applause
Well done, Chuck, but I’m betting you pulled that list out of Ur Anus.:dubious:
[And, for pointing it out so rudely I’m probably bound for – well, I’m not Christian, so perhaps a Roman version of Hades?]
At least it won’t be so hot as it was when I flew around the sun. 
—G!
Fly me to the moon…
A freakin’ brilliant member of an amazing little band named Queen. IIRC he passed away some time ago.
I was born in 1983, if it matters.
My Mom used to play A Night at the Opera when I was a kid, and I’ve always been a fan. But lately I’ve been listening to a classic rock station (I do really enjoy classic rock) that plays many of their other tracks. And every time a Queen song comes on I’m just struck by how interesting and unique and good they are. Queen is one of the greatest bands of all time.
I was born in '86 and I grew up listening to Queen. I had Greatest Hits and Classic Queen on cassette. And you better believe I read those liner notes.
Sacha Baron Cohen would be great as Mercury. He’s actually a decent actor; he was great in Hugo. Tall, lanky, good at characterization. Give him an overbite and I think he’d be perfect. I doubt he could sing like him though. Him or anyone.
Lead singer for Queen. Born in Zanzibar to Parsee parents – real name was Farouk Bolkhari (or something similar). Died of complications related to AIDS.
Probably all of these are repeats, but I’ll add for the record that I’m 52 and slightly surprised that so many of your college-educated thirtysomething acquaintances didn’t recognize the name. I’d guess that they’ve each heard – and would recognize – several examples of Mercury’s work even if they don’t realize he was involved in the songs.
I (also a Bob) recognized most of those, but had to plug Brad’s name into Wiki – I’m one of the few people who’s seen Rocky Horror exactly once, but the name sounds “normal” enough that I probably wouldn’t assume it was a joke even if I had been “hip to” the reference. Similarly, there are probably a bunch of Steven Tylers out there, many of whom had the name before that Tallarico dude changed his. Oh, and had I seen a note that “Rick Ocasek” called while I was out, I’d assume I’d soon be talking to a guy who was sick of always being confused for Ric. 
Am I the only one to enjoy the irony of a poster being pedantic about his peers not knowing who Freddie Mercury is, and in the very same sentence implying that he played guitar ?
So, in the interest of fighting ignorance, @OP: Brian May was the one who made his guitar sound like it was about to come. Freddie was the one with the funny teeth.
Another one overbites the dust.
Are you seriously implying Freddie Mercury didn’t play guitar? He wasn’t very good, but he did play… in fact, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, written by Mercury, was written with his limitations in mind so he could play it. If you watch the Live at Wembley concert, Mercury plays guitar on stage. I will happily agree that May did almost all the guitar magic with Queen, but stating that Freddie Mercury didn’t play guitar or didn’t play guitar on any Queen albums is factually incorrect.
Edit: here’s the wiki article on Mercury. Note there is a pic of him on stage playing guitar.
That’s sort of the point. Re-read the OP. “Every two bit hipster who can play only three chords and think they sound like Freddie Mercury” suggests or implies Freddie was really fucking good on his strings. When in reality, well, he could play two, three chords. You know, rythm guitar on a select handful of tunes…
Or, to put it another way: James Hetfield does play quite a bit of backing guitar for Metallica. But when you listen to a 'tallica solo, you know the ones, the ones that do make you feel like picking up a guitar yourself and melt faces with it ? It’s not James you’re hearing. E-VAH.
So saying “every two bit college kid who picks up a guitar, learns two chords and thinks he’s James Hetfield” would be quite accurate indeed. Same for Freddie. Now, if the OP had said “Kurt Cobain” instead of “Freddie Mercury”… 
I think the OP was meaning play 3 chords an sing like Freddie Mercury.
That’s how I read it too.
And I do know who Freddie Mercury was. The first CD I got, sometime in the early 1990s when I was 10 or so, was a Queen album. So where CDs numbers 2 through 25 or so, over the next five or six years. It took me a while to realize that there’s music other than Queen that is worth listening too. I totally missed out on everything else that went on in then 1990s because I was too busy listening to Queen, putting their posters up in my room, buying T-shirts, and watching documentaries about their music over and over. When I was 18 I went to Budapest and one of the things I did there was visit the Nép stadium where Queen played in 1986, one of the few bands to play on the other side of the Iron Curtain in those days.
These days, I hardly ever listen to them anymore. I did go to see Queen and Paul Rodgers, but would not do so again and have no interest in seeing that musical they put out. Not that I hate listening to it, I still enjoy it, and yesterday I listened to their Live Aid performance and loved it. But out of I don’t know how many 1000s of MP3s on my computer, none of them are Queen. I guess I just used up my Queen listening quota in my teenage years.
Bingo. They belt it out, obviously thinking they have vocal talent, which they don’t.
I’ve heard of the guy,since my name here is a song he wrote…not to mention my Queen tattoo.