Queen: The Complete Works (115 page)

Despite Brian’s claim that “we’re not a singles group; we don’t stake our reputation on singles and we never have done,” the first collection of Queen’s hits up until 1981 is perhaps the finest compilation of the band’s music that has ever been released. What’s most successful about the package is that all the songs were legitimate singles and selected adhering to the proviso that only singles that had reached the Top 30 be included, with ‘We Will Rock You’ the only B-side admitted, for obvious reasons.

The band had so many different singles in so many different countries that to release a universal compilation of the same tracks worldwide would have been unfair. In the interest of brevity, the following is a list of the songs that were included on other countries’ releases: the live version of ‘Love Of My Life’ was included on versions released in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela instead of ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’; ‘Spread Your Wings’ was included on Belgian and Spanish releases; Australia gained ‘Tie Your Mother Down’ and ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ but lost ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, ‘Save Me’, ‘Now I’m Here’, ‘Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy’, and ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’; Japan obviously received ‘Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)’ instead of ‘Bicycle Race’ and ‘Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy’; ‘Death On Two Legs (Dedicated to.....’ and ‘Sweet Lady’ were (inexplicably) included on Bulgarian issues; and ‘Under Pressure’ was released on versions in Austria, Canada, Germany, Israel and the Netherlands.

It’s interesting to note that this was not the first Queen compilation to be released, although it was the first official, universal compilation. In 1976, a South
Korean anthology appeared titled
The Best Of Queen
and featured several unconnected tracks (only three had been UK singles) from
Queen II
through
A Night At The Opera
(curiously, nothing from the first album was represented): ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Killer Queen’, ‘Some Day One Day’, ‘The March Of The Black Queen’, ‘Tenement Funster’, ‘White Queen (As It Began)’, ‘She Makes Me (Stormtrooper In Stilettoes)’, ‘You’re My Best Friend’, ‘’39’, ‘Death On Two Legs (Dedicated to.....’ and ‘Brighton Rock’. This was then reissued in 1980 with a completely different track listing: ‘White Queen (As It Began)’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘You’re My Best Friend’, ‘Some Day One Day’, ‘The March Of The Black Queen’, ‘Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy’, ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’, ‘Mustapha’, ‘’39’, ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘We Are The Champions’ and ‘God Save The Queen’.

A similarly titled Polish compilation also appeared in 1980, but featured a completely different track listing: ‘Brighton Rock’, ‘Killer Queen’, ‘Now I’m Here’, ‘Somebody To Love’, ‘Tie Your Mother Down’, ‘I’m In Love With My Car’, ‘’39’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’, ‘We Are The Champions’ and ‘We Will Rock You’.

The US version of
Greatest Hits
was, as usual, slightly different from the UK version, though it didn’t offer any of the US-only singles. This version remained the only compilation on the American market until 1992, when the album was completely revamped with a new track listing (see separate entry). In 1994, the album was released with
Greatest Hits II
for the first time in the US, though it wouldn’t be for the last time: those two albums were later issued in November 2000 as part of
The Platinum Collection
, bringing together fifty-one of Queen’s biggest (and, in the case of
Greatest Hits III
, worst) hits ever. Sadly, the original US version was deleted in favour of the arguably superior UK track listing, though the original vinyl release is apparently very collectible.

THE COMPLETE WORKS

EMI QBOX 1, December 1985

The Complete Works
collected Queen’s eleven studio albums and
Live Killers
onto LP for the first time, with a bonus disc of seven previously unavailable A- and B-sides (‘See What A Fool I’ve Been’, ‘A Human Body’, ‘Soul Brother’, ‘I Go Crazy’, ‘Thank God It’s Christmas’ and the then-newly released ‘One Vision’ and ‘Blurred Vision’). Considering Queen’s love of packaging at the time,
The Complete Works
was presented in an exquisite black box with an embossed Queen crest, with each album packaged similarly (except in white sleeves with a gold Roman numeral to indicate which album was which: Queen was ‘I’,
Queen II
was ‘II’,
Sheer Heart Attack
was ‘III’, and so on). The original artwork was presented in one of two booklets, while the other booklet featured a tour itinerary, equipment list for the 1984–1985
Queen Works!
tour, and a discography loaded with errors. To emphasize the “champions of the world” aspect even further, a world map was included, showing where Queen had played; John Deacon was dissatisfied with this extra, arguing that it made the band seem hell-bent on world domination.

