Most overrated song of all time

I just don't get it. The song sounds good but why is this song treated as though it's the second coming of Jesus? Why do people act like it's the best? I don't understand its popularity. Someone please explain it to me.

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As I posted in another thread earlier, The Who did it better in 1966 with the song A Quick One While He's Away.

Its just as stupid of a thought the second time

People say it's the best because they really like it and it stood the test of time, simple as that. The piano ballad part is great and memorable as fuck, the guitar solo is like the most singable solo ever, the opera part is super entertaining and cheesy (in a good way), the hard rock part pumps you up, and the ending is satisfactory.

Because they were an arena band and their mythos only got bigger once Freddie died.

I don't see you coming up with anything.
Go ahead. Come up with something better. I dare ya!

I like The Who but no

Normie: the song

so you prefer the overplayed to the obscure?

Stairway to Heaven actually desu

One of the most fun songs to drunkenly sing with friends

>not barbie girl

you're right, it's not Barbie Girl

>judging music by how popular it is
retard

>implying

>>>/reddit/

you people are really bad at this

Settle down grampa

>implying I would ever have the courage to have children
don't flatter me user

it's not the best and anyone who says so is an idiot. but it's good melodically, the lyrics are nice and it's fun to drunkenly sing along and larp that you're the kid who's being executed

>anyone who says so is an idiot
time to pack up fellas, the big boys are in town

shit song

sure buddy

what makes it "good"?

wow that's me btfo

i would certainly describe someone who looked at the entire musical world, and picked Bohemian Rhapsody as the best out of that, as an idiot. that doesn't mean it's not good

oh god here we go again
ask your parents or something buddy
or idk perform some harmonic/melodic analysis and discover that B flat going to G minor with a D in the melody sounds nice

why would they be an idiot? because you don't agree with them? you know taste is subjective right?

it's not even remotely the best, hit me baby one more time is even better than that shit.

you didn't really answer the questions but hey, at least now I know that you like Hit Me Baby One More Time

Satisfaction is the most overrated song of all time.
Unless it's Start Me Up

>capitalising each of the words
autism

well yeah you're right but I don't see what that has to do with anything

the most overrated song of all time is probably Don't Stop Believin' if we're being honest

finally we're gettin' somewhere

Queen suffer from the same problem as Genesis, the first half of their career is very different from the second (esp. the singles everyone knows). Leads to misunderstandings and stupid comments although in the mp3 era this is surely less forgivable than when it would cost you money to find out.

Also, weirdly, people seem to place their records a lot later than they actually were and then suggest there isn't much innovative about them. Sheer Heart Attack is 1974, A Night At The Opera is 1975, not 1985.

what are you talking about?

The middle part is so cringe tho

It's a normie irony classic--also sometime referred to as 'camp'. That's all.

any "social" song like this is just so shit

>DUDE IT'S FUN LOL JUST GET DRUNK AND DO KARAOKE WITH THE BOYS LOL

I spend every day of my life in a dark room at my computer

its not even nearly the best queen song

I think I don't get the lyrics

It's not about getting it the lyrics aside from the weird bit in the middle spell out what the song is about, and are a major part of why the song is critically acclaimed. The lyrics directly influence the music rather than a simple verse/chorus structure. As the protagonist becomes more exited the music picks up, etc., and this leads to a piece that stitches together several musical styles but isn't disjointed, they're also pretty emotional at times. to the date the song was published I can't think of many songs that were able to do what I explained above well. And even if there were, it's still fairly rare.

Not every single song switches between styles and breaks the traditional verse chorus structure without sounding terrible and manage to do this in line with the emotion of the protagonist.

>bohemian rhapsody is overrated shi-

t. doesn't know music theory

explain then

me too...

I don't think you'll understand if I told you

*tips*

Well, how much music theory do you understand?

Well explain to me and let's go from there.

Explain what?

This. Probably not even my favorite zeppelin song, but it's still the best song

Literally Wayne's world is the only reason this dog is popular

Bohemian Rhapsody is probably the biggest ever radio and chart triumph of the artistic and "extreme" songwriting across Europe. Don't be fooled: even if it seems fairly logical, one should not explain the incredible chart success (No1 for 9 (+5) weeks in UK) of this (and any) song directly with the undeniable musical values built in it. How then could you explain, say, the only-No11 charting of Bicycle Race, or the No1 charting of tracks like Flat Beat (Oizo, 1999)? Definitely important factors of success were the state-of-the-art promotional video-clip, the heavy airplay, the media-hype, and of course the music that was not just attractive but more extreme in a few respects than any hit song before and ever since.
The piece could not turn the rock-trends upside-down (except in making "modern" video clips), but it still enjoys cultic popularity among "air-guitar" players and bathroom-singers. The US single-market, as so many times in Queen's history, was not too thrilled due to interest in the more dance-oriented singles That's The Way I Like It (KC The Sunshine Band) and Fly Robbin Fly (Silver Convention).

