I Want It All
Encyclopedia
"I Want It All" is a song by English rock
band Queen
, featured on their 1989 twelfth studio album The Miracle. Written by guitarist and backing vocalist Brian May
(but credited to Queen) and produced by David Richards
, the song was released as the lead single
from the album on 2 May 1989. "I Want It All" reached number three on both the UK Singles Chart
and the American Billboard
Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, number 50 on the Billboard Hot 100
chart and number one in other European territories, including Spain, where Los 40 Principales regularly played the song during the month of July 1989.
The song was first played live on 20 April 1992, three years after its release, during The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert
, performed by the three remaining members of Queen, with Roger Daltrey
singing lead vocals and Tony Iommi
playing rhythm guitar. Mercury himself never performed the song live, as he died in November 1991 from AIDS
at the age of 45, and his final performance with Queen was at the end of the Magic Tour, in 1986. The song is sung mainly by Mercury, with May singing on the choruses, and the middle eight.
There are at least two versions of this song. The longer one is the album version, while the shortest one is used in the music video and in the Greatest Hits II compilation. The sample on the top of this article is the beginning from the short version. Compared to the album version, the video version features a different beginning, omitting the acoustic/electric guitar part and the short rhythmic-electric guitar part immediately following. It starts with the band singing the chorus a cappella
, and then, after a 1/8 + 2/4 A5 power chord
, it picks up on the first electric guitar riff by Brian May that follows the short rhythmic guitar part mentioned before. The guitar solo section is different as well: the album version features an extra solo, done at the same tempo
as the rest of the song, just before the faster main solo. Freddie Mercury's vocals after the middle eight are also slightly different and are positioned on the "extra" solo on the album version, and on the main solo on the video version.
and social upheaval. Songwriter May, however, claims that it is about having ambitions and fighting for one's own goals; because of this, the song became an anti-apartheid song in South Africa
and has also been used as a gay rights protest theme and a rallying anthem for African-American youth.
", "reflect[s] on [...] the state of the world in the late '80s," summarising the song stylistically as "heavy rock." Melville
-based newspaper Newsday
mentioned "I Want It All" as one of "The best" of the album, describing it as "colored by May
's rocking guitar rolls and Mercury
's rough-boys vocals." In reviewing the album, The Dallas Morning News
described "I Want It All" in some depth, explaining how it "starts off with a Bowie
sque guitar part, picks up a heavy cargo of steel, quickly lays down the hard line implied by the title, then takes flight along Mr. May's greased fretboard."
. It was directed by David Mallet
. In the Greatest Video Hits 2
DVD audio commentary, Brian May and Roger Taylor recall that Freddie Mercury's health was already quite bad when the video's shooting took place, and it was remarkable that it didn't show up in the video, with Freddie Mercury performing with all the energy he had.
Guitar Hero: Van Halen
.
for the Rock Band
series of music video game
s as part of the 10 song Queen pack on 20 October 2009. It was later re-released on 5 December 2010 with support for the new instruments featured in Rock Band 3
.
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
band Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...
, featured on their 1989 twelfth studio album The Miracle. Written by guitarist and backing vocalist Brian May
Brian May
Brian Harold May, CBE is an English musician and astrophysicist most widely known as the guitarist and a songwriter of the rock band Queen...
(but credited to Queen) and produced by David Richards
David Richards (record producer)
David Richards is an English-born Swiss-based record producer, engineer and musician. In the Mountain Studios in Montreux, owned by the rock band Queen, and in Attalens he engineered and co-produced many albums by Queen, David Bowie and other artists. Richards also played keyboards on some records...
, the song was released as the lead single
Lead single
A lead single is usually the first single released by a musician or a band before the release of its home album.During the era of the grammophone record, all music arrived in the marketplace as what is now termed a single, one potential hit song backed by an additional song of generally less...
from the album on 2 May 1989. "I Want It All" reached number three on both the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
and the American Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks chart, number 50 on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
chart and number one in other European territories, including Spain, where Los 40 Principales regularly played the song during the month of July 1989.
