The Best Bohemian Rhapsody Covers Ever
February 4th, 2008 | 11:45 pmAh, Bohemian Rhapsody. One of those songs that you probably don’t really like and yet you kinda do all at the same time. If you weren’t as blessed by lady luck as I was as a child, chances are your first encounter with this song wasn’t on an audio cassette mistakenly purchased at a car boot sale - “Queen - Live at Wembley” - and you probably didn’t spend many a weekend stood upon a raised bed lip syncing to words you didn’t actually know while your friend chose to batter away at Scatch pads with chopsticks immitating…err…Queen’s drummer (I’m afraid I don’t know his name. I could look it up and claim to know, but I’d be cheating you and I’d be cheating myself. Actually, Wikipedia to the rescue - it’s Roger Taylor.)
So as I was saying, chances are your first encounter with Queen’s operatic opus was probably not the same as mine and if you’re of the same generation (roughly speaking) as I am, a safe bet would be that Mike Myers’ epic Wayne’s World provided your first taste in this scene, courtesy of Youtube:
The song seems to evoke different opinions in different people but always goes down well when covered, it would appear. I was oblivious to the number of different cover versions there have been, but had a lot of fun compiling this list of some covers I enjoyed.
Flaming Lips
Without doubt (in my mind at least) the greatest version of the song, including the original. I’ve got a lot of time for this band…
Newton Faulkner
I’m not a huge fan of this chap, I think he overdoes things a lot. But I liked this version and fair play for one-man-banding it up on a song like this.
California Guitar Trio
These guys are really good, there’s another video where they do Beethoven’s 5th an it’s pretty epic. Nice change to have the song played sans vocals…
UC Men’s Octet
In homage to Andy Bernard, I couldn’t leave out this accapella masterpiece:
N’Harmonics
Undecided on this one, but I’ve included it as they’ve tried to go their own way with it.
Manualist… wtf?
This is one of the weirdest things I’ve ever seen. I pretty much just had to include it, what on earth is going on?
Rick Miller
More a parody than a cover, but I felt it belonged in the list. 25 annoying music industry voices do the ‘rhapsody.
If you know of any other, or better, covers - get in touch.
Fuzzbox (formerly We’ve Got A Fuzzbox…And We’re Going To Use It!) recorded somewhere around 1990 a fantastic a cappella version that, sadly, I can’t find online. Regardless, I still have to plug it because it was life-changing. I shed tears of joy and laughter.
@Eric:
Their name alone thrills me, I’ll have to keep an eye (or ear, as appropriate) out for it…