Bohemian Rhapsody is particularly remarkable for several reasons:
-The production was pobably more complex than any hit-record before (read Philipp's article).
-The song covered more styles, including a stylized opera-choir unprecedented on the single-market, maybe also in prog-rock circles.
-The net melody content of the lead melody (see the theory-tutorial for details) is about 165 seconds, which is an all time record among hit-singles. This value is so extremely high (among hit-singles), like a skyscraper in a small town. In the world of progressive music it's not an unprecedented fact, but this genre failed to impress the pop-crowd for some reasons.
- The song is relatively (but not uniquely) long: six minutes.

The band, with their earlier albums (and particularly with songs like "The March Of The Black Queen"), manifested themselves as musical geniuses, and a great effort like this was not very surprising to come, retrospectively looking. Freddie himself had wanted to write a song "like this" for a long time. With its beauty, extremity, and high standard, "Bohemian Rhapsody" represents the whole Opera album perfectly. The composing and recording process took three weeks, and the song went through major changes until the final cut, especially the "opera" section.

Section-wise, the piece is nearly acyclic; in progressive music they call this type of song-chains a "suite". Having said that, Bohemian Rhapsody is relatively short compared to most prog-rock suites. Similarly to "The March Of The Black Queen" but to a much greater extent we can find distant reprises of some sung/played/lyrical phrases and motifs. Only the "Rock" section is kept out of this game. The "Ballad" section is built up from two verses, the only section-repetition in the song.

The arrangement features the classic "Queen combo": electric bass, drums, piano, double-tracked rhythm guitar, multitrack guitar choirs (only in the Outro), multitrack vocal harmonies (sometimes up to six parts), and twelve tracks. Nothing extra except the special percussion gong and the bell-tree ("...down my spine"). John was not given too much freedom for his bass part as he hardly lets his bass-line "walk away" in this particular song.
Freddie was the only composer (including the famous rock-riff); he arranged the vocal harmonies as well. The solo and the guitar harmonies in the Outro must have been arranged by Brian, though. Freddie's affection for opera became apparent here and peaked with the "Barcelona" album in 1988. What particular composer influenced Mecrury is another interesting question.

Let me think.
Anything by queen, really.
Toto - Africa
Journey - Don’t Stop Believing
Starship - We Built This City
Bee Gees - Stayin Alive (their psych pop era was better)
Most Eminem songs.
Anything on the Beatles first 2 albums.
Billy Joel - Piano Man (I love the guy but he’s had much better songs)
Gotye - Somebody I Used To Know

Those are the main ones I can think of off the top of my head.

HEy look, a well thought out, coherent post

Intro
The album version is preceded with a short mysterious multitrack guitar-trill with similar function to the trademark-shots that start big movies and computer games. This trill oscillates between Bm and C#m chords in their first inversion. One possibility is that it comes from the outro of "Good Company".

The "real" intro starts off a-capella: tight harmonies of four parts. The leading part is the second from top, as it is usual in barbershop harmonies. Piano enters in the fifth measure. The harmony during the "easy come..." part is only three-parted, and this is the motif that will show up in the Opera section in both this and an altered form. The intro (without the pre-intro and the pre-verse) is 14 measures long (4+3+2+2+3). The rubato-flavor of the first phrase originates from the syncopations
without rhythmic backing and the 9/8 meter. The latter switches to 4/4 for the second phrase. Except the Spanish guitar section of "Innuendo", this is the only phrase in non-traditional meter in a Queen song.

