Freddie Mercury Had A U.nique Physical Attribute – And It’s Why He Was One Of The Best Singers Ever

[Music] Freddie Mercury had a unique physical attribute and it's why he was one of the best singers ever Freddie Mercury is widely regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of rock and a scientific study has proven that the Queen frontman had a particularly distinctive attribute which helped him to achieve such greatness here's a look at the voice once described as a force of nature with the velocity of a hurricane before he was known by his stage name Freddie Mercury was born Farrokh Basara in Zanzibar in 1946 he grew up in India but as a child he immersed himself in the world of Western pop in his late teens he and his family fled the Zanzibar revolution to England where he would later study graphic art and design after graduating from Ealing Art College Mercury performed in several bands including sour milk sea and IBEX in 1970 mercury joined forces with drummer Roger Taylor and guitarist Brian May to form the band that would later become Queen after adding bassist John Deacon to their lineup the group began to make waves in their UK homeland indeed Mercury's sense of showmanship versatile voice and fondness for eyeliner and nail polish soon helped them to stick out from the crowd Queen went on to enjoy global success with the 1974 double whammy of albums Queen 2 and sheer heart attack but it was the following year's a Night at the Opera which truly elevated them to superstar status its lead single Bohemian Rhapsody a six-minute genre spanning epic penned by mercury became the band's signature hit mercury went on to write several other massive hits throughout the 1970s including somebody to love Killer Queen and don't stop me now towards the end of the decade he abandoned the glam rocker look and reinvented himself as a short haired mustachioed man he also briefly ventured outside the band by performing on stage with the Royal Ballet Mercury consolidated his status as a rock music great in the 1980s thanks to Queen albums such as the gay man of magic he also stole the show at Live Aid with a memorable performance which became the stuff of legend and having previously released a single under the guise of Larry lyrics early in his career mercury then attempted a solo career proper released in 1985 mr. bad guy saw mercury eschew the rock theatrics of queen for a disco inspired sound although it reached the UK top 10 it failed to make much of an impression elsewhere peaking at a lowly number 159 on the Billboard 200 his biggest solo hit came two years later with a cover version of the platters the great Pretender Mercury's second album outside of Queen was even more of a musical departure indeed merging pop with opera Barcelona left critics entirely confused on its 1988 release however its title track a duet with soprano Montserrat caballé became one of Mercury's most popular anthems in fact later in 1992 the track was chosen as the official theme to the Summer Olympics mercury returned to his day job again in 1989 with Queens the miracle which was followed up two years later by innuendo tragically the latter proved to be Mercury's swan song as just nine months after its release the rock icon passed away mercury had died from AIDS less than 24 hours after revealing to the world that he had the disease rumors about Mercury's health had circulated for several years beforehand in 1986 British tabloid the Sun reported that the singer had tested for the AIDS virus at a London clinic a year later mercury refuted claims that he'd been diagnosed with the disease but alongside Queens absence from the live circuit the stars increasingly gaunt look also added fuel to the fire mercury made his final stage appearance at the 1990 Brit Awards where Queen received the outstanding contribution to music award his last appearance on camera came in May 1991 for that these are the days of our lives video the star then retreated to his London home to see how his final months although mercury continued to deny he had AIDS to the press he did tell his new tenderest indeed in 1993 Brian May revealed that his bandmate had disclosed the news to the rest of Queen years beforehand mercury was also supported by his ex-partner Mary Austin as his health began to rapidly deteriorate mercury began dating Austin at the beginning of the 1970s the couple had spent several years living together before the star revealed his attraction to men however the pair stayed friends with Mercury even penning several songs about Austin including love of my life in fact the Queen frontman once said to me she was my common-law wife to me it was a marriage Mercury's only other long-term relationship was with Jim Hutton the singer started dating the hairdresser in 1985 and the pair spent the following six years together Hutton helped to nurse mercury as his health began to worsen and he was there when the star passed away however it was Austin who mercury left his London home to in his will Mercury's sexuality had been a constant source of speculation ever since he shot to fame indeed the star was asked by the enemy as early as 1974 whether he was gay some believe that his relationships with both Austin and Hutton proved that he was in fact bisexual mercury eventually decided to go public about his AIDS diagnosis on November 22nd 1991 in an official statement he said I felt it correct to keep this information private to date to protect the privacy of those around me however the time has come now for my friends and fans around the world to know the truth Mercury passed away from bronchial pneumonia caused by AIDS just a day after this statement was issued alongside his family 35 of his dearest friends attended a West London funeral service for the star several days later as mercury wished Austin was given his ashes and buried them in a location that remains undisclosed to this day of course Mercury's legacy continued far beyond his tragic early death in the spring of 1992 a Wembley Stadium tribute concert featuring the remaining members of Queen and several of Myr Curie's pierce was staged to raise funds and awareness for an AIDS charity a year later mercury posthumously topped the UK charts with a remix of living on my own in 1995 the surviving queen members used previously unreleased mercury recordings to create the made in heaven album alongside the singles heaven for everyone and too much love will kill you the LP also featured Mercury's final ever studio vocal mother-love several compilations including 2000s extensive the solo collection also helped to showcase Mercury's work outside the band mercury was also posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame