Under Pressure: Listen to David Bowie and Freddie Mercury's isolated vocals


"Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie was released in October of 1981 and immediately became a breakout record.

The song became the British rock band's second number-one hit in England and Bowie's third number-one in the United Kingdom. It would later go on to become a legendary track for people everywhere and the catchy beat would be sampled in Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby."

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But one recording by the famed British artists didn't hit mainstream airwaves – an a cappella version of the track.

In the recording, Bowie and Freddie Mercury, Queen's lead vocalist and also the group member who's been credited as the song's primary songwriter, peel away loud instrumentation to reveal their strong and distinct voices.
The isolated vocals from “Under Pressure” were uploaded to YouTube in 2011 and rediscovered by Open Culture in 2013.

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Queen drummer Roger Taylor told Mark Blake, author of Queen biography "Is This the Real Life?: The Untold Story of Freddie Mercury and Queen," that Bowie and the group ran into each other at a studio in Switzerland, where they had both scheduled time to record the title song for the movie "Cat People."

“David came in one night and we were playing other people’s songs for fun, just jamming,” Taylor told Blake. “In the end, David said, ‘This is stupid, why don’t we just write one?'” 
Blake said they collaborated for nearly 24 hours in a wine-and-cocaine-fueled session that ultimately produced "Under Pressure."

"We felt our way through a backing track all together as an ensemble,” Brian May, Queen guitarist, said of the night. “When the backing track was done, David said, ‘Okay, let’s each of us go in the vocal booth and sing how we think the melody should go — just off the top of our heads — and we’ll compile a vocal out of that.’ And that’s what we did.”

"Bowie also insisted that he and Mercury shouldn’t hear what the other had sung, swapping verses blind, which helped give the song its cut-and-paste feel," Blake wrote.

Listen to the isolated vocals and the original track below.

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