Vocalist and keyboardist Freddie Mercury was one of the driving forces of Queen, both musically and aesthetically. His contributions to the band included some of their most iconic hits, including “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Don’t Stop Me Now,” and “We Are the Champions,” among many, many others. But as guitarist Brian May would later admit, not all of Mercury’s ideas were top-notch.
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Of course, in hindsight, it’s hard to tell what was a legitimate idea and what was Mercury simply razzing his colleagues and contemporaries. Whatever the case might have been in this instance, Mercury’s idea stayed on the cutting room floor.
Freddie Mercury Had A Tongue-In-Cheek Idea Queen Rejected
When Freddie Mercury brought a new idea to the table for Queen, it was impossible to say what the band could expect. Sometimes, his musical ideas would be an equal blend of whimsy and power, like “Killer Queen.” Other times, they would be vulnerable, heartfelt numbers like “Somebody to Love.” But not every idea was worth keeping, as guitarist Brian May admitted in a March 2025 interview with MOJO magazine. “Freddie’s ideas were off the wall and cheeky and different, and we tended to encourage them,” May said.
However, the band gently rejected one particularly tongue-in-cheek idea that Mercury had involving their next album title. “He came in one day and announced, ‘I’ve got this amazing idea,’” May continued. “You know Michael Jackson has just put out this album called Bad? Well, listen. What do you think about us calling our next album Good? We all looked at each other and said, ‘Well, maybe we should think about it, Freddie.’ It wasn’t one of his world-shattering ideas, but looking back, maybe we were wrong.”
Jackson released Bad in August 1987. His seventh studio album included the hit title track plus “The Way You Make Me Feel,” “Dirty Diana,” and “Smooth Criminal.” Two years later, Queen released their thirteenth studio album. Instead of using the name Good, the band settled on the title The Miracle. That album included well-known songs like the title track, “Breakthru,” and “I Want It All.”
In Hindsight, It Sounds Like The Frontman’s Typical Humor
Although Brian May would later ponder whether they should have given Freddie Mercury’s idea more credence, it sounds like the off-hand suggestion was more of a Mercury-esque joke than a legitimate album title. Mercury’s offer to name their album Good was in direct reference to the objectively humorous idea to name an album Bad, even if it did fit the darker themes of Michael Jackson’s record. Plus, it wouldn’t have been the first time Mercury used a close-but-not-quite version of a name to razz someone else.
In the late 1970s, Queen and the Sex Pistols found themselves in the same recording studio at the same time. Sid Vicious, the punk band’s notorious bassist, came into Queen’s workspace and started poking fun at Mercury’s recent comments about his love of ballet. According to Queen’s roadie Peter Hince (via Far Out Magazine), Mercury calmly approached the bassist, took the intruder by the collar, and asked, “Aren’t you Stanley Ferocious or something?” Mercury later remembered his fake name as “Simon Ferocious.”
The Queen frontman continued, “[Sid] didn’t like it at all. I said, “What are you gonna do about it?’ And he had all these very, well, sort of…he was very well-marked, and I said, ‘Did you really make sure you scratched yourself in the mirror properly today?’ And he hated the fact that I could even speak like that.”
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