Freddie Mercury

Zanzibar and India Mercury was born Farrokh Bulsara in Stone Town in the British protectorate of Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania), in East Africa on 5 September 1946. He was born with four extra incisors, to which he later attributed his enhanced vocal range. His parents, Bomi and Jer Bulsara, were Indian Gujarati Parsi, from western India. He had a younger sister, Kashmira (b. 1952). The family had moved to Zanzibar so that Bomi could continue his job as a cashier at the British Colonial Office. As Parsis, the Bulsaras practised Zoroastrianism. As Zanzibar was a British protectorate until 1963, Mercury was born a British subject, and on 2 June 1969 was registered a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies after the family had emigrated to England. Mercury spent most of his childhood in India, where he began taking piano lessons at the age of seven while living with relatives. In 1954, at the age of eight, Mercury was sent to study at St. Peter's School, a British-style boarding school for boys, in Panchgani near Bombay. Inheriting his father's interest in philately, between 9 and 12 years old Mercury collected stamps, many of which were from the British Commonwealth. At the age of 12, he formed a school band, the Hectics, and covered rock and roll artists such as Cliff Richard, Elvis Presley and Little Richard. One of Mercury's former bandmates from the Hectics has said "the only music he listened to, and played, was Western pop music". A friend recalls that he had "an uncanny ability to listen to the radio and replay what he heard on piano". Fleeing to England In the spring of 1964, Mercury and his family fled to England from Zanzibar to escape the violence of the revolution against the Sultan of Zanzibar and his mainly Arab government, After first studying art at Isleworth Polytechnic in West London, Mercury studied graphic art and design at Ealing Art College, graduating with a diploma in 1969. He later used these skills to design heraldic arms for his band Queen. blue plaque at 22 Gladstone Avenue, Feltham, London Following graduation, Mercury joined a series of bands and sold second-hand Edwardian clothes and scarves in Kensington Market in London with drummer and future bandmate Roger Taylor. Taylor recalls, "Back then, I didn't really know him as a singer—he was just my mate. My crazy mate! If there was fun to be had, Freddie and I were usually involved." He also held a job as a baggage handler at Heathrow Airport. Other friends from the time remember him as a quiet and shy young man with a great interest in music. He briefly lived in a flat above the Dovedale Towers, a pub on Penny Lane in Liverpool's Mossley Hill district. When this band failed to take off, he joined an Oxford-based band, Sour Milk Sea, but by early 1970 this group had broken up as well. In April 1970, Mercury teamed up with Taylor and guitarist Brian May to become lead singer of their band Smile. They were joined by bassist John Deacon in 1971. Despite the reservations of the other members and Trident Studios, the band's initial management, Mercury chose the name "Queen" for the new band. He later said, "It's very regal obviously, and it sounds splendid. It's a strong name, very universal and immediate. I was certainly aware of the gay connotations, but that was just one facet of it." At about the same time, he legally changed his surname, Bulsara, to Mercury. Shortly before the release of Queen's self-titled first album, Mercury designed the band's logo, known as the "Queen crest". The logo combines the zodiac signs of the four band members: two lions for Deacon and Taylor (sign Leo), a crab for May (Cancer), and two fairies for Mercury (Virgo). The lions embrace a stylised letter Q, the crab rests atop the letter with flames rising directly above it, and the fairies are each sheltering below a lion. A crown is shown inside the Q, and the whole logo is over-shadowed by an enormous phoenix. The Queen crest bears a passing resemblance to the Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom, particularly with the lion supporters. ==Artistry==

Vocals Although Mercury's speaking voice naturally fell in the baritone range, he delivered most songs in the tenor range. His known vocal range extended from bass low F (F) to soprano high F (F). He could belt up to tenor high F (F). Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballé, with whom Mercury recorded an album, expressed her opinion that "the difference between Freddie and almost all the other rock stars was that he was selling the voice". Discussing what type of person he wanted to play the lead role in his musical Jesus Christ Superstar, Andrew Lloyd Webber said: "He has to be of enormous charisma, but he also has to be a genuine, genuine rock tenor. That's what it is. Really think Freddie Mercury, I mean that's the kind of range we're talking about." A research team undertook a study in 2016 to understand the appeal behind Mercury's voice. Led by Professor Christian Herbst, the team identified his notably faster vibrato and use of subharmonics as unique characteristics of Mercury's