The good ol' question. Queen would not achieve success without Freddie or Freddie would not achieve success without Queen?
You know, I’ve never thought about it in those terms because I’ve never seen Queen as Freddie and bandmates like many people do, but always Queen as a whole.
If you ask me, I think that Freddie would have achieved success anyway because he was extremely creative, very determined and though at first his voice wasn’t as good as we now know it, he would have developed it anyway. That voice is a gift that he understood how to cherish, and together with the above mentioned features, his stage presence, his personality, his piano and songwriting ability, it’s very difficult to believe that he wouldn’t have become famous, even as a solo artist. Freddie’s solo work is actually my favourite, to be honest, and I really relate to his cultural world and his aesthetic taste.
As for Queen as a band, it is really impossible for me to imagine Queen with any single member different than the ones we know. Not only for a matter of fondness, but also because Queen are one of the very few cases where every single individual contributed in an essential way to the sound, the image, the success of the band.