songwriters hall of fame and UK Music Hall of Fame in 2002 he was named as one of the 100 greatest Britons in a poll conducted by the BBC nine years later he was crowned as the second best lead vocalist by readers of Rolling Stone and in 2016 a group of scientists decided to investigate why mercury was able to make such a colossal impact with his voice published in the logo PDX phony attrex vocal EG journal their report was titled Freddie Mercury acoustic analysis of speaking fundamental frequency vibrato and sub harmonics and their findings proved that the Queen frontman truly was out of the ordinary Freddie Mercury was one of the 20th century's best-known singers of commercial contemporary music the report opens with this study presents an acoustical analysis of his voice production and singing style based on publicly available sound recordings the study was undertaken by a team hailing from Sweden Austria and the Czech Republic they used archival recordings of Mercury's voice to help with their findings and they also adopted a technique typically associated with testing for larynx cancer indeed the team first tracked down another rock vocalist Daniel Songer Bork who could replicate Mercury's signature growl they then attached a high-speed camera to a malleable tube which journeyed through his upper air passages this camera which ran at over 4,000 frames per second could then monitor how his voice box worked and this unusual approach yielded interesting results indeed the researchers discovered distinctive undertone frequencies whenever's anger Bork growled in the style of mercury Tuvan throat singers who hail from Mongolia also generate similar results with their unique vocal style dr. Christian Hurst a voice specialist from the University of Vienna further explained the frequencies in the study their occurrence aids in creating the impression of a sound production system driven to its limits even while used with great finesse he wrote these traits in combination with the fast and irregular vibrato might have helped create Freddie Mercury's eccentric and flamboyant stage persona the study also says perceptually Freddie Mercury's irregular vibrato is clearly audible in the sustained notes of famous songs such as Bohemian Rhapsody this appears to be one of the hallmarks of his vocal style news of the world's single we are the champions was also cited as an example of the front man's unusual vibrato the team was also able to determine more information about Mercury's voice by analyzing acapella recordings and interviews the rock icon had a median frequency of 100 17.3 Hertz when he spoke this meant that mercury was officially a baritone rather than the tenor many would have assumed however the truly amazing findings emerged when it came to his singing the team discovered that Mercury's range could go from ninety 2.2 Hertz all the way up to 784 Hertz this means that he could impressively reach both the booming low note of F sharp 2 and hit the high pitch of g 5 essentially spanning three octaves the study also found that mercury was capable of modulating his distinctive voice much faster than fellow rock stars and even some classical vocalists usually you can sing a straight tone dr. herps told NPR but opera singers try to modulate the fundamental frequencies so they make the tone if you like a bit more vibrant herps continued typically an opera singers vibrato has this frequency of about 5.5 to 6 Hertz freddie mercury's is higher and it's all so more irregular and that kind of creates a very typical vocal fingerprint dr. Herbst later told science focus why he and his team decided to conduct the study he said I'm both a graduated voice pedagogue and biophysicist I'm very interested in how the singing voice works on a physiological physical level and how good singing can be taught efficiently Freddie Mercury was an incredibly skillful and versatile singer capable of a wide range of artistic vocal expressions dr. Hearst continued naturally I was interested in objectively describing his singing style with adequate empirical methods not only on an acoustical level but also attempting to understand what went on in the larynx dr. Herbst also admits that his love of Freddie Mercury's music influenced him to undergo the research Queen has been one of my favorite bands since my teens he told science focus and that certainly was an additional incentive for conducting this study the study does concede that the fact Mercury is no longer with us was something of a hindrance indeed despite the use of a sound-alike it admits the pitfalls in obtaining data from a vocalist who would not be available for further data acquisition but the team are still confident in concluding that Freddie Mercury was rather skillful in adapting his laryngeal configuration to musical needs however dr. Herbst admitted to NPR that he couldn't say for sure whether mercury knew what he was doing from my experience most singers most good singers do not know what they are doing and how they do it he said and I think that's the way it should be actually of course Mercury's incredible talents took center stage again when Bohemian Rhapsody hits cinemas in 2018 the Queen biopic follows the band's fortunes from their early 1970s beginnings right up to their iconic Live Aid showing in 1985 it quickly became the most successful musical biopic in box office history Sacha Baron Cohen was initially cast as Freddie Mercury but after leaving the project due to a creative rift the comedian was replaced by Rami Malek and the mr. robot actor ended up winning a Golden Globe Award for his portrayal of the star Moloch also provided some of the vocals for the film alongside renowned mercury sound-alike Marc Mattel however the official soundtrack consisted entirely of original Queen songs it also returned the band to the upper reaches of the Billboard 200 peaking at number three while promoting the film Moloch told NPR how inspiring he found Mercury's voice what I quickly realized was no one can sing like Freddie Mercury and nor can I it's very difficult to get my voice up to those high notes and at some point my voice breaks and it breaks pretty quickly when I'm trying to ascend what Freddie Mercury can do share and subscribe star news 24 24 thank you for watching video [Music]

Channel: ASMR Relaxing

Views: 950,191

Rating: 4.6107888 out of 5

Keywords: News, star, star news, entertainment news, Life, Breaking News, STAR NEWS TODAY, singer, musician, family, home, actress, world star, comedian, film, Freddie Mercury, Austin, Jim Hutton

Id: cihYIst3mFY

Length: 14min 8sec (848 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 13 2019