Queen's 1975 classic “Bohemian Rhapsody” has surpassed two-billion streams on Spotify. According to Loudwire, “Spotify, which was founded by the Swedish entrepreneurs Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon in 2006, initially launched in the U.S. in 2011. That means it took over a decade for 'Bohemian Rhapsody' to reach the two-billion mark on the streaming service.”
“Bohemian Rhapsody” was written by Freddie Mercury and was released as a single on October 31st, 1975 — nearly a month before Queen's fourth album, A Night At The Opera.
The single, which topped the UK charts, peaked at Number Nine on the Billboard Hot 100 and hit Number Six on the competing Cash Box singles list.
A Night At The Opera topped the British album charts and hit Number Four on the Billboard 200.
In 1977 Freddie Mercury shed light on how and why Queen decided to break new ground and go against the grain by issuing “Bohemian Rhapsody” as a single: “What we, I think, try and do is, with each album, try and work out where our music is at at the current, given time, and try and showcase it in, say, one single. With A Night At The Opera, we just felt that 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was the song that would say what we're doing at the given time. So we, sort of chose that. Obviously we came across certain barriers, like, it being six minutes long — or whatever.”