The Disco Loop That Made Queen’s Biggest Hit

On Queen’s eighth album, The Game, the song that would outsell everything else didn’t start with Freddie Mercury. “Another One Bites the Dust” came from bassist John Deacon’s fixation on the Chic rhythm section. The 1980 single hit No.1 in the US—their second—and became what Brian May later called “perhaps our biggest song ever in terms of sales.” It was also the first Queen chart-topper not written by Mercury.

Deacon had been at New York’s Power Station while Chic recorded Risqué, absorbing Bernard Edwards’ bassline on “Good Times.” Inspired, he built a riff and a bare skeleton: “All I had was the line and the bass riff,” Deacon recalled. Back in Munich, he pushed the track through against the band’s instincts. Drummer Roger Taylor rejected its funk feel outright. May was ambivalent. Deacon took control. “He was hell bent on getting what he wants,” May told Total Guitar in 2024. Taylor taped up his drums and played stiff, locked into a loop Deacon designed. Then Deacon laid down the rhythm guitar himself, gripping an E minor chord on the seventh fret. “That very funky style, that’s John. I don’t think I was on it at all to start off with,” May said. His rock licks were added later, but the groove belonged to the bassist.

Michael Jackson, who heard the track during a backstage visit, urged the band to release it. They did, and Deacon’s fixation on a Chic-derived loop turned a reluctant studio experiment into seven million copies sold. The song didn’t just dodge internal skepticism—it reset what a Queen hit could sound like.