#breakthru

Breakthru by Queen

About Queen:

Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1970 by Freddie Mercury (lead vocals, piano), Brian May (guitar, vocals), and Roger Taylor (drums, vocals), later joined by John Deacon (bass). Their earliest works were influenced by progressive rock, hard rock and heavy metal, but the band gradually ventured into more conventional and radio-friendly works by incorporating further styles, such as arena rock and pop rock.

(Via Wikipedia)

About Breakthru:

“Breakthru” was written by Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor but credited to Queen.

The song is notable for its video where the group is performing the song on an open platform of a fast-moving steam train.

The album version of the song begins with 30 seconds of slow vocal harmony. It was apparently written by Freddie Mercury for a different song which ended up never being released, “A New Life Is Born”. It then abruptly changes to a fast-paced rocker, that was written by Roger Taylor. Other song versions were created by either extending or cutting the introduction. On the Queen for an Hour interview conducted in 1989, Mercury said that this was a great example of two separate bits coming together to make a final track. He commented on how the band had about 30 tracks to work with and only completed a handful, working on all of them at least somewhat.

June 19th, 1989 - Queen Story!

Queen released ‘Breakthru’ bw ‘Stealin’’ in the UK

Taken from 'The Miracle' album, thirteenth studio album released in May 1989

🔸"It's the prime example what we were talking about before, I mean, the track 'Breakthru' sort of stemmed from Roger, really, it's basically his track. But the sort of a capella vocal bit in front was from someone else, as we've said: we have 30 tracks, and that was a little piece that I thought was quite good, and I didn't want it to go amiss, and I just said, 'Oh, well, we’ll just put it in front of "Breakthru".' It’s basically another song, sort of seem to go away quite nicely, so, we just snipped it."

- Freddie Mercury, interview with Mike Read, BBC Radio One, 29/05/1989

🔸"Breakthru" is two songs joined. "A New Life Is Born," an unreleased song written by Freddie Mercury is lhe slow vocal harmony during the first half minute was originally . The remainder of the song is written by Roger Taylor, with contributions from the rest of the band

- 'Stealin' (b-side) written by Freddie Mercury

📸 Pic: June 1989 - Queen photo session of promotional video "Breakthru" (from the album 'The Miracle')