The song reached number one on the UK Singles Chart, becoming the band's second number-one hit in their home country.
There has been some confusion about who had created the song's bass-line. John Deacon said (in Japanese magazine Music life in 1982) that David Bowie created it. In more recent interviews, Brian May and Roger Taylor credited the bass riff to Deacon. Bowie, on his website, said that the bass-line was already written before he became involved.
The September 2005 edition of online music magazine Stylus singled out the bass-line as the best in popular music history.
In November 2004, Stylus music critic Anthony Miccio commented that "Under Pressure" "is the best song of all time" and described it as Queen's "opus".
In 2012, Slant Magazine listed "Under Pressure" as the 21st best single of the 1980s.