Remember when you first realized that “Ice, Ice Baby†had taken its bass line from a far, far superior song. And remember when you listened to that song and, at some point, the bass line seemed like the least important part because of the amazing vocal duel between Freddie Mercury and David Bowie? Well, here is a version of “Under Pressure†that’s been going around the Internet the past few days, stripped of all instrumentals. Open Culture, which resurfaced the two-year-old YouTube clip, quotes from Mark Blake’s book Is This the Real Life?: The Untold Story of Freddie Mercury and Queen in noting that the impromptu session that produced the song was “fueled by wine and cocaine.†Because it was the eighties. (And as a bonus, we’ve included the instrumental-free vocals to “Somebody to Love.â€)
