Oh the sheer geniality of this one is beyond anything I've ever seen and hasn't been totally equaled (ok, "Smashing Pumpkins: Tonight, Tonight" gets quite near).
But Mr. David Mallet's video alligned with the spectacular Queen plus Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" as a major influence and basis was of pure delight, fantasy and
uncontrolled paralels. One of Queen's favorite moments both visual and sonorous, "Radio Ga Ga" demonstrated the impact a music video has on audiences, with heavy
rotation on MTV next thing you know is that a whole crowd is doing the "All we hear is...Radio Ga Ga" routine clapping hands while Freddie Mercury commands his
fans and followers. For those moments, he controlled audiences just by doing his magic used in the clip...just like the masters who control the city of "Metropolis".
This whole previous paragraph should be enough to make you watch and rewatch the video. A tribute to one of the greatest sci-fi flicks of all time (another that
wasn't topped yet in terms in becoming a reality since we still don't have flying cars or robots controlling our lives...but soon!), "Radio Ga Ga" is also a nostalgic
view on the power of radio and how someday it would lose space when new technologies surface (Roger Taylor's lyrics are no longer a prediction, it's a stated fact), and also a bitter critique on how the visuals were becoming more
important that what we used to imagine with the power of radio, the first magical media that allowed us to create scenarios through the songs, the plays and soap opera
presented on the radio. Irony of ironies is that the video was so effective in mixing this duality between image and sound yet it become a major thing of which
fans associated the band with. Maybe not entirely an irony, possibly they were proving a theory that was a real fact.
But one may wonder: why "Metropolis" for such a song? Well, the music surely reflects the future just like Lang's movie did with its electronic sounds, a
highly conscious concept - let's not forget that Queen and Giorgio Moroder developed a new soundtrack for "Metropolis" at that same time. It's not just images of the film, Mercury and gang intertwined with the film...there's also room for imagination, actors who play nostalgic
characters who are fond of the past with a radio behind them while looking a nostalgic pictures from the past (which are Queen's old clips like "Bohemian Rhapsody and
others) at the same time they wear gas masks cause the air is unfit to breathe anymore and another nuclear attack may happen at any moment - could it be a nod to the Cold War era and the paranoia of facing a possible fall of an atomic bomb? See, past, present and future are all tied together here, making of it this clip one of Queen's most thoughtful moments along with "Under Pressure". Well, someone here still loves this clip. 10/10