voice, particularly in comparison to opera singers. The research team studied vocal samples from 23 commercially available Queen recordings, his solo work, and a series of interviews of the late artist. They also used an endoscopic video camera to study a rock singer brought in to imitate Mercury's singing voice. Songwriting Mercury wrote 10 of the 17 songs on Queen's Greatest Hits album: "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Seven Seas of Rhye", "Killer Queen", "Somebody to Love", "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy", "We Are the Champions", "Bicycle Race", "Don't Stop Me Now", "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", and "Play the Game". In 2003 Mercury was posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame with the rest of Queen, and in 2005 all four band members were awarded an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Song Collection from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors. The most notable aspect of his songwriting involved the wide range of genres that he used, which included, among other styles, rockabilly, progressive rock, heavy metal, gospel, and disco. As he explained in a 1986 interview, "I hate doing the same thing again and again and again. I like to see what's happening now in music, film and theatre and incorporate all of those things." A writer for The Spectator described him as "a performer out to tease, shock and ultimately charm his audience with various extravagant versions of himself." Mercury's main prop on stage was a broken microphone stand; after accidentally snapping it off the heavy base during an early performance, he realised it could be used in endless ways. One of Mercury's most notable performances with Queen took place at Live Aid in 1985. In 2005, John Harris wrote, "Those who compile lists of Great Rock Frontmen and award the top spots to Mick Jagger, Robert Plant et al are guilty of a terrible oversight. Freddie, as evidenced by his Dionysian Live Aid performance, was easily the most godlike of them all." Queen roadie Peter Hince states, "It wasn't just about his voice but the way he commanded the stage. For him it was all about interacting with the audience and knowing how to get them on his side. And he gave everything in every show." In 1986, Queen also played behind the Iron Curtain when they performed to a crowd of 80,000 in Budapest, in what was one of the biggest rock concerts ever held in Eastern Europe. Mercury's final live performance with Queen took place on 9 August 1986 at Knebworth Park in England and drew an attendance estimated as high as 200,000. A week prior to Knebworth, May recalled Mercury saying "I'm not going to be doing this forever. This is probably the last time." With the British national anthem "God Save the Queen" playing at the end of the concert, Mercury's final act on stage saw him draped in a robe, holding a golden crown aloft, bidding farewell to the crowd. Keyboardist Rick Wakeman praised Mercury's playing style, saying he "discovered [the piano] for himself" and successfully composed a number of Queen songs on the instrument. From the early 1980s Mercury began extensively using guest keyboardists. Most notably, he enlisted Fred Mandel (a Canadian musician who also worked for Pink Floyd, Elton John, and Supertramp) for his first solo project. From 1982 Mercury collaborated with Morgan Fisher (who performed with Queen in concert during the Hot Space leg), and from 1985 onward Mercury collaborated with Mike Moran (in the studio) and Spike Edney (in concert). Although he wrote many lines for the guitar, Mercury possessed only rudimentary skills on the instrument. Songs like "Ogre Battle" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" were composed on the guitar; the latter featured Mercury playing rhythm guitar on stage and in the studio. Solo career As well as his work with Queen, Mercury put out two solo albums and several singles. Although his solo work was not as commercially successful as most Queen albums, the two off-Queen albums and several of the singles debuted in the top 10 of the UK music charts. His first solo effort goes back to 1972 under the pseudonym Larry Lurex, when Trident Studios' house engineer Robin Geoffrey Cable was working in a musical project, at the time when Queen were recording their debut album; Cable enlisted Mercury to perform lead vocals on the songs "I Can Hear Music" and "Goin' Back", both were released together as a single in 1973. In 1993, a remix of "Living on My Own", a single from the album, posthumously reached number one on the UK singles chart. The song also garnered Mercury a posthumous Ivor Novello Award from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. AllMusic critic Eduardo Rivadavia described Mr. Bad Guy as "outstanding from start to finish" and expressed his view that Mercury "did a commendable job of stretching into uncharted territory". and the album's title track debuted at No. 8 in the UK and was also a hit in Spain. The title track received massive airplay as the official anthem of the 1992 Summer Olympics (held in Barcelona one year after Mercury's death). Caballé sang it live at the opening of the Olympics with Mercury's part played on a screen, and again before the start of the 1999 UEFA Champions League Final between Manchester United and Bayern Munich in Barcelona. In addition to the two solo albums, Mercury released several singles, including his own version of the 1950s hit "The Great Pretender" by the Platters, which peaked at number four in the UK in 1987. In September 2006 a compilation album featuring Mercury's solo work was released in the UK in honour of what would have been his 60th birthday. The album debuted in the UK top 10. In 2012, Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender, a documentary film on Mercury's attempts to forge a solo career, directed by Rhys Thomas, premiered on BBC One. In 1986, Mercury recorded two songs for Dave Clark's West End sci-fi musical Time. Mercury performed the title song and Clark played it to Laurence Olivier, who starred as the hologram Akash in a pre-filmed segment for the musical in one of his last roles. Clark recalled: "Laurence Olivier was a huge god of an actor. He narrated the album (Time), and, when Freddie came on, singing "Time", Olivier said, 'Now, my dear boy, ''there's'' an actor.'" Clark relayed the reaction of Olivier to Mercury: "I told Freddie and he was over the moon. I arranged for a dinner party at my place, Olivier came along and they got on like a house on fire." (left) and John Deacon in 1982 Between 1981 and 1983, Mercury recorded several tracks with Michael Jackson, including a demo of "State of Shock", "Victory", and "There Must Be More to Life Than This". None of these collaborations were officially released at the time, although bootleg recordings exist. Jackson went on to record the single "State of Shock" with Mick Jagger for the Jacksons' album Victory. Mercury included the solo version of "There Must Be More to Life Than This" on his album Mr. Bad Guy. "There Must Be More to Life Than This" was eventually reworked by Queen and released on their compilation album Queen Forever in 2014. Mercury and Roger Taylor sang on the title track for Billy Squier's 1982 studio release, Emotions in Motion, and later contributed to two tracks on Squier's 1986 release, Enough Is Enough, providing vocals on "Love is the Hero" and musical arrangements on "Lady With a Tenor Sax". In 2020, Mercury's music video for "Love Me Like There's No Tomorrow" was nominated for Best Animation at the Berlin Music Video Awards. Woodlock studio is behind the animation. ==Personal life==

Relationships , London, one of Mercury's former homes In 1969, a year before Queen had formed, Mercury met Mary Austin through Brian May. Austin worked at the fashion boutique Biba in Kensington, where they met. They subsequently began a long-term relationship. He lived with Austin for several years in West Kensington, London. By the mid-1970s, he had begun an affair with David Minns, an American record executive at Elektra Records. In December 1976, Mercury told Austin of his sexuality, which ended their romantic relationship. Mercury moved out of the flat they shared, and bought Austin a place of her own near his new address of 12 Stafford Terrace, Kensington. Mercury and Austin remained friends through the years; Mercury often referred to her as his only true friend. In a 1985 interview, he said of Austin: "All my lovers asked me why they couldn't replace Mary, but it's simply impossible. The only friend I've got is Mary, and I don't want anybody else. To me, she was my common-law wife. To me, it was a marriage. We believe in each other, that's enough for me." Mercury's final home, Garden Lodge, an 8-bedroom Georgian mansion in Kensington set in a quarter-acre manicured garden surrounded by a high brick wall, was picked out by Austin. From 1979 to 1985, while living in Munich, Mercury was friends with Austrian actress Barbara Valentin, who is featured in the video for "It's a Hard Life", and initially lived together with her and her daughter before moving into his own apartment. In Munich, Mercury was able to escape the media spotlight, lived out his sexuality, drifted in the local gay scene, and had an intense love relationship with German restaurateur Winfried "Winnie" Kirchberger. Mercury also lived temporarily at Kirchberger's apartment and thanked him "for board and lodging" in the liner notes of his 1985 album Mr. Bad Guy. He wore a silver wedding band given to him by Kirchberger. A close friend described him as Mercury's "great love" in Germany. By 1985, he began another long-term relationship, with Irish-born hairdresser Jim Hutton (1949–2010) whom he referred to as his husband. Mercury described their relationship as one built on solace and understanding, and said that he "honestly couldn't ask for better". Hutton, who tested HIV-positive in 1990, lived with Mercury for the last seven years of his life, nursed him during his illness, and was present at his bedside when he died. Mercury wore a gold wedding band, given to him by Hutton in 1986, until the end of his life. He was cremated with it on. Mercury's alleged daughter approached Jones with journal entries from 17 diaries claimed to be