Freddie Mercury

This fierce flamboyant frontman had a fascinating four-octave vocal range. There has never been a crowd pleaser quite like this quintessential charismatic crooner from Queen. Sadly, his AIDS diagnosis led to his untimely death at 45. The world was rocked. Nevertheless, his operatic rock anthems will continue to reverberate in our vocal cords, heads, and hearts forever! We’ll find out all about the phenomenal Freddie Mercury on this week’s episode of FYI!

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• 9:21 [Ad] So Meta
• 10:12 (Cont.) Freddie Mercury

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even don't buy that[Music] feed it up[Music] okay this Fierce flamboyant front man had a fascinating four octave vocal range there has never been a crowd pleaser quite like this quintessential charismatic crooner from Queen sadly his AIDS diagnosis led to his untimely death at 45. the world was rocked nevertheless his operatic Rock anthems will continue to reverberate in our vocal cords heads and hearts we'll find out all about the phenomenal Freddie Mercury on this week's episode of f why ah hi welcome to for your info English you got it[Applause][Music][Applause][Music][Applause] hello hello hello and welcome to another exciting edition of FYI for your English a topic based show where we can learn about anything and everything and don't forget to send me your suggestions I'm eagerly awaiting them you can find me on social media or you can just go to my website Alberto alonso.com and there you'll find links to my radio show the show with no name my new book this book is the [ __ ] in fact let's hear a little[Music] Adidas Hufflepuff[Music] um often is Slytherin Slytherin is to slithers look at the UNA serpente clarifications very meaty Ravenclaw biennade Raven que significa Cuervo Eclipse um and this book is the [ __ ] alternative this book really is the [ __ ] that's right if you want to have fun learning English well then this is the book for you it's my fifth book and I know you guys are gonna enjoy it if you enjoy FYI and the show with no name which is my daily radio show on Vaughn radio which has been on the air for over 15 years I know it's Quite a feat to do anything for more than 15 years and FYI has been on the air for over two years now if I'm not mistaken almost three years unbelievable how time flies when you're having fun and today we're gonna have lots of fun as we talk about the fierce flamboyant front man that's right we're talking about Freddie Mercury Fierce like a lion fed off but don't let his stage Persona fool you because he was a little bit timid as well but we'll find that out a little bit later on then I use the word flamboyant which is flashy ostentatious and frontman is a logical word it's the way that you call a lead singer of a group and this front man had a fascinating four octave vocal range translation he could sing some really high notes and some really low notes then I said there has never been a crowd pleaser and we've looked at this word before on the Pod a crowd pleaser I always think of Michael Jordan it doesn't matter what team you're on you want to see him play he pleases the entire crowd and it's true there's never been a crowd pleaser quite like this quintessential charismatic crooner owner from queen and a crooner is another way to say a singer then I went on to say sadly his AIDS diagnosis and you say see that in Spanish we call it aids his AIDS diagnosis led to his untimely death at the tender age of 45. hey wait a second that's younger than me and the word untimely is another way of saying premature or too early and then I said the world was rocked and this was a pun a play on words we were rocked by his music but we were also rocked by the news and to be rocked is to be totally destroyed then I said nevertheless and you can say nevertheless or nonetheless when you have two options like that choose the one that rolls off your tongue easier and try and remember that there are two way days or three ways to say it so if somebody else says nonetheless you'll understand it even though you use nevertheless so I said nevertheless his operatic Rock anthems will continue to reverberate so a Rock Anthem is and just be careful if we're talking about an imno in church we're talking about a hymn and it's weird because it has an n on the end which is totally silent it sounds like him but when we talk about imnos in music we talk about anthems or imnos de um we talk about national anthems and they will continue to reverberate in our vocal cords heads and hearts and if you noticed I had Freddie say the next line forever it's from the song who wants to live forever and we're gonna learn some English with Queen songs of course we are in the bonus part remember there are two episodes every week if you're in my community there are two episodes every week plus you can get PDF documents with all the vocabulary and you can even have class with me if you're in our super duper level or our Interstellar level in fact I'd like to send a shout out to my super duper students Javier Paco Roberto Jose Maria Mila and Alex and also my Interstellar students who get a private class with me every month and I can feel their progress I can see their progress and more importantly so can they a nice shout out to Carmen Lina isabaco David and Edgar and all of the rest of my patrons I wish I could name you all you guys are an awesome curious Community if you guys want more information and you're toying with the idea of joining my Curious community no problem whatsoever you can just contact me I can give you a free sample and then you can decide if it's right for you all the information you'll need is on patreon.com Alberto Alonso alright so are you guys ready to learn about the phenomenal Freddie Mercury well let's start with the pronunciation did I say Freddie mercur Mercury no it's Freddy Mercury so the same thing if you're