My Top 100, No. 75: "Barcelona" by Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballe

Not only do I love this song, I love the idea behind it.

In 1988, Freddie Mercury collaborated with Spanish soprano Montserrat Caballe on a theme song for the 1992 Olympics, and the song turned into an eight-song LP, the last Mercury would release before his death in 1991. Because he was writing for and performing with an opera singer, Barcelona took on an operatic feel.

And yet it was never completely operatic, because Mercury was always a rock and roll guy, and couldn't get too far away from his roots. So what we wound up with was a really weird hybrid that's pretty much a collection of standard power ballads thrown together with symphonic orchestration, done over the course of eight songs.
It's not completely unique--I don't know how different Barcelona is from any one of a number of rock operas, but it's absolutely distinctive. The vocals alone--one of the best opera singers of her time with the best rock frontman ever, probably--make sure you never forget that this whole experiment has one foot in two different musical worlds.
And it's not perfect, but it generates the kind of moment you only get through being foolishly ambitious. There's the chorus of "Barcelona," or the choral entrance in "The Golden Boy," or this little transition in "La Japonaise," which is like if you put the first three minutes of the song in a blender with a handful of ice and a sturdy pour of tequila, then crushed it up and tried to drink it through a straw. You really ought to give the whole album a listen if you get the chance.
The whole experiment of Barcelona--which is doing power ballads using orchestral instrumentation--is kind of the opposite of post-rock, which is doing orchestral concepts using rock instrumentation, and above all else, I just love that it occurred to someone to try it.