"Under Pressure" is a song by the British rock band Queen and singer David Bowie. Originally released as a single in October 1981,it was later included on Queen's 1982 album Hot Space. The song reached number one on the UK Singles Chart,becoming Queen's second number-one hit in their home country and Bowie's third,and also charted in the top 10 in more than 10 countries around the world.
The song has been described as a "monster rock track that stood out" on the Hot Space album,as well as "an incredibly powerful and poignant pop song".[4][5] "Under Pressure" was listed at number 31 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the '80s,and voted the second-best collaboration of all time in a poll by Rolling Stone. In 2021,it was ranked number 429 on Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It was played live at every Queen concert from 1981 until the end of the band's touring career in 1986.[6][7][8] Live recordings had appeared on various Queen live albums such as Queen Rock Montreal and Live at Wembley '86.
"Under Pressure" was sampled by American rapper Vanilla Ice for his 1990 single "Ice Ice Baby". Vanilla Ice initially did not credit Bowie or Queen for the sample,resulting in a lawsuit that gave Bowie and Queen songwriting credit. "Under Pressure" has been covered by American rock bands My Chemical Romance and the Used,and singer Shawn Mendes,whose version featured singer Teddy Geiger. Xiu Xiu also covered the song with Swans frontman Michael Gira,a version that was included on Xiu Xiu's 2008 album Women as Lovers.
A remixed version (called the "Rah Mix") was issued in December 1999 to promote Queen's Greatest Hits III compilation, reaching No. 14 on the UK Singles Chart. The video for the Rah Mix was directed by DoRo, featuring footage of Freddie Mercury from Queen's Wembley concert on 12 July 1986 and David Bowie at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert also at Wembley Stadium on 20 April 1992 spliced together using digital technology (with Annie Lennox carefully edited out). This version is featured on the Greatest Hits III compilation, the Rah Mix CD single (as an Enhanced CD video) and the 2011 iTunes LP edition of Hot Space.
Track listing
Two CD singles (one multimedia enhanced) released 6December 1999 and 7" picture disc released 13 December 1999. As "Bohemian Rhapsody" won The Song of The Millennium award, this was released with Bohemian Rhapsody as B-side [52]
It was initially released in the US on the Elektra Records US and Canadian versions of Queen's Greatest Hits as a new track.
It was released in the UK on Queen's Greatest Hits II in 1991 (which would later be included in The Platinum Collection (2000, 2002 and 2011) in a version removing the second time David Bowie sings, "This is our last dance."
Hollywood Records remixed the song for their 1992 release, Classic Queen. This version features improved sound quality but also removes Mercury's interjection "that's okay!" at about 0:53.
Mouth Pressure. Released in January 2017 as a part of the Neil Cicierega album Mouth Moods, "Mouth Pressure" pairs the instrumentals from "Under Pressure" with the vocals from Smash Mouth's "All Star".[55][56]
Percy's Pressure. A karaoke version of the song was released in September as a part of the soundtrack of the animated Warner Brothers musical film Smallfoot whose lyrics detail one of the central human characters Percy's (voiced by James Corden) fall from fame and his need to bounce back. Additional lyrics were written by Karey Kirkpatrick, the film's director, and his brother Wayne Kirkpatrick.[57]
Use in other media
A radically remixed version is used in Charlotte Wells' 2022 BAFTA winning film Aftersun. The track appears at the climactic ending of the film in a version which gradually strips away most of the instrumentation leaving Bowie and Mercury’s vocals to be accompanied by electronic drones and cello from composer Oliver Coates.[58]
Charts
In the U.K., "Under Pressure" was Queen's second number-one hit and Bowie's third. Queen's smash hit "Bohemian Rhapsody" reached number one in November 1975, just two weeks after Bowie's "Space Oddity" had done the same. Bowie also topped the British charts in August 1980 with "Ashes to Ashes", his answer song to "Space Oddity".[59]
In October 2018, Canadian singer-songwriter Shawn Mendes featuring American singer-songwriter Teddy Geiger (credited as teddy<3) released a version of the song.[112]
A portion of the profits from the "Under Pressure" cover was donated to Mercury Phoenix Trust, which was founded by Queen's Brian May and Roger Taylor (and the group's manager, Jim Beach) after Mercury's death to help fight AIDS worldwide. Mendes said in a statement: "I am so honoured to be able to support the amazing legacy of Freddie and Queen by doing a cover of one of my favourite songs, 'Under Pressure'".[114][116]
Reception
Taylor Weatherby from Billboard called the track "breezy" and said "Mendes and Geiger put their voices at the forefront of the stripped-down rendition, with Mendes' falsetto and Geiger's 'raspier' tone complementing their plucky acoustic guitars."[114]
↑ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas (13 July 2023). "Essential Queen: 40 songs that will rock you". The A.V. Club. The sleek dance-rock hybrid—informed by disco but not belonging to it—is essentially ephemeral and amorphous, built upon a lithe John Deacon bassline that anchors interwoven harmonies and melodies that build to an overwhelming crescendo culminating with Bowie and Freddie Mercury singing "This is our last dance."
↑ Westfahl, Gary (2000). "Legends of the Fall: Behind the Music". Science Fiction, Children's Literature, and Popular Culture. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 100. ISBN0-313-30847-0.
↑ Feature: Has Vanilla Ice been stealing other people's songs?" Smash Hits (EMAP Metro) (12–25 December 1990): 59.
↑ Jordan Runtagh. "Songs on Trial: 12 Landmark Music Copyright Cases". Rolling Stone. The case was settled out of court, costing Ice an undisclosed sum and earning him a not-insignificant amount of public scorn. Bowie and members of Queen all received songwriting credits on the track.
↑ Anderson, Becky (22 February 2010). "Interview with Vanilla Ice (transcript)". cnn.com. Archived from the original on 6 March 2013. Retrieved 10 March 2013. The great thing is, is I bought back all my royalties and I bought that song, too. So it kind of comes back around, kind of like Michael Jackson both The Beatles. [...] I can do whatever I want with it, because I own it.
↑ Michael Gallucci (13 July 2017). "Vanilla Ice Claims He Owns Queen's 'Under Pressure'". A spokesman for Queen tells Ultimate Classic Rock that Vanilla Ice's statement is inaccurate: An arrangement was made whereby the publishing in the song was shared.
↑ Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992: 23 years of hit singles & albums from the top 100 charts. St Ives, N.S.W, Australia: Australian Chart Book. p.243. ISBN0-646-11917-6.
↑ "Chartfile Top 100". Record Mirror. London. 26 December 1981.
↑ "Top Singles of 1982". RPM. 25 December 1982. Archived from the original on 11 August 2016. Retrieved 23 October 2016– via Library and Archives Canada.
↑ Whitburn, Joel (1999). Pop Annual. Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin: Record Research Inc. ISBN0-89820-142-X.
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