Favourite Queen Videos

This is the first in a series of five of my favourite Queen promos...

I want to Break Free (1984)

Written by bass player John Deacon and directed by David Mallet. Probably the most notorious - and enjoyable Queen video of them all, this has the quartet in full drag, the most notable exponents being Roger Taylor's mildly disturbing schoolgirl and Freddie's busily Hoovering housewife, complete with obscenely brilliant bristling moustache. The first part of the video parodies the long running UK soap opera Coronation Street, while the second part is a more theatrical affair, Freddie performing a strange dance sequence with members of the Royal Ballet. The cross-dressing parody was well-received in the UK, where the song reached number 3 in the charts, but less so in the USA where it was banned by MTV and only reached number 45 on the Billboard charts. Sometimes British humour doesn't transfer well across the Atalantic...