“Bohemian Rhapsody” Becomes YouTube’s Most-Viewed Music Video From The ‘70s Ahead Of Queen Biopic

Ahead of the release of a biopic today about storied British rock band Queen, the group’s hit single, “Bohemian Rhapsody,” is spiking on YouTube.

Given buzz surrounding the film, the music video for “Bohemian Rhapsody” (below) has re-entered YouTube’s recently-launched music charts and become the platform’s most-viewed music video from the ’70s — with 671 million views and counting. Over the last week, the video has averaged 1 million views per day, peaking at an all-time daily high of 1.46 million views. The clip has also helped boost Queen’s YouTube channel subscribership by 250,000 in the month of October alone. The channel currently counts 5.6 million subscribers.

“Bohemian Rhapsody” has entered YouTube’s U.S. Top Songs

chart this week at No. 82, and Queen is at No. 7 on the YouTube Top Artists chart — which tracks popular artists globally. And while viewership of the group’s channel over the past year primarily derives from the U.S. (221 million views), the group also counts a sizable following in Mexico (181 million views), Brazil (89.3 million views), the U.K. (55.4 million views), and Argentina (54.7 million views).

Bohenmian Rhapsody (the film) stars Rami Malek as Queen’s iconic lead singer, Freddie Mercury, who revolutionized pop music with his flamboyant stage persona and four-octave vocal range. Mercury died of AIDS in 1991.