“Radio Ga Ga” by Queen

"Radio Ga Ga" was Roger Taylor's moment. The drummer wrote it alone, and in 1984 it became the first song credited solely to him to be chosen as a Queen A-side in Britain, with Brian May's "I Go Crazy" on the flip; it also opens The Works. Taylor drives it with drum machine and vocoder, Fred Mandel adds synthesizers, and Freddie Mercury takes it to the rafters, all in service of a wistful defense of radio itself.

It went to number one in 19 countries and became a fixture of Queen's shows from 1984 until their last concert with Mercury in 1986, Live Aid in 1985 included. The video borrowed footage from the 1927 silent film Metropolis and earned an MTV Video Music Award nomination.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.