as a baggage handler at Heathrow.

Mercury, born Farrokh Bulsara in Zanzibar, had settled in London as a teenager and studied art in college. The band had formed in London in 1970, when a student group called Smile adopted their biggest fan, Mercury, as their new frontman. By the time Queen landed that first #1 with “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” they’d been stars on both sides of the Atlantic for years.
