QUEEN & DAVID BOWIE - UNDER PRESSURE

In the summer of 1981, Queen and David Bowie recorded Under Pressure in an impromptu recording session in Montreux, Switzerland. Queen and Bowie were recording music separately in Montreux at the time, and a by-chance run in lead to the idea of working together in the studio. Freddie Mercury had first met David Bowie 12 years earlier when Mercury worked at a boot stall in Kensington Market and fitted a pair of boots for Bowie. The Under Pressure recording session was said to have been somewhat strained as Queen was unaccustomed to having the input of an additional fifth person. Freddie Mercury and David Bowie had very different visions of how the song would go, and how it should be mixed. Mercury was responsible for much of how the song developed musically, and Bowie was primarily responsible for the lyrical development. Due to the song being unplanned, and the busy tour schedules of Queen and Bowie, the highly acclaimed music video for the song was made using a mish-mash of video clips and stock footage. The song was the second #1 hit for Queen, and the third for Bowie. When rapper Vanilla Ice sampled the baseline of Under Pressure for his 1990 hit song Ice Ice Baby he didn't clear or credit the sample, causing a lawsuit that would give songwriting credit and pay royalities to the members of Queen and David Bowie. On his follow-up hit Play That Funky Music, Vanilla Ice was sued again after failing to clear the sample he took from the identically named song by the band Wild Cherry .