written for her by Mercury, detailing his personal history, and stated that she and Mercury "had a very close and loving relationship from the moment I was born" until his death when she was 15 years old. The claims were first reported in May 2025, ahead of the biography's release. Despite this accusation, Brian May's wife Anita Dobson said she and her husband were sceptical of the overall story and stated that the supposed daughter is someone that "we don't know about", Capital's switchboard was overwhelmed with callers inquiring when the song would be released. During the 1970s, Everett became advisor and mentor to Mercury and Mercury served as Everett's confidant. Other friendships Mercury saw the stage version of the London musical The Rocky Horror Show at the Royal Court Theatre in Chelsea, and in 1975 went to see the film version, both of which starred Tim Curry. Curry and Mercury became friends, and as a keen horticulturalist Curry later told the UK edition of House and Garden magazine about designing Mercury's garden: "Freddie came back from a tour and said, 'The garden, dear, it's dead.' I said, 'What? Did you water it?' And Freddie said, 'Water it, dear?'" Both Mercury and Curry were also close friends with Peter Straker; Straker, who first met Mercury at a London restaurant in November 1975, was a frequent diner at Mercury's home in Garden Lodge. Mercury was a long-time friend of Elton John. Shortly before his own death in November 1991, Mercury ordered that a watercolour by John's favourite artist, the 19th-century English impressionist painter Henry Scott Tuke, be given to John on Christmas Day. In a 2021 interview, John recalled: "Here was this beautiful man, dying from AIDS, and in his final days, he had somehow managed to find me a lovely Christmas present". Sexual orientation While some commentators said Mercury hid his sexual orientation from the public, Homosexual acts between adult males over the age of 21 had been decriminalised in the United Kingdom in 1967, seven years earlier. During public events in the 1980s, Mercury often kept a distance from his partner, Jim Hutton. In 1992, John Marshall of Gay Times opined: "[Mercury] was a 'scene-queen,' not afraid to publicly express his gayness, but unwilling to analyse or justify his 'lifestyle' ... It was as if Freddie Mercury was saying to the world, 'I am what I am. So what?' And that in itself for some was a statement." In an article for AfterElton, Robert Urban said: "Mercury did not ally himself to 'political outness,' or to LGBTQ causes." American magazine The Advocate wrote in May 2018, "Closeted throughout his life, Mercury, who was bisexual, engaged in affairs with men but referred to a woman he loved in his youth, Mary Austin, as 'the love of his life,' according to the biography Somebody to Love: The Life, Death, and Legacy of Freddie Mercury." Additionally, according to an obituary Mercury was a "self-confessed bisexual". The 2018 biopic of Mercury, Bohemian Rhapsody, received criticism for its portrayal of Mercury's sexuality, which was described as "sterilized" and "confused", and was even accused of being "dangerous". Personality Although he cultivated a flamboyant stage personality, Mercury was shy and retiring when not performing, particularly around people he did not know well, Mercury never discussed his ethnic or religious background with journalists. The closest he came to doing so was in response to a question about his outlandish persona, he said, "that's something inbred, it's a part of me. I will always walk around like a Persian popinjay", an oblique reference to his Indian Parsi background. Feeling a connection to Britain prior to arriving in England, the young Bulsara was heavily influenced by British fashion and music trends while growing up. His flamboyant dress sense and the emergence of glam rock in the UK in the early 1970s saw Mercury wear outfits designed by Zandra Rhodes. When asked by Melody Maker in 1981 if rock stars should use their power to try to shape the world for the better, Mercury responded, "Leave that to the politicians. Certain people can do that kind of thing, but very few. John Lennon was one. Because of his status, he could do that kind of preaching and affect people's thoughts. But to do this you have to have a certain amount of intellect and magic together, and the John Lennons are few and far between. People with mere talent, like me, have not got the ability or power." Mercury dedicated the song "Life Is Real (Song for Lennon)", from the 1982 album Hot Space, to Lennon. Mercury did occasionally express his concerns about the state of the world in his lyrics. His most notable "message" songs are "Under Pressure", "Is This the World We Created...?" (a song which Mercury and May performed at Live Aid, and also featured in Greenpeace – The Album), "There Must Be More to Life Than This", "The Miracle" (a song May called "one of Freddie's most beautiful creations") and "Innuendo". According to the 1998 biography Freddie Mercury: An intimate memoir by the man who knew him best, written by his long-term personal assistant Peter Freestone, Mercury abhorred bands like U2 for