Queen: The Complete Works (118 page)

At least in other bands’ cases, informative liner notes were included so as to give the listener some background on the songs and their respective chart histories. Yet for some reason – presumably to cut costs – no booklets were provided, with only a single line of information printed on the rear of every sleeve. When lined up against similar releases by other bands, Queen’s own
Singles Collection
boxes are appallingly shoddy and half-arsed.

But how about some positives? Well, the sound has been vastly improved, with impressive results, providing a preliminary glimpse into what would be released in 2011, to celebrate Queen’s fortieth anniversary. Also, a handful of rare B-sides and single mixes have finally been released, including the leaner remix of ‘Back Chat’ and the drastically rearranged ‘Pain Is So Close To Pleasure’, as well as the first appearance on CD of ‘A Human Body’. The single sleeves, too, are impressive, with picture sleeves from other countries being used when UK and US releases instead used generic record company bags. But this is all small potatoes compared to the glaring and downright offensive display of apathy in regards to this product; where Queen once paved the way and were pioneers with their quality control, here they fall victim to ideas put forward by everyone else, complacent in shifting units instead of making statements. The original ten-disc set would have been something to have gotten worked up over, but the fifty-two discs released instead are, quite simply, an abomination.

ABSOLUTE GREATEST

Parlophone 50999 686643 2 9, November 2009 [3] Hollywood Records 050087154790, November 2009 [195]

‘We Will Rock You’ (2’02), ‘We Are The Champions’ (3’01), ‘Radio Ga Ga’ (5’48), ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ (3’34), ‘I Want It All’
(single version)
(4’00), ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ (2’44), ‘A Kind Of Magic’ (4’22), ‘Under Pressure’ (4’06), ‘One Vision’
(single version)
(3’58), ‘You’re My Best Friend’ (2’52), ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ (3’31), ‘Killer Queen’ (2’58), ‘These Are The Days Of Our Lives’ (4’16), ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’
(edit)
(4’55), ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’ (2’44), ‘Heaven For Everyone’
(single version)
(4’37), ‘Somebody To Love’ (4’48), ‘I Want To Break Free’
(single version)
(4’22), ‘The Show Must Go On’ (4’27), ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (5’56)

Bonus disc, live performances:
‘White Queen (As It Began)’
(Rainbow Theatre, November 1974)
, ‘Killer Queen’ and ‘You Take My Breath Away’
(Earl’s Court Arena, June 1977)
, ‘The Millionaire Waltz’ and ‘My Melancholy Blues’
(The Summit, December 1977)
, ‘Dreamers Ball’
(Pavilion de Paris, March 1979)
, ‘We Will Rock You’
(fast)
and ‘Let Me Entertain You’
(Nippon Budokan, May 1979)
, ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ and ‘Now I’m Here’
(Hammersmith Odeon, December 1979)
, ‘Save Me’
(Montreal Forum, November 1981)
, ‘Somebody To Love’
(Milton Keynes Bowl, June 1982)
, ‘Tie Your Mother Down’ and ‘Love Of My Life’
(Rock In Rio Festival, January 1985)
, ‘One Vision’, ‘In The Lap Of The Gods ... Revisited’ and ‘We Are The Champions’
(Wembley Stadium, July 1986)
, ‘We Will Rock You’
(Nepstadion, July 1986)

Ever since the release of
Greatest Hits
in 1981, Queen’s compilations have been thorough examinations of particular periods of time, highlighting the successful singles while leaving the deeper album cuts to be explored by more adventurous music aficionados. And that’s precisely the problem with the more commercial side of Queen: while the likes of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘I Want To Break Free’, and ‘A Kind Of Magic’ may indeed be the most popular selections to the average punter, there are loads of other songs in Queen’s catalogue that are worth further exploration. Yet, to try to sell a disc of deeper cuts would be difficult (but not impossible), which is why Queen’s singles are consistently rehashed and repackaged in different permutations, with a new cover thrown on for good measure. The music is the same, but it’s familiar and comfortable to millions.

What is interesting, though, is that there hasn’t been a single disc release that collects all of Queen’s most popular singles and so, with the clock ticking on Queen’s association with EMI/Parlophone, their record company proposed such a concept and was met with overwhelming approval. So while
The Singles Collection
plodded on pointlessly, with four disappointing boxes featuring too many rare tracks for the curious listener who heard ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ on the radio and wanted to explore the hits further, yet featuring too few rare tracks for the hardcore fan who wants it all in one convenient package, Parlophone collected twenty tracks from Queen’s past, starting with ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’ in 1974 and finishing up with ‘Heaven For Everyone’ twenty-one years later.

In order to preserve some kind of interest for the fans,
Queenonline.com
ran a competition, where the one fan who correctly guessed the track list would be rewarded with a copy of the compilation. (Oh, joy!) Far more substantial was the multitude of formats the album was available:
Absolute Greatest
was released on both single and double disc formats, as well as a fifty-two-page book (with the two discs), digital download, and on 12” vinyl. The second disc was hinted at online as featuring something truly unique, and while fans salivated over the thought of some non-hits being included, maybe even with a previously unreleased song or two, the reality wasn’t as exciting: Brian and Roger recorded a commentary track where each song was explained and stories told, but where audio commentary on a DVD is engaging for the viewer, audio commentary on a CD isn’t. It doesn’t help, either, that Brian and Roger are telling the same stories that have already been told, with the only exceptions being for the
Innuendo
and
Made In Heaven
tracks. But nothing new or particularly noteworthy is revealed, and as a bonus for fans, it’s a cheap reward. Far more worthy were both the book, which featured printed lyrics (and, in some cases, the original handwritten lyrics) and rare photos, and additional content on the second disc: when inserted into a computer with internet access, the listener was able to stream rare live videos from over the years, starting with ‘White Queen (As It Began)’ from the Rainbow all the way to ‘We Will Rock You’ from Budapest. Why the audio equivalent couldn’t have been included instead of the commentary disc is just baffling.

