Musical Montage: Queen and David Bowie “Under Pressure”
One of the most fantastic collaborations of all time, the power of Queen and David Bowie combined in 1981 for “Under Pressure”. The song came about as Queen and Bowie were both at Mountain Studios in Switzerland recording, with Queen working on their album Hot Space while Bowie was working on the vocals for his song “Cat People (Putting Out the Fire)” for the horror movie Cat People. The two pop powerhouses met and collaborated, the result of which was “Under Pressure”. The song hit #1 on the UK singles chart and became Queen’s second #1 in the UK and Bowie’s third. Vanilla Ice infamously sampled the song in the early 90s for his biggest hit, “Ice, Ice Baby”, which he vehemently tried to deny until a lawsuit forced him to acknowledge the sampling. My Chemical Romance and The Used have both performed “Under Pressure” covers, as did Shawn Mendes. For the music video for “Under Pressure”, both Queen and Bowie were unavailable due to touring, so director David Mallet weaved together stock footage, along with footage from the movies Nosferatu, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde and Battleship Potemkin to express the idea of pressure. You can check it out below.