using the word mercury to talk about the the element mercury the one that's in thermometers or at least it used to be it's Mercury and as many of you guys know that's not his real name it's his stage name you say nombre artistico we say does anybody know his original name his birth name it's Farouk bulsara oh[Music] and Farouk bulsara was born on September 5th 1946. he was born in stone Town Zanzibar and his family moved there so that his dad could continue his career working for the British colonial office so young Freddy or farok grew up between Zanzibar and India before he moved to Middlesex England when he was a teenager he legally changed his name to Freddie Mercury around 1970 when the band Queen was formed but we'll get to that part young Farouk was reportedly very shy as I said before you can say shy or timid and I know what you're thinking you're thinking but wait I've seen his stage Antics he's a monster on stage he's got the crowd eating out of the palm of his hand have you ever seen the Wembley concert well we're going to talk about that a little bit later as well but you would never think that this guy this Juggernaut on stage would be this little timid guy who was a bit introverted but something happened to Freddy well to farok when he turned into Freddy and when he got on that stage it's like something possessed him or took over his body and if you don't believe that he was a shy guy just think about how many interviews he granted yeah not too many Roger Taylor one of his bandmates in Queen said in real life nobody knew Freddie he was shy gentle and kind he wasn't the person he put over on stage so I guess we got that out of the way right there Freddie Mercury was his Persona his stage Persona and even though he was a shy guy he was still a party animal if you remember we talked about him partying with Princess dye in our princess die episode but he used to throw legendary bashes and remember a bash is a big party and sometimes his bashes would last for days he would Splurge to splurges to spend a lot of money and get Flamingo dancers fireworks fifty thousand dollars worth of champagne and plenty of illegal substances one of his most infamous bashes was at the launch of Queen's Jazz album reportedly there were snake Charmers 50 trees that they brought in strippers and that's what we know about I'm sure there was a lot of other stuff that was on the DL on the down low also his 1987 birthday party in ibifa I'm gonna pronounce it like a British person in ibifa was so epic that the hotel still celebrates it every year so he's a bit of an anomaly a bit of a paradox if you will a shy guy who the second he hit the stage would come out of his shell and explode and of course he would also have that effect on the audience and as we said earlier in the intro he had a four octave vocal range now most people don't even have a two octave vocal range but there was a reason for it Freddie Mercury had four extra teeth these teeth were in the back of his mouth and they pushed his front teeth forward I shared some pictures on patreon of him as a kid and man he had some serious buck teeth okay he had buck teeth when he was an adult but when he was a kid his teeth looked a lot bigger in comparison to his face and I imagine he was teased because of it because sometimes kids are cruel but this not only gave him his trademark overbite and overbite is when your top teeth come out an underbite is the opposite but as you can imagine he was self-conscious about the way his teeth looked but he refused to have them fixed he said that if he altered anything in his mouth it would change the way he sang and was he right absolutely don't people sound a little bit different when they have a tooth pulled or if they have a retainer in their mouth sure you're affecting the air passageways but when did Freddie find his love of singing well as we'll see in the bonus part he had a love for many things many passions you could say he was a passionate guy but when he was just 13 years old he founded a group called The hectics we've looked at that word the word hectic is very busy very chaotic and this group The hectics was a cover band a cover band is a group that does versions of other band songs and meanwhile across town there were these other guys who were in a band this guy Brian May and Roger Taylor they were playing together in a band called smile and Freddie Mercury was a huge fan of this group smile they really made him smile okay never mind well he started showing up at their gigs and in 1970 he suggested the name Queen he was hired as soon as they heard him sing and even before he was in the band they saw that he had a good ear a good musical ear because he was always encouraging the band remember he was a fan to experiment and do more elaborate things as far as sound is concerned and as far as stage Antics and as I said he gave them the name that they ended up using they changed the name from smile to Queen when he joined and the last member of the quartet to join was John Deacon who was recruited in February 1971. so you could say in 1970 not just the band Queen was born because that's when Freddy joined but also the name of the the band and in 1973 they released their debut album but it didn't really get too much of a reaction Queen first charted in the UK with their second album Queen two in 1974. so just imagine if they had given up and said we suck but no they kept working hard at it and working on their sound and there was one thing they all had in common they worked their hearts out they were rehearsing constantly trying new things there was some kind of chemistry going on I guess you could say it's a kind of magic it's a kind of magic so Queen two put them on the map at least in the UK and then sheer heart attack which came out a year later in 1975. that was the one that just gave them International success and and they followed it up immediately with night