The voice
Freddie Mercury was famous for having an overbite, which despite his having earned millions of dollars he refused to have corrected. The overbite was caused by his having four extra teeth in his upper jaw, which pushed his incisors forward. Mercury believed that the extra teeth contributed to the uniqueness of his voice, and feared that if he had them removed it would damage the tremolo effect he was able to achieve when singing.
His range is often reported as having been four octaves, but this is an exaggeration, according to a research team which studied his recordings and was only able to confirm a range of just over three. His natural speaking voice was a baritone, but the majority of his songs were performed in the tenor range. He managed a technique known as coloratura with ease, adding trills, vocal runs, and tremolo which rivaled those of opera singers. It was the coloratura he ascribed, in part, to the additional teeth.
Montserrat Caballe recorded a duet with Freddie Mercury titled Barcelona in 1987. The Spanish opera singer, a soprano, called Mercury’s voice and technique, “astonishing”. Roger Daltrey of the British band The Who, said that Mercury was the “best virtuoso singer of all time.” Dave Grohl said that he considered Freddie Mercury, “the greatest front man of all time.” Harry Connick Jr. said of Mercury’s singing, “He had just silly ability.”
He used that ability in a range of styles which ranged from snarling, hard driving rock and roll to operatic arias, sometimes, as in the case of Bohemian Rhapsody, within the structure of the same song. Mercury claimed to be able to barely read music, despite some formal piano training, and presented his songs to the band through demonstration rather than on paper. Most of his musical writing was done on the piano or other keyboards, though he occasionally wrote for the guitar.
With Queen, the band used complex harmonies, melding Freddie’s voice with those of the other band members to create a shimmering sound, with multilayered guitar tracks and other instrumentation, including synthesizers in the band’s later days. Mercury also recorded two solo albums, and several solo singles over the course of his career. His solo work never reached the level of success as his recordings with Queen.