"Another One Bites the Dust" is a song by the British rock band Queen. Written by bassist John Deacon, the song was featured on the group's eighth studio albumThe Game (1980). It was a worldwide hit, charting at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks, from 4 October to 18 October (being their second and final number-one single in the country). The song spent 15 weeks in the Billboard top 10 (the longest running top ten song of 1980), including 13 weeks in the top five, and 31 weeks total on the chart (more than any other song in 1980). It reached number two on the Hot Soul Singles chart and the Disco Top 100 chart, and number seven on the UK Singles Chart.[5][6] The song is credited as Queen's best-selling single, with sales of over 7 million copies.[7] This version was ranked at number 34 on Billboard's All-Time Top Songs.[8]
It is purported that John Deacon's bass line was inspired by "Good Times" by the disco group Chic.[16][17] In an interview with NME, Chic co-founder Bernard Edwards stated, "That Queen record came about because that Queen bass player... spent some time hanging out with us at our studio."[18]
Recording sessions – produced by Reinhold Mack at Musicland Studios in Munich (West Germany) – consisted of Deacon playing almost all instruments: bass guitar, piano, electric guitar, and handclaps. Roger Taylor added a drum loop and Brian May contributed noises with his guitar and an Eventide Harmonizer. There are no synthesisers in the song: all effects are created by piano, electric guitars and drums, with subsequent tape playback performed in reverse at various speeds. Finally, sound effects were run through the harmonizer for further processing. The effect of the harmonizer can be heard clearly in the "swirling" nature of the sound immediately before the first lyric. In early live performances, Taylor sang lead on the chorus, as opposed to the studio version sung entirely by Mercury. As the song became more well-known, the band could rely on audiences to sing the chorus by themselves. After attending a Queen concert in Los Angeles, Michael Jackson suggested to Freddie Mercury backstage that "Another One Bites the Dust" be released as a single.[19]
To "bite the dust" means to die or to lose in a contest or game. The beginning lyrics set up a scene similar to a mobster movie, with "machine guns ready to go". Later lyrics refer to a failed relationship as "another one bites the dust". The singer is not going to let it get him down, "standing on my own two feet". The song was used in a preliminary cut of Rocky III, before being replaced by Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger". "When one of my idols, Brian May, attended one of our shows in Los Angeles in 1984, he brought up that subject", recalled Survivor guitarist Frankie Sullivan, to whom Sylvester Stallone had supplied a copy of the movie. "I offered to send him a copy of the tape, which I still own."[23][20]
Billboard called it a "snarling track" with a "spare, lean sound."[24]Record World said that "a brutal bass conspires with the sing-along hook on this thoroughly contagious [song]."[25]Classic Rock History critic Millie Zeiler rated it John Deacon's 2nd best Queen song.[20]
In the early 1980s, "Another One Bites the Dust" was one of many popular rock songs that some Christian evangelists alleged contained subliminal messages through a technique called backmasking. It was claimed that the chorus, when played in reverse, can be heard as "Decide to smoke marijuana",[26] "It's fun to smoke marijuana",[27][28] or "Start to smoke marijuana".[29] A spokeswoman for Hollywood Records (Queen's current US label) has denied that the song contains such a message.[30] The song does, however, contain a backmasked piano, which can be heard clearly when it is played backward.[31]
"Another One Bites the Dust" was used in a study to train medical professionals to provide the correct number of chest compressions per minute while performing CPR.[32] The bassline has close to 110 beats per minute, and 100–120 chest compressions per minute are recommended by the British Heart Foundation,[33] and endorsed by the Resuscitation Council (UK).[34]
Dave Ogilvie edited the Phase 5 remix for inclusion on the April 1992 compilation BASIC Queen Bootlegs removing profanity from the rap verse and problematic samples due to copyright clearance. A separate remix by Onyx producer ChySkillz was due to appear featuring rap verses by Ice Cube, Hi-C and Manson. Ogilvie also recorded his own remix in sessions for the album, but did this not feature on the final track listing. All four versions have since leaked.
In 1998, Haitian rapper Wyclef Jean covered and remixed the song alongside Queen for the film Small Soldiers (1998). His version also features rap verses from Pras Michel and Free. The track also appears on Queen's compilation Greatest Hits III, released in 1999,[83] and on Pras' debut album, Ghetto Supastar, released in 1998.
The song enjoyed its greatest success in Queen's native United Kingdom, where it entered and peaked at number five on the UK Singles Chart, two places higher than the original,[84] going on to spend six weeks on the chart. It also peaked within the top ten of the charts in Finland. It charted number 18, number 23, number 50 and number 62 in New Zealand, Austria, Sweden and France, respectively. The music video for this version was directed by Michel Gondry.
The song became Pras' third top ten hit in the United Kingdom from his debut solo album Ghetto Supastar, following the title track and follow-up single Blue Angels. However, Pras was not available for the filming of the video, and rapper Canibus recorded a new verse to take his place. This version was used only for the promotional video.[citation needed]
The song was remixed again in 2006. The single reached the UK Top 40, peaking at number 31, credited to Queen vs The Miami Project.[103] The lead remix was by Cedric Gervais & Second Sun for which a new video was filmed.
In 1996, Queen Dance Traxx and German Eurodance group Captain Jack covered the song for the album Queen Dance Traxx 1 and released it as a single. The song reached number 5 in Finland and peaked at number 12 in the Netherlands. It also reached number 33 in Austria, number 41 in Belgium and number 61 in Germany. The music video for this version was directed by Rudi Dolezal and was filmed in Berlin, Germany.
^Schaffner, Nicholas (1982). The British Invasion: From the First Wave to the New Wave. New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 254.
^Smith, Chris (2006). The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Rock History: From Arenas to the Underground, 1974-1980. Greenwood Press. p. 65. ISBN0-313-32937-0.
^"Good Times". Superseventies.com. Archived from the original on 20 April 2010. Retrieved 11 April 2010. Excerpt from Bronson, Fred (1988). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits. Billboard Books.
^Epley, Nicholas; Keysar, Boaz; Van Boven, Leaf; Gilovich, Thomas (2004). "Perspective Taking as Egocentric Anchoring and Adjustment". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 87 (3): 333. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.87.3.327. PMID15382983. Participants in this experiment listened to a short segment, in reverse, from the Queen (1980/1991) song, "Another One Bites the Dust" [...]. The chorus of this song has long been used to support the claim that rock and roll bands "backmask" illicit or immoral statements into their music in an attempt to influence listeners [...]. Proponents of this view report being able to hear the phrase "It's fun to smoke marijuana" when the chorus from "Another One Bites the Dust" is played backward.
^Yeoman, Ian (August 2009). "Buy•ology: How everything we believe about why we buy is wrong". Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management. 8 (4): 399–400. doi:10.1057/rpm.2009.3. Queen and the song 'Another one bites the dust', when played backwards yields 'it's fun to smoke marijuana' in a subliminal sort of way.