Brian May is many things – the guitarist in Queen of course, Britain’s most famous astronomer now that Patrick Moore is dead, animal rights activist and expert in stereoscopic photography. He’s also a solo artist, and in 1992 released his first official solo album (he’d recorded the score to Japanese sci fi series Starfleet in the 1980s) Back to the Light.
It’s probably fair to say that May is rich and contrary enough not to give a single solitary fuck about the passing whims of fashion. This is, after all, a man who has stubbornly stuck to the curly perm despite changing trends and the loss of pigment. And so at the time when grunge was sweeping all before it, laying waste to hair metal bands and heavy metal histrionics, he unleashed the single Resurrection.
I can’t emphasise enough how completely insane this video is. It kicks off with a frenzied swoop through CGI rocks and fire, where we find Bri stood atop a mountain, silk blouse blowing in the wind as he belts out the track and guest drummer Cozy Powell hammers away as though his life depended on it. And then it just gets even madder. Watch out for explosions, fire, interstellar travel, Bri hanging from the side of a cliff, hilariously bad CGI, lava, asteroids, snakes and more. It’s basically all the effects, all the time. Add to this a track that makes the most overblown pomp rockers sound like mumblecore folkies in comparison, and you have a video that pretty much out-metals anything before or since.
Dr May, we doff our cap to you.
