Going Gaga Over...

... A Surprise Supermarket Serenade

Yup, these guys are now played on supermarket loud speakers

Quick, without looking it up, what was the most successful song in terms of charting by the great classic rock group, Queen?

Did you say Bohemian Rhapsody? Another One Bites the Dust? We Will Rock You? Not even close.

A few days ago, as I wandered through the local Hannaford’s supermarket picking up some staples like milk and oranges, a familiar voice drifted down from over the loud speakers. I was being serenaded by none other than the greatest (4-octive) voice in all of rock a roll history, a fellow by the name of Farrokh Bulsara.

(Hey, did you know that Freddie Mercury was born of Indian parents and was East African by birth? And yup, Farrokh Bulsara was his given name.)

Anyway, once I recovered from the shocking realization that super market elevator music is now the actual, original music I listened to in high school, I was able to focus on the song.

That’s where my opening line about Queen’s most popular song comes in. Queen’s most popular and successful song to chart over the course of their long career is 1984’s weird-o synth pop hit Radio Ga Ga. Remember that one, the first single off their album, “The Works.”

Honestly, the band lost me when the single came out. Too poppy for me. To much 80s electronic influence. The high school senior in me felt the band no longer sounded like themselves. I’ve mellowed considerably since then, and now think more fondly of the song. Freddie Mercury’s vocals alone, as always, stand out.

But the official music video for Radio Ga Ga, whoa boy. In the dictionary, under 80s music videos, I’m guessing you’ll find this video. It was a while since I watched it, but it all came back in a somewhat insane flash. Here it is, who recalls this doozy?

Anyway, the video uses footage from the 1927 silent science fiction film, Metropolis. As a young man, that was my introduction to that film. The video was also nominated for an MTV video music award.

But Dan, you must be thinking, how popular could a strange, kind of forgotten song like that be? The song reached number one or number two in 21 different countries. The band performed the song at every show they did, from 1984 until their last concert with Freddie in 1986.

In modern time, many of the band’s better known songs all stream more than Radio Ga Ga, but even now the song remains in the band’s top 10 most popular streams.

Written by drummer Roger Taylor, the song is a nostalgic defense of not just listening to the radio, but of listening to music in general.

Taylor was quoted as saying, “That's part of what the song's about, really. The fact that they [music videos] seem to be taking over almost from the aural side, the visual side seems to be almost more important.”

All that’s ironic, of course, given that the Radio Ga Ga music video is also both so iconic and also pretty unsettling.

The critics, some of whom were quite famous at the time, didn’t mince their words. Musician Thomas Dolby called the song ‘banal.’ Police drummer Stewart Copeland was even more direct, writing that Queen was no longer ‘true to their form’ and added that they now sounded like a Duran Duran clone. Ouch!

I decided to test this 42 year old song on my 11 year old. Uma knows Queen, of course, and is a big fan of Bohemian Rhapsody, which she learned first through the cover by Pentatonix.

I explained to her that the song is being played at the super market and then let her watch the music video.

“Yeah, I can see why, it’s a super market song,” she proclaimed.

“What? Why?” I asked.

“It just is, that’s just, like, the super market song genre,” she laughed.

So there you have it. Radio Ga Ga is of the super market genre.

“Cool video though,” she offered. Indeed.