Beat map of the first phrase:

1 2 3 4 +1 2 3 4 +1 2 3 4 +1 2 3 4 +
**** * ***.-* **** * ********

The basic harmonies:

|Gm7/D| C7 | F7 | Bb |
Bb: vi |V-of-V| V | I |

| Gm7 | Bb7 | Eb |
Bb: vi | I | IV |
Eb: iii | V | I |

| Cm7 | F7 |
Bb: ii | V |

|B Bb A Bb|B Bb A Bb|
.. I .. I .. I .. I

|Eb Bb|Dbdim7 F7| - |
|IV I |iiidim V | - |

the reason is reddit

The first phrase features a chain of fifths root-motion. Note the heavy use of seventh chords here and throghout the section. Second phrase adds piano, measure 6 features pre-downbeat accent (on the word "see") followed by an on-downbeat entrance of a piano motif that is a shortened version of what will close the first Verse, but also will show up in the Outro (both in Eb-major). The lyric line "doesn't really matter (to me)" in modified form will show up both in the Verse ("as if nothing...") and in the Outro ("nothing really..."). The chromatic oscillation around the tonic in the fourth phrase in a modified form (see exactly how) will recur in the "Opera" section ("I see a ..." and "I'm just a ..."). The progression has a vague "IV > I > V > I" flavor created by the cross relations Eb-D and A-Bb. The open ending is nicely resolved by the opening chord of the next section.

"Ballad"-Spacer
It's a twice played one-measure piano arpeggio, the same that starts the Verse and features appoggiatura on the 6th degree. The first Spacer is overlapped by the closing sung phrase of the Intro ("to-o me"). On the downbeat enters the bass guitar.

"Ballad"-Verse
The first Verse is 15 and half measures long. The phrasing is square except last phrase, which features a half measure.

Bb:
| Bb6 | Gm9 | Cm9 | Cm F |
| I | vi | ii | - V |

| Bb6 | Gm9 | Cm* | - |
| I | vi | ii | - |
Eb: vi | - |

Eb:
|Eb Bb/Db| Cm9 | Fm* | Bb |
| I V | vi | ii | V |

half
|Eb Bb/Db| Cm9 Abm | Eb |(Ab...)||Bb...
| I V | vi iv | I |(IV...)||

The harmony is built upon cliches:
1) First phrase features the I > vi > ii > V that is characterized by the chain of fifths root-motion. (See also Love Of My Life and Spread Your Wings). This cliche is spiced up with appogiaturas (the hand-crossing lick, simple but effective), the harmonic rhythm is varied in the last measure, and the "repeat" of the cliche is aborted by another commonplace lick, a line-cliche.
2) This line-cliche (marked with Cm* in the harmony-map) is built upon the Cm chord and a chromatic descending bass-line from C to G (see also Death On Two Legs and The March Of The Black Queen). Similar line-cliche is used in measure 11 with the Fm chord, only the descent is shorter: from F to D.
3) Measure 9 features the I > V > vi progression with scale-wise descending bass. (See also It's A Hard Life and Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy). Omiting the Bb/Db leading chord, the third phrase features the same cliche-progression but in a different key.
4) The last measure features a semichromatic line-cliche with two descending lines combined with a fix note on top. This is the motif that appeared in shortened form in the Intro and will again pop up near the end. Although it's a cliche, you can't often find it in pop-songs in exactly this variant.

Having so many cliches compressed into only one section is unusual. Even the drum follows a cliche-like pattern first. The cliches and the square phrasing are the factors that keep the song in touch with the pop-traditions. On the other hand, we can find some special features: modulation, a half-measure, thickening texture, and quickening harmonic rhythm (last phrase).

So where are you copypasting this from?

Does it make sense to you?
The similarity between the two halves of the section is easy to see: first phrase of the couples has a more or less straight-ahead progression, and the second one is a variant. The closing of this section is very similar to the closing of the verse in Love Of My Life: the last sung word (BR: "...matters", LOML: "...means to ME" ) is overlapped by a half measure piano-arpeggio motif that introduces another piano-phrase. In spite of the basically identical harmonic shape of both halves of the Ballad, the lead tune shows less similarity. Except the "mama" measures, we can find only one pair of variant phrases: "Put a gun against his head", "Didn't mean to make you cry".

We don't have the feeling of a key-shifting going on, partly because the modulation is executed so smoothly that it's hardly detectable (in contrast with the return to Bb). On the other hand, the gravity center of the tune steps up with the key.

