You may remember Detroit jokerockers Electric Six from "Danger! High Voltage" fame, with special guest Jack White. Well, now they've apparently taken the late Freddie Mercury to a gay bar.
When the original version of "Radio Gaga" was released in 1984 (on the album The Works), Queen was already far past their expiration date. The album The Game (1980) was a blockbuster success in the US, with crossover hit "Another One Bites The Dust" topping every chart that year; it was danceable and funky enough for disco and R&B fans, poppy enough for the Hot 100, with enough badass swagger for the rock chart. Think of it as a latter day Gnarls Barkley "Crazy", or as I like to call it, The Song That Kickstarted "Weird" Al Yankovic's Career. Beyond that the album showed signs of versatility, with the rockabilly-tinged "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", and "Save Me", which may have been the precursor to the metal power ballad.
Queen had a difficult time following it up, and released the plodding Hot Space in 1982 (with the Queen/David Bowie classic single "Under Pressure" tacked onto it), and never really recovered. The ponderous Radio Gaga (to this day, I have no idea what it's about, exactly) was pretty much the end of Queen's chart success in the US, a song/video combo as cliched and useless as "Mr. Roboto".
Which brings us to Electric Six dusting it off and rerecording it in 2006. I can't imagine anyone would listen to this and actually enjoy it, in a non-ironic way. This song would be a fun song to cover in concert, which would get some knowing chuckles from music fans in the crowd, but it's a pretty bad idea for a single release. However the video, ostensibly a "tribute" to Freddie Mercury (nee Farrokh Bulsara), more than makes up for it. Fake mustache? Novelty teeth? Ghost poodles? Sign me up! Someone still loves you, Freddie.
Electric 6 - Radio Gaga [YouTube]
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