Queen axes Fat Bottomed Girls from Greatest Hits: The Truth

While scrolling on Twitter I saw Fat Bottomed Girls trending and I was confused. Why is that trending? Is it a model with a big butt breaking the internet? No, it’s about the Queen song and how Queen decided to remove it from their Greatest Hits album to appease a younger audience, supposedly, according to tweets. As we all know, Twitter is a cesspit and has become even more of one ever since Elon Musk took over and changed its name to X. Just like no one calls the Sears Tower the Willis Tower, no one’s calling Twitter X. One silver lining is that a Community Notes function has been added because of the rampant misinformation being spread so fact checks can appear at a glance – even some ads have received community notes – I remember seeing one for a scam company ripping off a legitimate company’s dress design and taking influencer’s videos about the legit dress and claiming they’re talking about their product. Community Notes has been a source of entertainment for me and I love seeing reactionaries or terminally online people looking like fools because of the fact checks. It’s even more glorious than “ratioing” people.

Anyway, for my purposes as a classic rock writer and commentator, it’s my job to read beyond the headline so I can really understand the story and present the facts to you. Reading beyond the headline is a skill they need to teach more in school and after you finish school, it’s a good practice and keeps you more informed. As we all know, headlines can be worded to be clickbait and are often misleading – leaving out important details that could change your view. Lots of editorialising and dishonest paraphrasing and framing. We all know especially in the UK how reactionary and right wing the press are and those aren’t qualities I want to have.

I found USA Today talking about it and the way they worded it is very different from how tabloids would. Certainly I’m not going to look at The Daily Mail’s take. If you look at the USA Today headline, it says “Queen’s ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ missing from new ‘Greatest Hits’ release aimed at kids“. Not that it was being taken off any repressings or reissues of Greatest Hits. Meanwhile with the Daily Mail, the important detail about it being for kids is buried five paragraphs in and the headline is reactionary and editorialising reading: We will woke you!. For context, Greatest Hits came out in 1981 and originally had 17 tracks.

If you read the article, you’ll find the important details; it was an audio player for kids called Yoto who decided to omit the song, not Queen themselves. They added a disclaimer that reads: Please note that the lyrics in some of these songs contain adult themes, including occasional references to violence and drugs. These are the original and unedited recordings. Whilst no swear words are used parental discretion is advised when playing this content to or around younger children.

Meanwhile a lot of outlets were clickbaity in how they reported the story, not including that it was a kids’ version – that’s a key omission. It’s really just outrage bait and people trying to make a story out of nothing. Old man yells at cloud, nothing new. I swear Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader had a point! A lot of adults would fail reading comprehension.

British commentators reported this as “woke gone mad” (the newfangled “PC gone mad”) and act like this is literally 1984 and omit some key facts about the story. In that tweet linked, you’ll see it was worded as “aimed at young people” rather than “aimed at children” – two different connotations. Young people can mean a lot of things. Young adults – like people in their 20s? Teenagers? Very different from children. Is this just a sneaky way of blaming Gen Z even though it has nothing to do with them?

If you look at the Yoto website, you’ll see that it’s basically like an iPod shuffle for kids with albums stored on cards that you can swap out like a game cartridge. A lot of the photos and videos on the website show preschoolers and primary schoolers using the product. When you look at the different age categories, it’s from ages 0-9. It’s not a product for big kids, teenagers, or young adults. Some of their most popular music cartridges are Disney and Kidz Bop. Queen is the only classic rock band I see on there and ever since Bohemian Rhapsody they’ve been cashing in big time licensing out their name left and right – money is money. I don’t even know how much input Brian May, Roger Taylor, or John Deacon had in this decision to work with Yoto.

I think it’s silly to remove “Fat Bottomed Girls” from Greatest Hits because well it’s not offensive or body shaming and it’s nowhere close to as vulgar as Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” or Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP”, whose music videos took the internet by storm when they came out. If anything, “Fat Bottomed Girls” is quite body positive. However, it isn’t a song for kids and that’s what this whole thing is all about. It’s not PG, closer to PG-13. Is it a weird decision? Yeah, I’d say so because there are other songs with not so wholesome themes on there like the title of “Another One Bites The Dust” referencing death and the lyrics referencing guns, “Killer Queen” references alcohol, “Now I’m Here” talking about having sex with groupies, or “Don’t Stop Me Now” saying “sex machine” in the lyrics. None of these are a big deal in my opinion though – you can’t hide things from kids forever. I wouldn’t have any reservations about parents listening to Queen with their kids. To be honest, I have more of an issue with violence being considered more acceptable than sexual innuendo. Dirty jokes aren’t as bad as violence, but maybe I’ve spent too much time in Europe. Overall, this is very much a non-story and it’s weird to see people getting in a tizzy over it and fearmongering. Heck, they might have just not included “Fat Bottomed Girls” because it was a B-side – it was the B-side to “Bicycle Race”.

At the end of the day, parents can make decisions about what media their children consume. Child protective services aren’t going to take away your kids because you played “Fat Bottomed Girls” in the car. You don’t have to buy the Yoto product if you don’t like it. Your kids can still listen to Spotify or physical media. Entertainers are not babysitters. They never signed up to be role models for kids. Be a responsible parent. Pay attention to what media your kids are consuming and talk to your kids about it.

One more takeaway: always remember that mainstream media has an agenda and I mean on both sides of the political aisle. It’s certainly not to look after the working class and call out corruption in the government and corporations oppressing the people. A lot of these ragebait stories are just distractions from the real issues that materially affect us. Remember to follow the money, think critically, and listen to multiple points of view.

Misinformation and reactionary right wing tabloid faux outrage is dangerous. Look at how Laura Carleton, a California mother of nine was killed by a far right extremist for flying a pride flag at her shop. We are in a dangerous time for LGBT people. We need to fight misinformation and fight against prejudice.

Euronews called out the right wing hysteria and stated the facts very well and if you don’t want to take my word for it, read the article. It’s rational and well written.

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