The official QUEEN website reports:

The Google Doodle celebrating what would have been FREDDIE MERCURY’s 65th birthday was voted 19 in the list of 30 Best Google Doodles of 2011.

In a very rare and extraordinary tribute to Freddie, Google celebrated his 65th birthday by running a very special doodle on its homepage. The 1:30 clip sought to capture the dynamism and diversity of Freddie’s career through an animation that was as colorful and playful as his stage performances.

The quirky tribute was created by Google’s in-house team of illustrators, animators and engineers. It was available for users outside of the US on September 5th, what would have been Freddie’s 65th birthday, and was on Google.com in the US on September 6th as a belated “Happy Birthday” to Freddie since his actual birthday fell on Labor Day.

Watch the full Freddie Mercury Google Doodle below:

On November 25th, legendary Queen guitarist Brian May joined THE DARKNESS on stage at the Hammersmith Apollo in London, England. They performed 'I Believe In A Thing Called Love', 'Bareback', and the Queen classic 'Tie Your Mother Down'. Pro-shot footage of the 'I Believe In A Thing Called Love' performance is available below:

As previously reported, Queen celebrated their 40th anniversary in 2011. As well as re-releasing, remastered versions of their back catalogue they also picked up a number of awards including being named Global Icons at the MTV Europe Awards.

"It really is great to be appreciated and to be part of what is often regarded as a young persons medium," Brian May told BBC's 6 Music .

So where do the band, which is essentially just Brian May and Roger Taylor, go from here?

"Are we Queen? In a sense we are, but in another sense we never can be. We keep getting asked to do things which is great but it's that being Queen thing, I think we'll have to make a film Being Queen, what does it mean? The good thing about it is, we are a sort of open book, we can interact with people when it comes up."

Check out the chat below: