Robbed Hit of the Week 8/26/13 - Queen's "I Want To Break Free"...

Queen - "I Want To Break Free"
from the album The Works (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #45

This week's "robbed hit" is by the British rock band Queen, who started out 1984 with what would be their last top-40 pop hit in the US, "Radio GaGa". The follow-up to that single, "I Want To Break Free", was written by bass player John Deacon, and featured a hilarious video that put all four members of the group in drag (singer Freddie Mercury is especially awesome in a Tracey Ullman kind of way)...

But while "I Want To Break Free" was a huge hit around the world, going top-10 everywhere and topping the chart in Holland and Austria (it topped out at #4 in the UK), the single stalled at #45 in the States. Perhaps the over-the-top video was too much for Reagan-era lunkheads. Oh well. The song is their campiest triumph, and one of my faves of the band.

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...and here are the boys live at Wembley Stadium...

Up next week: British new-waver asks a riddle.