Radio Ga Ga

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Radio Ga Ga
Queen
publication January 23, 1984
length 5:44 (album / video)
4:23 (US radio)
6:53 (12 ″ extended)
6:01 (12 ″ instrumental)
Author (s) Roger Taylor
Label EMI , Capitol
album The Works
Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Singles
Radio Ga Ga (Queen)
  AT 2 04/01/1984 (10 weeks)
  DE 2 02/20/1984 (18 weeks)
  UK 2 02/04/1984 (11 weeks)
  CH 3 02/19/1984 (12 weeks)
  US 16 04/07/1984 (13 weeks)
Radio GaGa ( Electric Six )
  UK 21st December 25, 2004 (5 weeks)

Radio Ga Ga is a 1984 song by Queen , written by Roger Taylor and appeared on the album The Works . The title was published in advance as a single on January 23, 1984 and reached the top of the charts in numerous countries; in Great Britain the single achieved silver status. Radio Ga Ga is one of Queen's best-selling singles and is also Roger Taylor's most commercially successful composition. The title gave the singer Lady Gaga the inspiration for her name.

admission

The song, composed in F major and influenced by electropop , was written in Los Angeles in 1983. It was produced by Queen and Mack . Freddie Mercury sang the main voice , Roger Taylor partly took over the backing vocals as well as the vocoder part . Guest musician Fred Mandel , who had accompanied the band on the previous tour as a keyboardist, arranged and programmed most of the synthesizers . The bass line of the song was recorded with a Roland Jupiter 8 and its integrated arpeggiator , further sounds came from a Roland VP-330 vocoder. In addition, John Deacon played bass guitar ( Fender Precision Bass ) and Brian May electric guitar ( Red Special ).

text

To write the piece, Roger Taylor was inspired by his then three-year-old son Felix, who commented on a radio program with the words “radio ca ca” (or “radio poo poo”). Taylor developed the title from this and only then wrote the lyrics. Radio Ga Ga discussed loudly Taylor the historical significance of the radio before the advent of television and at the same time the important role played by him personally on the radio - it would have on the radio about the program of the radio station Radio Luxembourg , for the first time rock ' n 'Roll (including Bill Haley and Elvis Presley ). In contrast, decades later - at the time Radio Ga Ga was created  - the visual would have already gained greater importance than the music itself, as Taylor explained. The song addresses this change brought about by television and music videos (which was expressed, for example, on the music channel MTV ): "We watch the shows - we watch the stars / On videos for hours and hours / We hardly need to use our ears / How music changes through the years. " Emphasizing the historically influential role of radio, the text also refers to two significant radio events. He refers on the one hand ("through wars of worlds - invaded by Mars") to the 1938 radio play The War of the Worlds by Orson Welles and on the other hand ("you've yet to have your finest hour") to Winston Churchill's speech This What Their Finest Hour from 1940.

Publications

Queen released three different versions of Radio Ga Ga in early 1984 . The 5:47 minute long album version from The Works was released - in contrast to I Want to Break Free and Hammer to Fall  - in unchanged form as a single. With Radio Ga Ga , the band decided for the first time for a track written by Roger Taylor as a pre-release single. On the B-side you can hear the track I Go Crazy , which is not featured on the album. The 12 ″ maxi single contains an "instrumental" version as well as an "extended version" by Radio Ga Ga . The latter was also released in 1991 as a bonus track on the CD edition of The Works released by Hollywood Records in North America .

Radio Ga Ga also appeared on Queen's compilations Greatest Hits II (1991) and Absolute Greatest (2009).

A mix of the song produced in 5.1 surround sound by Justin Shirley-Smith is included on DVD Greatest Video Hits 2 , released in Queens in 2003 .

Music video

The music video is directed by David Mallet , who previously directed Queens' video clips for Bicycle Race (1978) and Under Pressure (1981). The video for Radio Ga Ga contains scenes from Fritz Lang's 1927 science fiction silent film Metropolis . In 1984 Giorgio Moroder published an abridged, revised version of the film. Moroder produced a pop soundtrack for it, on which Freddie Mercury with Love Kills (whose origins lie in Queen's recording sessions) can be heard. This made it possible for Queen to use film clips for her video. The video clip for Radio Ga Ga also contains short excerpts from the band's music videos, such as Bohemian Rhapsody and Flash . The video was nominated in the 1984 MTV Video Music Awards in the "Best Art Direction" category.

