The Works (Queen album) 19 November 1984, and promotional copies were indeed pressed ("QUEEN 5") and sent out (b/w "Keep Passing the Open Windows"), but the band opted for a Christmas single ("Thank God It's Christmas"). The fifth track on "The Works", "Machines (Or 'Back to Humans')", came about as an idea by Taylor, and May collaborated with him and finished it. Producer Reinhold Mack programmed the synth-"demolition" using a Fairlight CMI II Sampler, and the song is sung as a duet between a double-tracked Mercury (singing in harmony with himself), and a robotic Taylor (using a Roland VP330 Vocoder). The instrumental remix of
Christmas music relatively popular in the UK and Ireland, it remains largely overshadowed by a collection of chart hits recorded in a bid to be crowned the UK Christmas number one single during the 1970s and 1980s. Band Aid's 1984 song "Do They Know It's Christmas?" is the second best selling single in UK Chart history. The 1987 single "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues, a rock band from London, is regularly voted the British public's favourite ever Christmas song, and it is also the most-played Christmas song of the 21st century in the UK. British glam rock bands had major