According to Queen's Roger Taylor, it was a certain Michael Jackson that convinced the band to release 'Another One Bites The Dust' in America.
"We'd already had one number one from that album, 'The Game', and then we had another hit and I remember Michael Jackson saying, 'You guys are mad if you don't release 'Another One Bites the Dust''," reminisced Rog, as quoted here.
"I remember saying, 'That will never be a hit.' How wrong can you be?'"
Pretty wrong apparently given that it reached Number One in America although we expect Roger was speaking rhetorically.
For Brian May, the success was down to a slight misconception about the band: "Apparently most of the DJs playing it thought we were a black group and that Freddie was black."