Live performances

After its release, Radio Ga Ga was on all of Queen's tours. From 1984 to 1985, was in the setlist as the last title before adding places, in 1986 the band played the song as the first encore. In 1985 at the Live Aid benefit concert , Bohemian Rhapsody went straight to a shortened version of Radio Ga Ga . Queens live performances were accompanied by the audience's characteristic gossip rhythm taken from the music video. Recordings of Queens live interpretations appeared on the albums Live Magic (in an incomplete version) and Live at Wembley '86 .

At the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992, Paul Young interpreted the song as the guest singer of the three remaining band members.

When Roger Taylor (lead vocals) and Brian May in 2002 in London's Buckingham Palace at the Festival "Party at the Palace" (on the occasion of the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. ) Her performance with Radio Ga Ga opened, they were on the drums by Phil Collins accompanied . The title was also on the program at the concerts of Queen + Paul Rodgers from 2005 to 2008 - sung together by Taylor and Paul Rodgers . For example, a live recording was released on Return of the Champions .

Roger Taylor also sang the piece live on solo tours and appearances with the SAS Band .

reception

Cover versions

Among others, the following performers recorded cover versions of Radio Ga Ga :

  • 1987: VSOP - Vienna Symphonic Orchestra Project (medley with Bohemian Rhapsody and We Are the Champions ; album Symphonic Rock - Die Wiener Symphoniker play rock classics )
  • 1988: Elaine Paige ( The Queen Album ; produced by Mike Moran )
  • 2001: Transistorhythm
  • 2004: Electric Six (single; album Señor Smoke , 2005)
  • 2007: Groove Phenomenon ("Funky Radio [Radio Ga Ga 2007]")

Electric Six's version of Radio Ga Ga reached number 21 on the UK singles chart.

Remix

In 1996, a remix by Radio Ga Ga on the compilation album Queen - Dance Traxx I was released under the artist name "Queen Dance Traxx featuring: DJ Bobo " .

Web links

References and comments

  1. ↑ Charts DE Charts AT Charts CH Charts UK Charts US
  2. ^ British Phonographic Industry (BPI): Certified Awards Search . Retrieved February 9, 2011.
  3. ↑ thefreelibrary.com
  4. ↑ Taylor: “I wrote it in America actually in Los Angeles (…) and I had a young son and he just turned around one day and said 'Radio Ca Ca' cause he is actually half French and (…) I think I know what that means! (...) I tell you what to be honest, we never did really change it we just changed the written title. If you actually listen to it we actually singing Ca Ca. ” - Retro countdown . In: SGR Colchester, March 21, 1999. (Radio interview, see queen.musichall.cz )
  5. ↑ a b c d Taylor on the creation: “I was desperate for inspiration! Then one day the radio came on in the house and my three year old son Felix came out with 'radio poo poo'. I thought that sounded good so I changed it around a bit and came up with 'Radio Ga Ga'. The song came after I'd locked myself in a studio for three days with a synthesizer and a drum machine. " About the lyrics: "It's quite ambiguous really because I'm trying to make quite a few points, the main one being that too much reliance is being placed on the visual side these days, especially in America." About the music video: "We wrote him [Giorgio Moroder, note] a song and we swapped it for the rights to use some footage from the film." "(...) the nostalgic view of radio I got from remembering nights spent listening to Radio Luxembourg under the bedclothes." - Quoted from Bill Black: The Works Ethic. Queen grant an audience. Well, Roger Taylor does ... In: Sounds , February 25, 1984, pp. 28-29. (see QueenCuttings )
  6. ↑ Taylor: “I liked the title, and I wrote the lyric afterward. It happened in that order, which is a bit strange. The song is a bit mixed up as far as what I wanted to say. It deals with how important radio used to be, historically speaking, before television, and how important it was to me as a kid. It was the first place I heard rock 'n' roll. I used to hear a lot of Doris Day, but a few times each day, I'd also hear a Bill Haley record or an Elvis Presley song. Today it seems that video, the visual side of rock 'n' roll, has become more important than the music itself - too much so, really. I mean, music is supposed to be an experience for the ears more than the eyes. " - Quoted from Robert Santelli. In: Modern Drummer , 10/1984 (see Queen Archives )
  7. ↑ Todd Avery: “In their MTV-age paean 'Radio Ga-Ga,' they allude to two important radio events of the early twentieth century — Orson Welles's Halloween 1938 broadcast adaptation of HG Wells's War of the Worlds and Winston Churchill's 18 June 1940 'This was their finest hour' speech broadcast from the House of Commons — and merge the experiences of past listeners with their own (…) ”- Todd Avery: Radio Modernism. Literature, Ethics, and the BBC, 1922-1938 . Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot 2006, ISBN 978-0-7546-5517-6 , p. 137. (see Google books )
  8. ↑ 1984 MTV Video Music Awards. Rock on the net; Retrieved February 9, 2011.