Under Pressure

“Under Pressure” is a 1981 song recorded by Queen and David Bowie. It marked Bowie’s first released collaboration with another recording artist as a performer, and is featured on Queen’s 1982 album Hot Space. The song reached #1 on the UK Singles Chart. It was also number 31 on VH1′s 100 Greatest Songs of the ’80s.

Although very much a joint project, only Queen incorporated the song into their live shows at the time. Bowie chose not to perform the song before an audience until the 1992 Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, when he and Annie Lennox sang it as a duet (backed by the surviving Queen members). However, since Mercury’s death and the Outside tour in 1995, Bowie has performed the song at virtually every one of his live shows, with bassist Gail Ann Dorsey taking Mercury’s vocal part. The song also appeared in setlists from A Reality Tour mounted by Bowie in 2004, when he frequently would dedicate it to Freddie Mercury. Queen + Paul Rodgers have recently performed the song as well. While Bowie was never present for a live performance of the song with Mercury, Roger Taylor instead filled for back-up vocals usually in unison with Mercury as Mercury would take over most of Bowie’s parts.

The song was covered in 2005 by The Used and My Chemical Romance for tsunami relief. The cover was originally released as an Internet download track but has subsequently been featured as a bonus track on the 2005 re-issue of The Used’s album In Love and Death, and received wide airplay in 2005. On the Billboard charts, the single reached number 28 on Modern Rock and Pop 100 charts and number 41 on the Hot 100.

Joss Stone covered Under Pressure for the Killer Queen: A Tribute to Queen in 2005. Stone played the song at the Concert for Diana on July 1, 2007.

The bass line was sampled by Vanilla Ice in his 1989 single “Ice Ice Baby”. In 2010, Irish duo John & Edward recorded a mashup of “Under Pressure” and “Ice Ice Baby” as their debut single, which Vanilla Ice is featured on.”Under Pressure (Ice Ice Baby)” was released in the United Kingdom on January 31, 2010 as a download and as a physical single two weeks later on February 15. Vanilla Ice rapped a part on his own and also with Jedward in the song

source:http://wikipedia.org

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