Bohemian Rhapsody - Release

Release

When the band wanted to release the single in 1975, various executives suggested to them that, at 5 minutes and 55 seconds, it was too long and would never be a hit. According to producer Roy Thomas Baker, he and the band bypassed this corporate decision by playing the song for Capital Radio DJ Kenny Everett: "we had a reel-to-reel copy but we told him he could only have it if he promised not to play it. 'I won't play it,' he said, winking..." Their plan worked – Everett teased his listeners by playing only parts of the song. Audience demand intensified when Everett played the full song on his show 14 times in two days. Hordes of fans attempted to buy the single the following Monday, only to be told by record stores that it had not yet been released. The same weekend, Paul Drew, who ran the RKO stations in the States, heard the track on Everett's show in London. Drew managed to get a copy of the tape and started to play it in the States, which forced the hand of Queen's USA label, Elektra. In an interview with Sound on Sound, Baker reflects that "it was a strange situation where radio on both sides of the Atlantic was breaking a record that the record companies said would never get airplay!" Eventually the unedited single was released, with "I'm in Love with My Car" as the B-side.

The song became the 1975 UK Christmas number one, holding the top position for nine weeks. "Bohemian Rhapsody" was the first song ever to get to number one twice with the same version, and is also the only single to have been UK Christmas number one twice with the same version. The second was upon its re-release (as a double A-side single with "These Are the Days of Our Lives") in 1991 following Mercury's death, staying at number one for five weeks.

Across the ocean, the song also went to the high reaches of the charts. In the United States, the single was a success (although on a smaller scale than that of the UK release). The original single, released in early 1976, reached number nine on the Billboard Hot 100, while a re-release in 1992 (timed to tie in with the song's appearance in the hit film Wayne's World) hit number two. In a retrospective interview, Anthony DeCurtis from Rolling Stone magazine explains the song's relatively poor performance in the US charts by saying that it's "the quintessential example of the kind of thing that doesn't exactly go over well in America". Its comparatively long chart run of 24 weeks, however, did result in it being listed at number eighteen of the biggest hit singles of 1976 – higher than some No.1s of the year. The single was also certified gold for sales of over one million copies in the US. With the Canadian record-buying public, the single fared better, reaching number one in the RPM national singles chart on 1 May 1976.