Spotify users love “Somebody To Love.” Queen’s 1976 hit has joined the Spotify Billions Club, having racked up more than 1 billion streams on the platform.
“Somebody To Love” is the rock legends’ seventh song to reach the billion streams milestone on Spotify. Previous Queen entries in the Billions Club include “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Another One Bites the Dust,” “Don’t Stop Me Now,” “Under Pressure,” “We Will Rock You,” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”
Freddie Mercury and the gang recorded “Somebody To Love” for their fifth album, A Day At the Races. It was released as the album’s lead single in November 1976, about a month ahead of the album’s release on Dec. 10, 1976. At the time, the track reached No. 2 on the UK singles chart and No. 13 on the US Hot 100. It has since been certified 2x Platinum in the UK and 5x Platinum in the US.
In an instance of Queen’s ability to conjure the illusion of an entire army of music-makers, “Somebody To Love” features a choir built entirely from the multi-tracked voices of lead singer Mercury, guitarist Brian May, and drummer Roger Taylor. Bassist John Deacon, the only member of the band who doesn’t sing on “Somebody To Love,” praised it years later in Bass Player magazine, noting that it proved “Queen could swing as hard as it could rock, by channeling the spirit of gospel music.”
Thanks to a legacy that stretches back more than half a century and a renaissance in public interest sparked by the Oscar-winning 2018 biopic Bohemian Rhapsody, Queen are not only one of the most successful rock bands in history; they’re also one of the biggest classic rock success stories of the streaming era. The band’s Greatest Hits has been a fixture of the Billboard 200 albums chart in recent years, largely thanks to their massive streaming audience.
A Day At The Races can be bought here.