using their celebrity status to put over their political views. He was also unaware of Mercury ever voting in any election, but he was always interested in Freestone's voting and the politics at the time. Freestone wrote that Mercury would have favoured a Conservative government if he had voted, due to the 1970s Labour government's high income taxation, but that he never voiced his political opinions as he thought they were "relevant only to the individual". Mercury cared for at least ten cats throughout his life, including: Tom, Jerry, Oscar, Tiffany, Dorothy, Delilah, Goliath, Miko, Romeo, and Lily. He was against the inbreeding of cats for specific features and all except for Tiffany and Lily, both given as gifts, were adopted from the Blue Cross. Mercury "placed as much importance on these beloved animals as on any human life", and showed his adoration by having the artist Ann Ortman paint portraits of each of them. Mercury wrote a song for Delilah, "his favourite cat of all", which appeared on the Queen album Innuendo. Mercury dedicated his liner notes in his 1985 solo album Mr. Bad Guy to Jerry and his other cats. It reads, "This album is dedicated to my cat Jerry—also Tom, Oscar, and Tiffany and all the cat lovers across the universe—screw everybody else!" In 1987, Mercury celebrated his 41st birthday at the Pikes Hotel, Ibiza, Spain, several months after discovering that he had contracted HIV. Mercury sought much comfort at the retreat and was a close friend of the owner, Anthony Pike, who described Mercury as "the most beautiful person I've ever met in my life. So entertaining and generous." According to biographer Lesley-Ann Jones, Mercury "felt very much at home there. He played some tennis, lounged by the pool, and ventured out to the odd gay club or bar at night." A cake in the shape of Antoni Gaudi's Sagrada Família was provided for the party. The original cake collapsed and was replaced with a two-metre-long sponge cake decorated with the notes from Mercury's song "Barcelona". ==Illness and death==

and also gave an interview for The Times in September 2006 for what would have been Mercury's 60th birthday. ==Legacy==

Continued popularity Regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of rock music, Mercury was known for his flamboyant stage persona and four-octave vocal range. The extent to which Mercury's death may have enhanced Queen's popularity is not clear. In the United States, where Queen's popularity had lagged in the 1980s, sales of Queen albums went up dramatically in 1992, the year following his death. According to the Recording Industry Association of America, Queen had sold 34.5 million albums in the United States by 2004, about half of which had been sold since Mercury's death in 1991. , London Estimates of Queen's total worldwide record sales to date have been set as high as 300 million. In October 2007 the video for "Bohemian Rhapsody" was voted the greatest of all time by readers of Q magazine. Their Rock Hall of Fame citation reads, "in the golden era of glam rock and gorgeously hyper-produced theatrical extravaganzas that defined one branch of '70s rock, no group came close in either concept or execution to Queen." The band were among the inaugural inductees into the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2004. Mercury was individually posthumously awarded the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music in 1992. They received the Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Song Collection from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors in 2005, and in 2018 they were presented the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Queen were awarded the Polar Music Prize in 2025, with their citation describing Mercury as "one of the most charismatic front figures in the history of music". Posthumous Queen album In November 1995, Mercury appeared posthumously on Queen's final studio album Made in Heaven. The album featured Mercury's previously unreleased final recordings from 1991, as well as outtakes from previous years and reworked versions of solo works by the other members. Featuring tracks such as "Too Much Love Will Kill You" and "Heaven for Everyone", the album also contains the song "Mother Love", the last vocal recording Mercury made before his death, which he completed using a drum machine, over which May, Taylor, and Deacon later added the instrumental track. After completing the penultimate verse, Mercury had told the band he "wasn't feeling that great" and stated, "I will finish it when I come back next time". He never made it back into the studio, so May later recorded the final verse of the song. Tributes A statue in Montreux, Switzerland, by sculptor Irena Sedlecká, was erected as a tribute to Mercury. It stands almost high overlooking Lake Geneva and was unveiled on 25 November 1996 by Mercury's father and Montserrat Caballé, with bandmates Brian May and Roger Taylor also in attendance. Beginning in 2003 fans from around the world have gathered in Switzerland annually to pay tribute to the singer as part of the "Freddie Mercury Montreux Memorial Day" on the first weekend of