QUEEN AT THE BEEB

Band Of Joy BOJLP001, December 1989 [67] Hollywood HR-62005-2, March 1995

‘My Fairy King’ (4’06), ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ (3’48), ‘Doing Alright’ (4’11), ‘Liar’ (6’28), ‘Ogre Battle’ (3’57), ‘Great King Rat’ (5’56), ‘Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll’ (2’00), ‘Son And Daughter’ (7’08)

Musicians:
John Deacon (
bass guitar
), Brian May (
guitars, vocals, piano on ‘Doing Alright’
), Freddie Mercury (
vocals, piano
), Roger Taylor (
drums, percussion, vocals
) Recorded: Langham 1 Studio, February 5, 1973 (
‘My Fairy King’ through ‘Liar’
) and December 3, 1973 (
‘Ogre Battle’ through ‘Son And Daughter’
) Producer: Bernie Andrews

In December 1989, independent label Band Of Joy issued
Queen At The Beeb
, an eight-track disc containing Queen’s first and third BBC radio sessions. The album is a decent collection of material that the band had presented for radio consumption. It’s especially interesting to hear a youthful Freddie (and, occasionally, Roger) mastering the more adventurous of Queen’s early material, but since it’s only eight tracks that barely scrape forty minutes in length, it should be considered as merely a taster for something greater (that never came).

Initially only released in the UK, the album peaked at a disappointing No. 67 for one week before falling out of the charts altogether. In March 1995, Hollywood Records released its own version of the album, titled
Queen At The BBC
, which offered completely new packaging. (The original, a black and white shot of a particularly despondent and worn-out Queen with their eyes either downcast or looking away from the
camera, was replaced by a photograph of the band by Douglas Puddifoot taken at Freddie’s flat in Holland Road sometime in 1973.) While it was rumoured that the entirety of Queen’s radio sessions would be released in 1996, nothing to date has transpired. Some of the previously unreleased material from the sessions has trickled out on the 2011 Universal “deluxe” reissues, with rumors of a complete box set of the sessions and further BBC-related goodies circulating since at least 2008.

GREATEST HITS II

Parlophone PMTV 2, October 1991 [1]

Parlophone CDPMTV 2, October 1991 [1]

‘A Kind Of Magic’ (4’22), ‘Under Pressure’ (3’56), ‘Radio Ga Ga’ (5’43), ‘I Want It All’
(edit)
(4’01), ‘I Want To Break Free’
(edit)
(4’18), ‘Innuendo’ (6’27), ‘It’s A Hard Life’ (4’09), ‘Breakthru’ (4’09), ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’ (4’57), ‘Headlong’ (4’33), ‘The Miracle’ (4’54), ‘I’m Going Slightly Mad’ (4’08), ‘The Invisible Man’ (3’58), ‘Hammer To Fall’
(edit)
(3’40), ‘Friends Will Be Friends’ (4’08), ‘The Show Must Go On’ (4’23), ‘One Vision’
(edit)
(4’02)

Considering Queen’s enormous success between 1981 (when their first greatest hits album was released) and 1991, it was inevitable that a second series would be issued. The result was heralded by fans and critics alike as a fine release, not only because it cropped out all the dross from the intervening ten-year period, but because it was beautifully sequenced, without a track out of place. The compilers were apparently not aiming for completeness though; there are several singles missing, and
Hot Space
is one of the victims. While these omissions are difficult to understand twenty years after the fact, it should be remembered that CD was overtaking vinyl as the primary format, and this medium was still relatively new – and thus relatively expensive, meaning that a double disc with all of Queen’s UK Top Forty singles between 1981 and 1991 would have been pretty costly for the time. Jacky Smith, manager of the Official International Queen Fan Club, mentioned that the band were disappointed that the five UK singles not represented – ‘Back Chat’, ‘Body Language’, ‘Las Palabras De Amor (The Words Of Love)’, ‘Thank God It’s Christmas’, and ‘Scandal’ – couldn’t have been fit on somehow, but that the decision was purely economical and not based on song quality or chart performance.

Additionally, virtually every track on the compilation was edited in some way, although most songs lost only a second or two of running time. Parlophone had initially suggested removing a track entirely, but, because of the seventeen-track rule that the band imposed with their first compilation, the decision to trim some songs down was preferrable. On most tracks, it’s barely noticable; on others, like ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’, ‘The Miracle’ and ‘I’m Going Slightly Mad’, it’s slightly jarring.

