"Love Is the Hero" | ||||
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Single by Billy Squier with Freddie Mercury | ||||
from the album Enough Is Enough | ||||
B-side | "Learn How to Live" (live) | |||
Released | October 1986 | |||
Genre | AOR, pop rock | |||
Length |
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Songwriter(s) | Billy Squier | |||
Producer(s) | Peter Collins | |||
Billy Squier singles chronology | ||||
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"Love Is the Hero" is a song performed by American Rock singer and guitarist Billy Squier, with Freddie Mercury from Queen on backing vocals. It appears as the second track on his fifth studio album Enough Is Enough from 1986.
After an incredibly bad video for his hit song "Rock Me Tonite", Squier's career had taken a downturn. As a result, he stopped selling out concerts and his album and singles success waned. "Love Is the Hero" became a commercial disappointment, peaking at #65 in Cash Box magazine and #80 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. [1] It fared much better on AOR (Album Oriented Rock) radio and received rotation on MTV. It is often deemed one of the best songs from his later career and the standout track of Enough Is Enough. [2]
Mercury originally recorded an intro sung solely by himself, but it was cut from the album and single version. It was kept on the extended 12" version and later restored on Squier's compilation album Reach For the Sky: The Anthology and Mercury's The Solo Collection box set. In the spring of 2021, the afromentioned version was finally released as a digital single.
The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness was a benefit concert held on Easter Monday, 20 April 1992 at Wembley Stadium in London, United Kingdom for an audience of 72,000. The concert was produced for television by Ray Burdis, directed by David Mallet and broadcast live on television and radio to 76 countries around the world, with an audience of up to one billion. The concert was a tribute to Queen's lead vocalist, Freddie Mercury, who died of AIDS on 24 November 1991. The show marked bassist John Deacon's final full-length concert with Queen. The profits from the concert were used to launch the Mercury Phoenix Trust, an AIDS charity organisation.
"Crazy Little Thing Called Love" is a song by the British rock band Queen. Written by Freddie Mercury in 1979, the track is included on their 1980 album The Game, and also appears on the band's compilation album Greatest Hits in 1981. The song peaked at number two in the UK Singles Chart in 1979, becoming the group's first number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US in 1980, remaining there for four consecutive weeks. It topped the Australian ARIA Charts for seven weeks. It was the band's final single release of the 1970s.
Made in Heaven is the fifteenth and final studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 6 November 1995 by Parlophone Records in the United Kingdom and by Hollywood Records in the United States. It was the band's first and only release after the death of lead singer Freddie Mercury in 1991. Following Mercury's death, guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor, and bass guitarist John Deacon worked with vocal and piano parts that Mercury recorded before his death, adding new instrumentation to the recordings. Both stages of recording, before and after Mercury's death, were completed at the band's studio in Montreux, Switzerland. The album debuted at number 1 in the UK, where it went quadruple platinum selling 1.2 million copies. 500,000 copies were shipped in the United States.
The Miracle is the thirteenth studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 22 May 1989 by Parlophone Records and Capitol Records in both the United Kingdom and the USA, respectively, where it was the band's first and final studio album to be released on those respective labels. The album was recorded as the band recovered from Brian May's marital problems and Freddie Mercury's HIV diagnosis in 1987. Recording started in January 1988 and lasted for an entire year. The album was originally going to be called The Invisible Men, but three weeks before the release, according to Roger Taylor, they decided to change the name to The Miracle. It was also the last Queen album with a photo of the band on the front cover.
William Haislip Squier is an American rock musician and singer who had a string of arena rock and crossover hits in the early 1980s. His best-known songs include "The Stroke", "Lonely Is the Night", "My Kinda Lover", "In the Dark", "Rock Me Tonite", "Everybody Wants You", "Emotions in Motion", "Love Is the Hero", "Don't Say You Love Me" and "The Big Beat". Squier's best-selling album, 1981's Don't Say No, is considered a landmark release within the arena rock genre, bridging the gap between power pop and hard rock.