September. In 1999 a Royal Mail stamp with an image of Mercury on stage was issued in his honour as part of the UK postal service's Millennium Stamp series. In 2009 a star commemorating Mercury was unveiled in Feltham, west London where his family moved upon arriving in England in 1964. The star in memory of Mercury's achievements was unveiled on Feltham High Street by his mother Jer Bulsara and Queen bandmate May. A statue of Mercury stood over the entrance to the Dominion Theatre in London's West End from May 2002 to May 2014 for Queen and Ben Elton's musical We Will Rock You. A tribute to Queen was on display at the Fremont Street Experience in downtown Las Vegas throughout 2009 on its video canopy. In December 2009 a large model of Mercury wearing tartan was displayed in Edinburgh as publicity for the run of We Will Rock You. Sculptures of Mercury often feature him wearing a military jacket with his fist in the air. In 2018, GQ called Mercury's yellow military jacket (created by British costume designer Diana Moseley) from his 1986 concerts his best known look, while CNN called it "an iconic moment in fashion." For Mercury's 65th birthday in 2011, Google dedicated its Google Doodle to him. It included an animation set to his song, "Don't Stop Me Now". Referring to "the late, great Freddie Mercury" in their 2012 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction speech, Guns N' Roses quoted Mercury's lyrics from "We Are the Champions"; "I've taken my bows, my curtain calls, you've brought me fame and fortune and everything that goes with it, and I thank you all." Tribute was paid to Queen and Mercury at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. The band's performance of "We Will Rock You" with Jessie J was opened with a video of Mercury's "call and response" routine from 1986's Wembley Stadium performance, with the 2012 crowd at the Olympic Stadium responding appropriately. The frog genus Mercurana, discovered in 2013 in Kerala, India, was named as a tribute because Mercury's "vibrant music inspires the authors". The site of the discovery is very near to where Mercury spent most of his childhood. In 2013, a newly discovered species of damselfly from Brazil was named Heteragrion freddiemercuryi, honouring the "superb and gifted musician and songwriter whose wonderful voice and talent still entertain millions" — one of four similar damselflies named after the Queen bandmates, in tribute to Queen's 40th anniversary. On 1 September 2016, an English Heritage blue plaque was unveiled at Mercury's home in 22 Gladstone Avenue in Feltham, west London by his sister, Kashmira Cooke, and Brian May. Attending the ceremony, Karen Bradley, the UK Secretary of State for Culture, called Mercury "one of Britain's most influential musicians", and added he "is a global icon whose music touched the lives of millions of people around the world". On 24 February 2020 a street in Feltham was renamed Freddie Mercury Close during a ceremony attended by his sister Kashmira. On 5 September 2016, the 70th anniversary of Mercury's birth, asteroid 17473 Freddiemercury was named after him. Issuing the certificate of designation to the "charismatic singer", Joel Parker of the Southwest Research Institute added: "Freddie Mercury sang, 'I'm a shooting star leaping through the sky' — and now that is even more true than ever before." In August 2019, Mercury was one of the honorees inducted in the Rainbow Honor Walk, a walk of fame in San Francisco's Castro District noting LGBTQ people who have "made significant contributions in their fields". Freddie Mercury Alley is a alley next to the British embassy in the Ujazdów district in Warsaw, Poland, which is dedicated to Mercury, and was unveiled on 22 November 2019. Until the Freddie Mercury Close in Feltham was dedicated, Warsaw was the only city in Europe with a street dedicated to the singer. In January 2020, Queen became the first band to join Queen Elizabeth II on a British coin. Issued by the Royal Mint, the commemorative £5 coin features the instruments of all four band members, including Mercury's Bechstein grand piano and his mic and stand. In April 2022, a life-size statue of Mercury was unveiled in South Korea's resort island of Jeju. In May 2024, the crater Bulsara on the planet Mercury was named after his birth name. Mercury has featured in international advertising to represent the UK. In 2001, a parody of Mercury, along with prints of other British music icons consisting of the Beatles, Elton John, Spice Girls, and the Rolling Stones, appeared in the Eurostar national advertising campaign in France for the Paris to London route. In September 2017 the airline Norwegian painted the tail fin of two of its aircraft with a portrait of Mercury to mark what would have been his 71st birthday. Mercury is one of the company's six "British tail fin heroes", alongside England's 1966 FIFA World Cup winning captain Bobby Moore, children's author Roald Dahl, novelist Jane Austen, pioneering pilot Amy Johnson, and aviation entrepreneur Sir Freddie Laker. Since 2021, one of the houses where Mercury lived in Stone Town has hosted a Freddie Mercury Museum, which