The backing arrangement is quite spare in the first Verse: only piano and bass, no guitars or backing vocals. The entrance of drums is held back until the end of the second phrase, exactly where the double tracked rhythm guitars enter; in the second Verse they mostly double the bass-line one octave above. During the solo Brian plays extra fills. Backing vocals enter on the downbeat of the third phrase: solo and antiphonal solo (probably double-tracked each). The latter ("anyway the wind blows") imitates the piano-line. This bit of lyrics will also close the song. Freddie's vocals showchaseexpressive special effects: vibrato and change of tone measure by measure.
The second Verse is different from the first. Starting from the third phrase:

Eb:
/----------- x2 -----------\\
|Eb Bb/Db| Cm9 | Fm* | Bb |
| I V | vi | ii | V |

|Eb Bb/Db| Cm9 | Fm* | Db... (Bbm)|| A
| I V | vi | ii | chromatic || I

I read this in Patrick Bateman's voice

In the fourth phrase the guitar solo starts, backed by the harmony of the third phrase. In the fifth phrase the guitar plays extra counter-melody in the second measure. The last measure continues the chromatic descent of the third one (i.e. F - D), resting for a moment on Db, then reaching A through a dramatic triplet on the downbeat of the next measure that already belongs to the Opera section. The harmony of the last measure is predominantly chromatic-driven, not functional. The closing A-chord is the new tonic of A-major, a key very distant from Eb-major, as you can sense.

The solo itself takes over the leading role from the vocal at its climax. Its tune climbs higher and higher with momentary step-backs while the rhythm guitars play downward figures. Note the short motif appearing in both half of the solo. The solo reaches the peak in the 18th measure, and then descends as the step-backs are longer than the ascending gestures. Long descending scale (with numerous hammer-on / pull-offs) can be found in the 16th measure. Similar soloing approach is applied in songs like It's A Hard Life and You Don't Fool Me. Octave-long ascending Mixolydian scales (here: Bb to Bb' in the key of Eb) are also featured in Bicycle Race.

"Opera"
This is definitely the most extravagant section of the song and a real compositional "tour de force". The much-discussed lyrics are about nothing although we can feel something veyr emotional going on "before our eyes/ears" due to the dramatic choir dialoges/trialoges. Some Italian words and names let the listener associate with the world of (Italian) opera of the 19th century.
The multitrack choir parts sometimes are backed with piano, bass, and drums, the latter two applied during the fortissimo parts only. There the choirs are mixed more stereo as well. This section starts with a double-time feel: the tempo of quarters is doubled up; note the recycled motifs are also played/sung in double velocity.

"Bohemian Rhapsody", a song so catchy, most people probably don't listen to the lyrics. But they should!

From start to "Galileo"
Here we have eight measures (2+4+2). The first two measures present a mini-intro exposing the home-key and the doubled tempo. The abrupt simplification of the arrangement is remeniscent of the intro of Death On Two Legs and the middle break of The Millionaire Waltz, also the intro of The Miracle.

A:
| A | - |
| I | - |

| D A Adim A | D A Adim A | D A D A | Adim A D A |
|.. I ... |.. I ... |.. I ... | ... I ... |

|C#/G# G#7 | C/G E7 || A...
|chromatic... V || I

The second phrase features the variant of the third phrase of the Intro. This time the oscillating harmony (measure 3 and 4) is closer to IV > I > V > I.

Harmonized vocals enter on the 4th beat of measure 4. Note the lack of syncopation. The last phrase adds extra voices in both the low and the high range, and the rhythm section (bass & drums) kicks in.

The harmony of the last phrase has some built-in chromatic cross-relations.

Sketch:

Top: F F# G G# A BTW, Freddie also used to notate his home-arranged
: F D# E E E vocal harmonies in this format (matrix of letters).
: C# C C D C#
Bottom: G# G# G E A

Question dodger.
Where are you copypasting this from?

Besides the five-piece chromatic ascent (six if we add the preceding A chord) in the top vocal part, we can find four more chromatic steps omitting the C-B cross-relation of C > E7 as the latter chord seems to drop the B (5 of E), at least in the vocals. The functional analysis of this chromatic-driven harmony would result in a mess except the V > I closing. Note the lack of minor chords, and the soprano voice added in the last measure.

"Galileo-Figaro-Magnifico"
The metric structure of this subphrase is hard to follow because:
- there's no rhythm track guiding.
- the opening "Galileos" enter on a fourth beat. The strong beats also get some emphasis ("Gali-LE-o"), by a melodic spike.
- the "Magnifico" puts accents off-beat.
- the subsection is four an a half measures long.

beat-map:

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 1
**** **** ******* I'm just ...
**** ***********
***** * **

Arguably we could use different division to measures, but I'm afraid, the disorienting flavor of this phrase cannot be eliminated. The first two measures feature echo/hocket-like vocal arrangement with Roger singing one octave and a fifth above Freddie. They go into harmony in the third measure, very unusual parallel twelves. There's no chord support; the piano only doubles the open fifths. Note that before this sub-section we were in A-major and soon we find ourselves back in Bb-major. In pop-music the normal way for such a modulation is to simply shift the key. Freddie provides something more adventurous this time.
>Question dodger.
Are you talking about yourself?

Answer my question and I'll answer yours.

I asked first you coward.
You dodged mine by asking a question to me instead of answering.

What does it matter? Were you the one who wanted a theory analysis of one of the most complex pop/rock sings in existence?

No. I wasn’t.
Answer the question.

Looking at the pitch-set, Roger's part (five neighbour notes) is moving along the a-minor/C-major scale. The minor flavor is stronger especially when compared to the "mamma mia" phrase yet to come. So the first step was a "weak" modulation to the parallel minor key (granted we can't speak about proper modulation in a scalar enviroment like this) and its relative major. Freddie's part moves along the neighbour scale of the d-minor/F-major key, with a touch of Bb-major as Freddie (cleverly or incidentally) closes his "Figaro" on E-flat instead of E-natural (played by the piano). And here we are again in the key of Bb-major: the "magnificos" create an unusual downward chord build-up on Bbadd6 spiced with alternate panning.

"I'm just... - ...monstrosity"
This six-measure subsection cleverly uses elements heard previously in the song. Note: no syncopation. The lead vocal in the first phrase speaks in first person, and the choir, like it does in ancient Greek tragedies, comments in the third person (see also Somebody To Love).

Bb:
|B Bb A Bb|B Bb A Bb|
| I - | - - |

|Eb/Bb Bb Bbdim Bb|Eb/Bb Bb Bbdim Bb|
|(IV) I ("V") I | I - |

| Ab Eb/G | F7 Bb |
|IV-of-IV IV | V I |

In the first four (2x2) measures we can hear the two already familiar variants of the third phrase of the Intro next to each other. The first two measures repeat the melody of this third phrase, while the first measure takes the lyrics from the second phrase of the Intro. This time the lead vocal is not harmonized, but the piano plays the same chromatic chord progression; the tempo is doubled. The second two measures feature the transposed (A > Bb) progression of the first sung phrase of the "Opera" section ("I see a..."). The recitative fixed note on bottom (Bb) is doubled on the top of the harmony. One of the the inner voices is also octave-harmonized, and each part is sung by more voices (or doubletracked? Read Philipp's article for details!). Note the "vivace" vibrato applied in the voices ("...famiLY"), and the drums and bass' backing.
The last two measures feature a pattern-driven rhythm, a special IV-of-IV chord, a cliche IV > V > I cadenza, and a descending scale in the bass (last measure).

The next subsection is preceded by the same one-measure piano figure (in double time) that we heard at the end of the first Verse.

See now you’re back to dodging the question and derailing the point of the thread in the first place.

>See now you’re back to dodging the question and derailing the point of the thread in the first place.
What do you mean? I'm answering OP

"Easy come... - ...no no no!"
This subsection starts similarly to the previous one,

Bb:
|B Bb A Bb|B Bb A Bb|
| I - | - - |

The following choir part is completly different, though. The rhythm is disorienting to an extent where we can't speak about syncopations at all. Before speaking about measures and phrases, let's look at the beat map first (from "BISmillah"):

4 1 2 3 ? 1 ? ? ? 1 ? ? ? 1 ? ? ? 1 ? ? ? 1 ? ? ? 1 ? ? ? 1 ? ? # ?
* * * * * * * * * *
****** ****** ****** ***** *****_
*** *** *** ***
***********

continued from "never LET me go" at "#".

# 1 ? ? ? 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2
**** * ** *****...
* * * * * * *

The first "no" marks the first more or less clear downbeat. Until this point the downbeats cannot really be located, although retrospectively we can find them: "let me GO" and "WILL you let...", but going back further in the middle part the whole thing is very baffling: off-beat starts and stops, only the Bismillah-s are on beat (save the first Bismillah starting on a fourth beat); some downbeats get no accent. On the other hand the 4/4, 8/4 periodicity is clear to see most of the time throughout the subsection.