"Hammer to Fall" is a 1984 song by the British rock band Queen. Written by guitarist Brian May, the song is the eighth track on their 1984 album The Works. It was the fourth and final single to be released from that album, although the single version was edited down by thirty seconds in contrast to the version on the album. Different sleeves were used to package this single and the live picture sleeve is now a collector's item. The song harks back to the Queen of old, with a song being built around a hard angular and muscular riff.
"Too Much Love Will Kill You" is a song written by British guitarist Brian May of Queen, Frank Musker, and Elizabeth Lamers. The song reflected the breakdown of May's first marriage and attraction to his future wife, Anita Dobson. It was first recorded by Queen around 1988 or before, and was intended to be on the band's The Miracle album in 1989, but did not make the cut due to legal disputes following the band's decision that all songs on the album would be written by the group as opposed to individuals.
Emotions in Motion is the third studio album by rock musician Billy Squier. It was released in July 1982, and was Squier's second consecutive Top Five disc on the Billboard album chart. It contains the hit song "Everybody Wants You", which peaked at #32 on the Billboard Hot 100, and stayed at #1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart for 6 weeks.
"Play the Game" is a song by British rock band Queen, written by Freddie Mercury. It is the first track on the first side of their 1980 album The Game. It also appears on their album Greatest Hits. The single was a hit in the UK, reaching #14 in the charts, and in the US it peaked at #42.
"Need Your Loving Tonight" is a song by the rock band Queen and written by bass guitarist John Deacon. It is the fourth track on the first side of their 1980 album The Game and the second song on the album by Deacon.
Don't Say No is the second studio album by Billy Squier, released on April 13, 1981. It stands as Squier's biggest career album, including the hits "Lonely Is the Night", "In the Dark", "My Kinda Lover" and "The Stroke". The album hit the Top Five on the Billboard album chart and remained on the chart for over two years.
Signs of Life is the fourth studio album by American musician Billy Squier. It was co-produced by Meat Loaf's famed songwriter Jim Steinman, replacing Reinhold Mack, who had produced Squier's previous two hit records, Don't Say No (1981) and Emotions in Motion (1982), as well as Queen's The Game (1980).
Enough Is Enough is the fifth studio album by Billy Squier, released on September 27, 1986. It was the first album to be released under his second seven-year Capitol Records recording contract.
This is the discography of Freddie Mercury.
"I Can't Live with You" is a song by the British rock band Queen, which was released in 1991 as the fourth single from their fourteenth studio album Innuendo. The song was written by Brian May but credited to all four members of Queen. It was produced by Queen and David Richards. "I Can't Live with You" was released as a promotional single in the United States only, where it reached No. 28 on the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart in June 1991.
Hear & Now is the sixth studio album by American rock musician Billy Squier, released on June 14, 1989. It features his last Billboard Hot 100 hit, "Don't Say You Love Me", as well as popular fan favorites and radio hits "Don't Let Me Go", "Stronger" and "Tied Up", the latter two being co-written with Desmond Child.
"Time" is a 1986 song recorded by Freddie Mercury, along with "In My Defence", for Dave Clark's musical of the same name. Even though Mercury did not appear in the musical itself, both songs were included on the cast album, and "Time" was also released as a separate single, backed by an instrumental version of the song, and reached #32 on the UK Singles Chart. The song also peaked at #12 in Ireland. The single version was later included in the 2000 box set The Solo Collection and the 2006 compilation album Lover of Life, Singer of Songs: The Very Best of Freddie Mercury Solo.
Queen Forever is a compilation album by the British rock band Queen. Released on 10 November 2014, it features tracks the band had "forgotten about" with vocals from original lead singer Freddie Mercury. Queen's bassist John Deacon is also on the tracks.
"Let Me in Your Heart Again" is a song by British rock band Queen. It was written by lead guitarist Brian May. It was intended for The Works but was not finished until 2014, when it was released on the compilation Queen Forever. To date, it is the last original Queen track to be released as a 12” maxi-single. The 12” maxi-single with the William Orbit remix is included as an extra in the Queen Forever 4 LP box set.
"Emotions in Motion" is a 1982 single by American rock musician Billy Squier, which was featured on his platinum selling album of the same name and released as the first single from it. The song is notable for featuring Queen members Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor on backing vocals. The former would later collaborate again with Squier, on his 1986 single "Love Is the Hero".