On this day in 1976, Queen\u2019s \u201cBohemian Rhapsody\u201d was climbing the Billboard Hot 100 \u2014 kicking off a rare chart run that would span multiple decades.<\/p>\n
The track, written by frontman Freddie Mercury<\/a> and released on Halloween<\/a> as the lead single from the band\u2019s A Night at the Opera album, debuted on the chart at No. 81, and eventually climbed into the Top 10 \u2014 marking Queen\u2019s first major breakthrough in the U.S.<\/p>\n \ud83c\udfac SIGN UP for Parade\u2019s Daily newsletter to get the latest pop culture news & celebrity interviews delivered right to your inbox<\/a> \ud83c\udfac<\/p>\n But the chart history was hardly over.<\/p>\n In 1992, \u201cBohemian Rhapsody\u201d surged back onto the charts. Following the death of Mercury in November 1991 and an unforgettable scene in 1992\u2019s Wayne\u2019s World, the song rose all the way to No. 2 on the Billboard<\/a> Hot 100, reintroducing it to a new generation and cementing its play in pop culture.<\/p>\n Related: Science Says This \u201970s Rock Hit Is the Catchiest Song of All Time<\/a><\/p>\n Then, decades later, it happened again.<\/p>\n In 2018, the track found fresh life following the release of the Rami Malek biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. After the film\u2019s premiere, the song became the most-streamed track from the 20th century, surpassing 1.6 billion global streams, per Universal Music Group<\/a>. Today, it has more than 3 billion streams<\/a>.<\/p>\n Looking back on the song\u2019s creation, Mercury once revealed just how unconventional its structure really was. Sharing the origin story of the rock song in a 1984 interview<\/a>, he said, \u201cI basically was writing three songs, and they were going to be different. I just couldn\u2019t finish them, and I just thought, Oh, dammit, I\u2019ll just put the three together.”<\/p>\n Few songs ever return to the charts once \u2014 let alone across three different eras. C’mon No. 4!<\/p>\n Related: 1991 Generational Anthem Ranked \u2018Most Iconic Song Ever\u2019 Debuted 35 Years Ago Today<\/a><\/p>\n This story was originally published by Parade<\/a> on Apr 18, 2026, where it first appeared in the News<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On this day in 1976, Queen\u2019s \u201cBohemian Rhapsody\u201d was climbing the Billboard Hot 100 \u2014 kicking off a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[80016,15586,671,9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":{"0":"post-201776","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-billboard-hot-100","9":"tag-bohemian-rhapsody","10":"tag-freddie-mercury","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-nyc","14":"tag-queens","15":"tag-queens-headlines","16":"tag-queens-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=201776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=201776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=201776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=201776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}