The vocal harmonies of the first measures are built upon simple I and V chords (ie. Bb and Eb). Except "let me/him go", the sung phrases are backed with drums, bass, and piano. The harmonies are four- or five-parted, each double-tracked (probably). The Bismillah's are unisono. The "never, never..." (m.7) phrase (stereo floated left to right) follows the pattern: step down, third up. The chord build-up uses the same syncopated rhythm as the first Magnifico-o, but the chord is different: Gb7/Db. The "no-no" harmonies are among the craziest that Freddie ever arranged:

Top: Gb G A B E F G octaves are indicated with '
Middle: D E Gb Ab Bb Db' Eb'
Bottom: B, A, D Db Gb Bb, Eb A7 and Db7 omit their 3rd,
Chords: Bm A7 D Db7 Gb7 Bbm Eb3 Gb7 omit its 5th degree.

Just play each of these parts separately on an instrument! Crazy, isn't it? It's incredible how these three insane tunes go into one nice polished harmony. Also surprising is that each chord of the harmony is in root position. The bottom part is doubled by the bass and oscillates. Note that the middle and the top parts cross at the 5th beat.This harmony is non-functional, but it's not driven by a straight chromatic line, either, like we saw in the "thunderbolt" harmony. On the other hand, the middle part is dominated by successive whole steps playing major role in the unusual feel. The Bbm chord deceptively sounds like it had a major third (D instead of Db) giving the last two chords a flavor of V > I progression similarly to "frightening me". Indeed the Eb chord turns out to be the new tonic.

This is pretty interesting, Brian talks through the backing track.
There have been a very breakdowns like this for different documentaries (often by Brian May) but this is the most informative I think.
youtube.com/watch?v=TDIfVWIJR7w

"Mamma mia" - end of Opera section
The "Mamma mia let me go" motif is familiar: it's the major variant of the "Galileo" with different arrangement and in different key (Eb-major), Note Freddie's rough voice here.
The three-eight upbeat is very disorienting, but the melodic peak (mammaMIa) marks the downbeats, like we saw with the Galileos. The "let me go" part is harmonized. One of the parts goes againts the descent, and the following "Beelzebub" phrase also has some walking tones among the six parts (twelve voices, as Roger mentioned in an interview). The harmony features an unusual tritone leap (Ab > D), strict root-following bassline, and a chromatically ascending middle voice:

Eb:
| Eb | Eb Bb |
| I | - V |

middle
voice: G Ab A Bb
| Eb Ab | D Gm | Bb7 | - | - |
| I IV |V-of-iii iii| V | - | - |

The dramatic climax is articulated by the ascending-desending lead part, and the rhythm guitars fading in. The sustained dominant seventh chord and the crescendo drum figure raise the tension that explodes on the downbeat of the next coming "Rock" section. Again, simple but most effective. Note Roger hits the high Bb note, in close contest it is the highest sung note in the Queen-catalog.
The drum part changes the meter to triplet driven 4/4 (12/8).

"Rock"
The intro-riff subsection is four measures long (phrasing: 2+2 AA'). Double-tracked guitars and bass play the tune and somewhere in the background piano provides backing chords.

Eb:
| Eb | Eb | Eb | F |
| I | I | I |V-of-V|

The rhythm of the riff features triplets (more accurately: hemiolas) in sympathy with the soon to enter lead vocal. Hemiolas dominate the lead vocal throughout the Rock section and create a strong feel of a 6/4 meter, while the drums play a steady 4/4 backbeat. This is an example, although not a great one, of polyrhythm (see also "The March Of The Black Queen"), where the "common denominator" (12/8 beats) is present.
The fourth measure is the shifted version of the second measure. The closing V-of-V chord and the much air-time given to the Bb chord create a feel of modulating to the key of Bb-major for the next phrases, but note the b7th appoggiatura in the lead vocal with a modal flavor in context of Bb-major key.
The "body" of the section (with lead vocal) is 12.5 measures (3.5+3+4+3) long with AA'BC phrasing where the B segment has an AA' (2+2) inner structure.
The guitars play mostly power chords (i.e. no thirds), but the piano or the lead vocal (like in the third phrase) makes it clear whether we have a major or a minor chord. The guitar figures that fill the space between the sung phrases (and half-phrases) seem to be in the hemiola-driven 6/4 meter.

half
| Bb | Bb Eb | Bb | Db* | The Db* chord is articluated by a triadic
Eb: V | V I | V |bVII | figure and emphasized stop on the root.
Bb: I | I IV | I |bIII |

| Bb | Bb Eb | Ab |
Eb: V | V I | IV |
Bb: I | I IV |bVII...

Eb:
| Fm | Bb | Fm | Bb |
| ii | V | ii | V |

| Fm Bb | Fm Bb | intro riff
| ii V | ii V | I...

wtf I love bohemian rhapsody now

Queenhaters getting REKT itt

topkek