The Sound of the Studio

Mercury's gift was not only range but emotional texture: tenderness in his lower register, explosive power up high, and an operatic vibrato that could shift from delicate to ferocious mid-phrase.

In the studio he stacked that voice on itself. With bandmates Brian May and Roger Taylor, he layered dozens of harmony tracks to build the wall of vocals on songs like "Somebody to Love" and "Bohemian Rhapsody." The result sounded less like a single singer and more like a full choir conjured from three voices.