Queen lead singer Freddie Mercury had a great place in the rock scene thanks to his unforgettable tenure with the band. Also, the frontman was eager to collaborate with other musicians to explore new genres and sounds different than his band. In the past, the late musician even worked with famous Spanish opera singer Montserrat Caballé for an opera album.
Much like Mercury, Michael Jackson is among the most celebrated artists in music history. Defined as the King of Pop, fans would like nothing more than to hear a collaboration between MJ and the Queen frontman. Fortunately for them, the duo worked on a song named ‘There Must Be More to Life Than This,’ which was initially supposed to come out on Mercury’s solo debut album, ‘Mr. Bad Guy’ in 1985.
Freddie Mercury And Michael Jackson Collaborated
Queen initially recorded the song for its tenth album, ‘Hot Space,’ in 1982; however, it failed to make the final version. The song was also recorded as a duet between Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson with two other pieces named ‘State of Shock’ and ‘Victory.’ While ‘State of Shock’ was later reworked with Mick Jagger, ‘Victory’ did not come out.
When Michael Jackson passed away in 2009, Queen guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor came up with an idea to release the three duets of Mercury and Jackson. After they faced difficulties with Michael Jackson’s estate, the pair chose ‘There Must Be More to Life Than This’ to release as the only duet of the two legends. Mercury was on the lead vocal in this song. To the fans’ surprise, Jackson played the piano and co-leading vocals despite Mercury’s fame for being an excellent piano player.
May and Taylor decided to release the song on the band’s compilation album ‘Queen Forever‘ in 2014. In a past conversation, Taylor mentioned that they were happy to release this track but also sad that they could not put out the others. According to Taylor, ‘State of Shock’ was another great song they could not be able to release.
Roger Taylor said in his words:
“I was very pleased we had three new tracks to put on ‘Queen Forever.’ As well as the Michael Jackson track ‘There Must Be More to Life than This,’ there is another song Freddie did with him, called ‘State of Shock,’ with a massive rock sound. But we could only have one track with Michael, which is a great shame.”
You can listen to the song below.
