Queen is one of the most successful bands in the world, with songs like ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘I Want to Break Free’ in their repertoire.
But while the four-piece, made up of Freddie Mercury, Brian May, John Deacon, and Roger Taylor, found major success in the UK, they never managed find the same amount of adoration in the US. Taking to Reddit’s dedicated ‘Queen’ thread, someone asked: “Why did Queen stop trying in America?”
They wrote: “I was thumbing through an old magazine today, and I saw a photo from Queen’s 1982 press conference in New York. They were the musical guest on Saturday Night Live that year and toured the States with Billy Squier supporting on some dates (what a show!).
“I get it: Hot Space was a relative disappointment at the time, but Queen had recently put two songs high in the charts and were renowned for a great live show, not to mention that back catalogue.
“Then they came to L. A. to record The Works, yet they still didn’t tour. Was there any meaningful promotion of the album here?
“Maybe they just wanted to go lap up the adulation elsewhere. Hard to believe a band that worked so hard to make it in America would throw it away.”
They also posted the iconic photo of the band in America alongside their query – and people had a lot of thoughts about why they didn’t make it in the USA in the way they may have wanted to.
Many thought that Americans just didn’t understand the band and how flamboyant they were. Someone wrote: “They got p***ed when MTV refused to play the video for ‘I Want to Break Free,’ in which they were all cross-dressing.
“Americans didn’t get the joke, and some radio stations even banned the song. It hurt the album’s performance in the U.S. and thus the band’s popularity.”
Someone else said that it wasn’t just down to that though, sharing: “I think it was more than that, I think it was more that America was favouring a heavier rock sound at the time and Queen was more poppy, dance club sounding which was more favoured in Europe.
“I am very sceptical of one music video being behind Queen’s decline in popularity. Additionally, their Hot Space album came out just in time for the ‘disco’s dead’ era, so that didn’t help.”
Another added: “Check out the concert data from the North American Hot Space tour. Only two were sellouts. The album topped off at 22 on the US charts. They went from the Elektra to the Capitol label for The Works. I think that if Hot Space had performed better, they would have toured America post-1982.
“I think members of the band had said that by the time the Break Free video was released (which seemed like the final nail in the coffin for their US audience), the band had become more successful in other parts of the world, which made America less of a priority for them.”