Unlike the first compilation, which had multiple running orders and varying songs selected based on the popularity of certain singles in certain countries,
Greatest Hits II
featured a universal track list, meaning that several non-UK singles (‘Calling All Girls’, ‘Pain Is So Close To Pleasure’, ‘One Year Of Love’, ‘Princes Of The Universe’) were missing. Not that it made any difference: the album easily entered the charts at No. 1, and while it nearly slipped out of the Top Ten in the middle of November 1991, Freddie’s death returned it to the top for four consecutive weeks. A bittersweet success indeed.

CLASSIC QUEEN

Hollywood HR-61311-2, March 1992 [4]

‘A Kind Of Magic’ (4’22), ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (5’56), ‘Under Pressure’ (3’56), ‘Hammer To Fall’
(edit)
(3’40), ‘Stone Cold Crazy’ (2’14), ‘One Year Of Love’ (4’28), ‘Radio Ga Ga’ (5’43), ‘I’m Going Slightly Mad’ (4’08), ‘I Want It All’
(edit)
(4’01), ‘Tie Your Mother Down’
(edit)
(3’46), ‘The Miracle’
(edit)
(4’24), ‘These Are The Days Of Our Lives’ (4’15), ‘One Vision’
(edit)
(4’38), ‘Keep Yourself Alive (3’47), ‘Headlong’ (4’33), ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’
(edit)
(4’00), ‘The Show Must Go On’ (4’23)

Since Queen had fallen off the American record-buying public’s radar after the ill-fated
Hot Space
album was issued in 1982, there was little hope for
Greatest Hits II
to be released there: except for ‘Under Pressure’ and ‘Radio Ga Ga’, none of the other singles had performed that well in the charts. Thankfully, the success of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, released posthumously in January 1992, as well as that song’s inclusion in the spring movie hit
Wayne’s World
, helped get the wheels turning for a unique, American-only compilation.
Classic Queen
– not the same package issued as a promo disc in 1989 by Capitol Records, which features a completely different track listing – isn’t strictly a hits
compilation, instead collecting seventeen of Queen’s more radio-friendly US hits as well as some non-singles.

Some of the songs were of doubtful merit: ‘Stone Cold Crazy’ was featured only because Metallica had scored a Grammy award with the song the previous year, and ‘One Year Of Love’ was included because it featured in
Highlander
, then enjoying cult success as a US TV show (though its unofficial theme song, ‘Princes Of The Universe’, would have been a better choice). To its credit though, the album features the proper single mix of ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’, as well as the first appearance on any compilation of the single mix of ‘Tie Your Mother Down’. As with
Greatest Hits II
, most of the songs are edited, though the edit of ‘The Miracle’ is closer to butchery since it completely re-arranges the song, excising the bass-driven introduction.

While
Greatest Hits II
is clearly the superior release as far as a basic introduction to Queen’s reign in the UK charts during their most commercially successful period,
Classic Queen
is a superb taster for fans of what they were up to while Queen were ignoring – and being ignored by – North America. Its peak chart position at No. 4 indicated that Hollywood Records had done a good job of revitalizing Queen’s image, even if it was short-lived.

GREATEST HITS (1992 US)

Hollywood HR-61265-2, September 1992 [11]

‘We Will Rock You’ (2’02), ‘We Are The Champions’ (3’02), ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ (3’37), ‘Killer Queen’ (3’02), ‘Somebody To Love’ (4’58), ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ (4’22), ‘Bicycle Race’ (3’03), ‘You’re My Best Friend’ (2’52), ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ (2’45), ‘Now I’m Here’ (4’15), ‘Play The Game’ (3’32), ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’ (2’50), ‘Body Language’ (4’29), ‘Save Me’ (3’49), ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ (3’31), ‘Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy’ (2’55), ‘I Want To Break Free’
(edit)
(4’20)

Released as a counterpart to
Classic Queen
,
Greatest Hits
isn’t a reissue of the original 1981 album in the strictest sense. While there are similarities to the original fourteen-track version, this release is markedly different and should be considered a completely new project instead of a reissue. The problem is that while the original version contained only fourteen tracks, they were all specifically US hits; the reissue added several tracks that hadn’t even been released as singles in the US. The reason they were included is that three of the tracks – ‘Under Pressure’, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ and ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ – were already released on Classic Queen, leaving only eleven of the original fourteen tracks with which to compile a playlist. Unfortunately, instead of considering US-only singles such as ‘Need Your Loving Tonight’, ‘Liar’, ‘Jealousy’, ‘It’s Late’, ‘Long Away’ or the fast live version of ‘We Will Rock You’, Hollywood Records decided to use ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’, ‘Body Language’, ‘I Want To Break Free’, ‘Now I’m Here’, ‘Save Me’ and ‘Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy’, with the last three songs again unreleased as singles in the US.