at the Opera so two albums in 1975. didn't I tell you they were working hard the latter night at the Opera featured the famous song Bohemian Rhapsody which stayed at number one in the UK for nine weeks and it even helped popularize the music video format and at first the executives they were saying no man this isn't gonna work this song is too long it goes to too many places it mixes too many genres forget it and of course those guys were dead wrong no one has ever been more wrong than those guys because that song along with putting them on the map also to this day evokes an emotion in people that not many songs do you try and control yourself I see a little silhou of a man[Music] all right maybe not that part Galileo Galileo Galileo Figaro see you can't help it it is a masterpiece and queen had many many masterpieces all throughout the years in 1977 they released the album news of the world and all I'm gonna do is this dumb chat dum dum chat buddy you're a boy make a big noise playing in the street and we know that we will rock you is linked with We Are the Champions and what sports team doesn't play those two songs at every event especially when they win they've become anthems not just in the music realm but in the sports realm as well and then another one bites the dust that came out in 1980 and it was off the album the game in 1981 they had a compilation album of their greatest hits are you paying attention they formed in 1970 by 1981 they had a compilation album of their greatest hits and that album was a huge success it was certified nine times platinum in the U.S and it was taking them a little bit more to break into the U.S market but finally they did it and they performed three sold out nights at Madison Square Garden Queen rocked the United States for people who don't like monarchies and things like that we love Queen not the queen queen and if you had the pleasure of seeing them live you have witnessed probably one of the greatest groups ever I was gonna say front men but really the whole group is talented Freddie Mercury he is literally from another galaxy but the other members were too and that was the secret that was the magic let's take a look at some of the members or not some of the members the four members of Queen We already looked at Freddie Mercury in fact the focus of this episode is Freddie Mercury John Deacon wrote several of the songs for the group such as you're my best friend another one bites the dust and I want to break free under pressure friends will be friends and one Vision were co-written by him as well and he was also involved in the band's financial management oh and of course all I have to say so you recognize John Deacon and his bass playing is[Music] another one bites the dust and from that song we get to bite the dust then we've got Roger Taylor who was the drummer remember we don't say the battery the drummer but he was also a songwriter in fact they all contributed in songwriting duties Roger Taylor co-wrote some of their number one songs these are the days of our lives innuendo under pressure and he also wrote Radio Gaga and a kind of magic so as you're seeing everybody contributed and we can't leave out Brian May where would Queen be without those amazing solos oh and not to mention Brian May is also an astrophysicist he really rocks and as I said earlier their performance at Live Aid in 1985 it was a benefit concert at Wembley is ranked among the greatest in rock history the greatest rock show ever and the amazing thing is you can watch it on YouTube I'll share it with you guys on patreon and not long after that in August of 1986 Freddie Mercury gave his last performance with Queen in nebworth England he also had a couple solo albums which I'm sure you guys are familiar with the first one Mr bad guy which was named after his cat and Barcelona with Monserrat caballer[Music] alive and he said about Monserrat caballer that she possessed the best voice of anyone in existence and if you remember for the Barcelona 1992 Olympic games that was the song but if you also remember Monserrat Caballe sang it by herself because Freddie Mercury didn't make it to the Olympics in Barcelona he died the year before but not without leaving behind a legacy Queen have released 15 Studio albums ten live albums 16 compilation albums Two soundtrack albums two extended plays 73 singles and seven promotional singles and imagine if Freddie hadn't died young[Music] Freddie Mercury died on the 24th of November 1991 at his home in Kensington London he was 45 and he passed away just 24 hours after he issued a statement publicly announcing that he was HIV positive as I said the world was in mourning estaba de luto and that Legacy is still felt my daughter is a huge Queen fan and I truly believe that their legacy will live on for generations to come here's a little fun fact before we get going Kurt Cobain the lead singer of Nirvana who supposedly committed suicide mentioned Freddie Mercury in his suicide note and I quote we were backstage and the lights go out and the manic Roar of the crowds begins it doesn't affect me the way in which it did for Freddie Mercury Cobain wrote in his suicide note he seemed to love Relish in the love and adoration from the crowd which is something I totally admire and envy I don't know if it was Freddie Mercury eating up the crowd or the crowd eating him up but there was something magical happening every time Queen took the stage in the bonus part we're going to take a look at more fun facts we're also going to look at how he did a lot of his songwriting which is quite interesting we'll learn English with Queen songs we'll learn about his other little known hobbies and I'll tell you about the time he told the Sex Pistols off Sex Pistols and about the time he recorded three songs with the King of Pop Michael Jackson we'll talk about that and so much more in the bonus episode of today's f[Applause] foreign[Music]