The song was first played live on 20 April 1992, three years after its release, during The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert
The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert
The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert for AIDS Awareness was an open-air concert held on Easter Monday, 20 April 1992 at London's Wembley Stadium, for an audience of 72,000. The concert was produced for television by Ray Burdis and broadcast live on television and radio to 76 countries around the...
, performed by the three remaining members of Queen, with Roger Daltrey
Roger Daltrey
Roger Harry Daltrey, CBE , is an English singer and actor, best known as the founder and lead singer of English rock band The Who. He has maintained a musical career as a solo artist and has also worked in the film industry, acting in a large number of films, theatre and television roles and also...
singing lead vocals and Tony Iommi
Tony Iommi
Anthony Frank "Tony" Iommi is an English guitarist and songwriter best known as the founding member of pioneering heavy metal band Black Sabbath, and its sole continual member through multiple personnel changes.Iommi is widely recognised as one of the most important and influential guitarists in...
playing rhythm guitar. Mercury himself never performed the song live, as he died in November 1991 from AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
at the age of 45, and his final performance with Queen was at the end of the Magic Tour, in 1986. The song is sung mainly by Mercury, with May singing on the choruses, and the middle eight.
There are at least two versions of this song. The longer one is the album version, while the shortest one is used in the music video and in the Greatest Hits II compilation. The sample on the top of this article is the beginning from the short version. Compared to the album version, the video version features a different beginning, omitting the acoustic/electric guitar part and the short rhythmic-electric guitar part immediately following. It starts with the band singing the chorus a cappella
A cappella
A cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
, and then, after a 1/8 + 2/4 A5 power chord
Power chord
In music, a power chord is a chord consisting of only the root note of the chord and the fifth interval, usually played on electric guitar, and typically through an amplification process that imparts distortion...
, it picks up on the first electric guitar riff by Brian May that follows the short rhythmic guitar part mentioned before. The guitar solo section is different as well: the album version features an extra solo, done at the same tempo
Tempo
In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...
as the rest of the song, just before the faster main solo. Freddie Mercury's vocals after the middle eight are also slightly different and are positioned on the "extra" solo on the album version, and on the main solo on the video version.
Background
The song is notably heavy and features themes relating to rebellionRebellion
Rebellion, uprising or insurrection, is a refusal of obedience or order. It may, therefore, be seen as encompassing a range of behaviors aimed at destroying or replacing an established authority such as a government or a head of state...
and social upheaval. Songwriter May, however, claims that it is about having ambitions and fighting for one's own goals; because of this, the song became an anti-apartheid song in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
and has also been used as a gay rights protest theme and a rallying anthem for African-American youth.
Style and reception
In reviewing The Miracle for Allmusic, Greg Prato suggested that the song, like title track "The MiracleThe Miracle (song)
"The Miracle" is the fifth and last single from Queen's 1989 album The Miracle. It was composed by the entire band, though Freddie Mercury was the main driving force. It was released as a single in late November 1989, some six months after the album...
", "reflect[s] on [...] the state of the world in the late '80s," summarising the song stylistically as "heavy rock." Melville
Melville, New York
Melville is a hamlet and census-designated place in the town of Huntington in Suffolk County on Long Island, New York, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, 14,533 people resided there.-Location:...
-based newspaper Newsday
Newsday
Newsday is a daily American newspaper that primarily serves Nassau and Suffolk counties and the New York City borough of Queens on Long Island, although it is sold throughout the New York metropolitan area...
mentioned "I Want It All" as one of "The best" of the album, describing it as "colored by May
Brian May
Brian Harold May, CBE is an English musician and astrophysicist most widely known as the guitarist and a songwriter of the rock band Queen...
's rocking guitar rolls and Mercury
Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury was a British musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist of the rock band Queen. As a performer, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and powerful vocals over a four-octave range...