features many photographs and dozens of handwritten song lyrics. The museum is studiously silent on many matters that would be culturally or politically sensitibve in Zanzibar, including Mercury's sexual preferences, his death of AIDS complications, and the fact that it was the slaughter of Arabs and Indians that forced his family to leave in 1964. Importance in AIDS history As the first major rock star to die of AIDS-related complications, Mercury's death represented an important event in the history of the disease. The concert was broadcast live to 76 countries and had an estimated viewing audience of 1 billion people. The documentary Freddie Mercury - The Final Act aired on BBC Two in 2021 and The CW in the US in April 2022. It covered Mercury's last days, how his bandmates and friends put together the tribute concert at Wembley, and interviewed medical professionals, people who tested HIV positive, and others who knew someone who died of AIDS. At the 50th International Emmy Awards in 2022, it won the International Emmy Award for Best Arts Programming. Appearances in lists of influential individuals Several popularity polls conducted over the past decade indicate that Mercury's reputation may have been enhanced since his death. For instance, in a 2002 vote to determine who the UK public considers the greatest British people in history, Mercury was ranked 58 in the list of the 100 Greatest Britons, broadcast by the BBC. He was further listed at the 52nd spot in a 2007 Japanese national survey of the 100 most influential heroes. and third on their 50 Greatest Rock Lead Singers of All Time list in 2023. In 2016, LA Weekly ranked him first on the list of 20 greatest singers of all time, in any genre. In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Mercury at No. 14 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time. In 2026, Consequence ranked Mercury the best vocalist of all time. Portrayal on stage On 24 November 1997, a monodrama about Freddie Mercury's life, titled Mercury: The Afterlife and Times of a Rock God, opened in New York City. It presented Mercury in the hereafter: examining his life, seeking redemption and searching for his true self. The play was written and directed by Charles Messina and the part of Mercury was played by Khalid Gonçalves (né Paul Gonçalves) and then later, Amir Darvish. Billy Squier opened one of the shows with an acoustic performance of a song he had written about Mercury titled "I Have Watched You Fly". In 2016 a musical titled Royal Vauxhall premiered at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in Vauxhall, London. Written by Desmond O'Connor, the musical told the alleged tales of the nights that Mercury, Kenny Everett and Diana, Princess of Wales spent out at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in London in the 1980s. Portrayal in film and television The 2018 biographical film Bohemian Rhapsody was, at its release, the highest-grossing musical biographical film of all time. Mercury was portrayed by Rami Malek, whose performance earned him the Academy Award, BAFTA Award, Golden Globe Award and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Actor. While the film received mixed reviews and contained historical inaccuracies, it won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture – Drama. Mercury appeared as a supporting character in the BBC television drama Best Possible Taste: The Kenny Everett Story, first broadcast in October 2012. He was portrayed by actor James Floyd. He was played by actor John Blunt in The Freddie Mercury Story: Who Wants to Live Forever, first broadcast in the UK on Channel 5 in November 2016. Although the programme was criticised for focusing on Mercury's love life and sexuality, Blunt's performance and likeness to the singer did receive praise. In 2018, David Avery portrayed Mercury in the Urban Myths comedy series in an episode focusing on the antics backstage at Live Aid, and Kayvan Novak portrayed Mercury in an episode titled "The Sex Pistols vs. Bill Grundy". He was also portrayed by Eric McCormack (as the character Will Truman) on Will & Grace in the October 2018 episode titled "Tex and the City". Auction From 4 August to 5 September 2023, an exhibition titled, Freddie Mercury: A World of His Own, saw almost 1,500 items of Mercury's, which he had given to his former partner Mary Austin, displayed at Sotheby's in New Bond Street, London before being sold across six auctions. Nearly 140,000 fans visited the exhibition, which Sotheby's had called "the life and work of Britain's greatest rock showman of the 20th century". The door of his Garden Lodge home in west London, covered in graffiti left by fans, went for £412,750. ==Discography==

Solo ;Studio albums • Mr. Bad Guy (1985) • Barcelona (with Montserrat Caballé) (1988) Queen ;Studio albums • Queen (1973) • Queen II (1974) • Sheer Heart Attack (1974) • A Night at the Opera (1975) • A Day at the Races (1976) • News of the World (1977) • Jazz (1978) • The Game (1980) • Flash Gordon (1980) • Hot Space (1982) • The Works (1984) • A Kind of Magic (1986) • The Miracle (1989) • Innuendo (1991) • Made in Heaven (1995) ==Notes==