's rough-boys vocals." In reviewing the album, The Dallas Morning News
The Dallas Morning News
The Dallas Morning News is the major daily newspaper serving the Dallas, Texas area, with a circulation of 264,459 subscribers, the Audit Bureau of Circulations reported in September 2010...
described "I Want It All" in some depth, explaining how it "starts off with a Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
sque guitar part, picks up a heavy cargo of steel, quickly lays down the hard line implied by the title, then takes flight along Mr. May's greased fretboard."
Music video
The music video features the band performing in a studio that used halogen lightingHalogen lamp
A halogen lamp, also known as a tungsten halogen lamp, is an incandescent lamp with a tungsten filament contained within an inert gas and a small amount of a halogen such as iodine or bromine. The chemical halogen cycle redeposits evaporated tungsten back on to the filament, extending the life of...
. It was directed by David Mallet
David Mallet (director)
David Mallet is a British director particularly noted for his work on music videos, including David Bowie's innovative "Ashes to Ashes", Rush's "Distant Early Warning, and Queen's "Radio Ga Ga" and "I Want to Break Free" videos. He has also served as a producer on television programmes including...
. In the Greatest Video Hits 2
Greatest Video Hits 2
Greatest Video Hits 2 is the second DVD of music videos from the English band, Queen. It was released in November 2003, and included video hits of the band between 1982 to 1989. It was at number one in UK, in its first week. It also peaked at number 1 in Ireland. In that same year the DVD was...
DVD audio commentary, Brian May and Roger Taylor recall that Freddie Mercury's health was already quite bad when the video's shooting took place, and it was remarkable that it didn't show up in the video, with Freddie Mercury performing with all the energy he had.
Guitar Hero series
The song is available as a playable track in the 2009 music video gameMusic video game
A music video game, also commonly known as a music game, is a video game where the gameplay is meaningfully and often almost entirely oriented around the player's interactions with a musical score or individual songs...
Guitar Hero: Van Halen
Guitar Hero: Van Halen
Guitar Hero: Van Halen is the third and final band-specific rhythm video game in the Guitar Hero series. As with the previous games Guitar Hero: Aerosmith and Guitar Hero: Metallica, the game features 25 songs from Van Halen along with 19 additional songs from selected artists that have been...
.
Rock Band series
The song was made available as downloadable contentDownloadable content
Downloadable content is official additional content for a video game distributed through the Internet. Downloadable content can be of several types, ranging from a single in-game outfit to an entirely new, extensive storyline, similarly to an expansion pack. As such, DLC may add new game modes,...
for the Rock Band
Rock Band
Rock Band is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. It is the first title in the Rock Band series. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released in the United States on November 20, 2007, while the PlayStation 2 version was...
series of music video game
Music video game
A music video game, also commonly known as a music game, is a video game where the gameplay is meaningfully and often almost entirely oriented around the player's interactions with a musical score or individual songs...
s as part of the 10 song Queen pack on 20 October 2009. It was later re-released on 5 December 2010 with support for the new instruments featured in Rock Band 3
Rock Band 3
Rock Band 3 is a music video game, developed by Harmonix Music Systems. The game was initially published and distributed by MTV Games and Electronic Arts, respectively, with Mad Catz taking over both roles a year later. It is the third main game in the Rock Band series...
.
Chart performance
| Chart (1989) | Peak position |
Total weeks |
|---|---|---|
| Australian Singles Chart | 10 | 12 |
| Austrian Singles Chart | 11 | 14 |
| Canadian Singles Chart | 34 | 13 |
| Dutch Singles Chart | 2 | 14 |
| German Singles Chart | 9 | 17 |
| Irish Singles Chart | 3 | 5 |
| Italian Singles Chart | 4 | ? |
| New Zealand Singles Chart | 3 | 10 |
| Norwegian Singles Chart | 4 | 7 |
| Swedish Singles Chart | 14 | 4 |
| Swiss Singles Chart | 8 | 14 |
| UK Singles Chart | 3 | 7 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 50 | 10 |
| U.S. Mainstream Rock Charts | 3 | ? |