But
Absolute Greatest
did the trick; upon its release in November 2009, just in time for the highly-lucrative Christmas market, the compilation rocketed up to No. 3 in the UK, achieving double platinum status. Throughout the rest of the world,
Absolute Greatest
reached the Top Forty, except for North America, where it just barely made the charts at No. 195. Considering Hollywood Records’ apparent disinterest in their own client, the fact that
Absolute Greatest
was even released speaks volumes; that it somehow managed to chart is a miracle.

DEEP CUTS, VOLUME 1

Universal/Island Records 276 542-4, March 2011

‘Ogre Battle’
(stand-alone edit)
(4’12), ‘Stone Cold Crazy’ (2’16), ‘My Fairy King’ (4’09), ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ (3’05), ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ (3’48), ‘Long Away’ (3’33), ‘The Millionaire Waltz’ (4’56), ‘’39’ (3’30), ‘Tenement Funster’ (2’47), ‘Flick Of The Wrist’ (3’17), ‘Lily Of The Valley’ (1’45), ‘Good Company’ (3’23), ‘The March Of The Black Queen’
(stand-alone edit)
(6’35), ‘In The Lap Of The Gods ... Revisited’ (3’45)

Leave it to a new record label to finally give the fans something they’ve been yearning after for years. Since EMI (and, to a similar extent, Queen Productions) suffered from the misunderstanding that the only Queen songs that matter were the ones that made the charts, Universal Records proposed a concept that iTunes implemented shortly after its popularity exploded: release a single-disc compilation of some of the deeper cuts from Queen’s extensive catalogue. With a running order picked by Brian, Roger and Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, the depths
of Queen’s first five albums are presented in a lavish package, with a previously unseen live photo of the band from 1975 ensuring maximum attention.

The directive was simple: include only fan favourites and no hits. The selected tracks are a superb cross-section of Queen’s early years, but, as ever, omissions had to be made, and fans would inevitably cry foul at the exclusions of their favourite songs. However, with a sparse running time of fifty minutes, why ‘You And I’ and ‘White Queen (As It Began)’ – by far the most popular non-hits of Queen’s early albums – couldn’t have been added is an appalling oversight. (Hawkins, to his credit, later expressed surprise that they weren’t there, indicating that they were certainly on his list.) Indeed, John Deacon’s songwriting is unrepresented here, and considering his late-blooming status as a writer, this isn’t too surprising; but ‘You And I’ has been continuously name-checked by fans on Queen’s official website as the quintessential Deacon song. Additionally, ‘White Queen (As It Began)’ is an early example of Brian’s mournful lyricism, a perfect counterpart to Freddie’s more lugubrious Side Black on
Queen II
.

The trifecta of ‘Tenement Funster’, ‘Flick Of The Wrist’, and ‘Lily Of The Valley’ was a superb choice – but considering the single edit versions that had been released on
The Singles Collection
in 2009, these edits would have been more enticing on a general public release, instead of as presented on the album. Speaking of stand-alone edits, ‘Ogre Battle’ and ‘The March Of The Black Queen’ are presented in unique versions, both with mixed results: the former featured only a gradual fade into ‘The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke’, so to call this a “stand-alone edit” is tenuous at best; but the latter is awkward, with the last chorus “ahhh” presented a cappella, the opening strains of ‘Funny How Love Is’ stripped away and sounding strange and incomplete. (The author acknowledges that ‘Funny How Love Is’ isn’t a favourite song among fans, hence its exclusion, and having a clean edit of Freddie’s magnum opus from
Queen II
is appealing, but the mix sounds unfinished and rushed, and would have benefited from an additional chord into a fade out. Then again, the author isn’t a sound engineer, so what does he know?)

Minor complaints aside,
Deep Cuts, Volume 1
is a good collection of Queen’s early material, and, apart from the inexplicable inclusion of ‘Keep Yourself Alive’, itself a single (the 1975 re-take would have been a better choice), is a worthy taster beyond the well-known material. While die-hard fans are encouraged to just make their own mixes, for a starting point to the average fan who has the three
Greatest Hits
and maybe
A Night At The Opera
and wants to know more without investing too much cash,
Deep Cuts, Volume 1
is a good starting point.

DEEP CUTS, VOLUME 2

Universal/Island Records 277 178-2, June 2011

‘Mustapha’ (3’02), ‘Sheer Heart Attack’ (3’27), ‘Spread Your Wings’ (4’35), ‘Sleeping On The Sidewalk’ (3’07), ‘It’s Late’ (6’26), ‘Rock It (Prime Jive)’ (4’32), ‘Dead On Time’ (3’24), ‘Sail Away Sweet Sister’ (3’32), ‘Dragon Attack’ (4’19), ‘Action This Day’ (3’33), ‘Put Out The Fire’ (3’19), ‘Staying Power’ (4’12), ‘Jealousy’ (3’14), ‘Battle Theme’ (2’19)

Having got it sort of right with
Deep Cuts, Volume 1
, Queen Productions fell back several steps with the second volume. Despite a few glaring omissions (‘White Queen (As It Began)’ and ‘You And I’ especially), the first volume was a decent representation of the first five albums, diving deep into the catalogue and offering a few surprises along the way. Not so with
Volume 2
, a predictable and haphazard collection that offers nothing exciting or enticing to casual fans. The problem isn’t with the source material; there are plenty of songs to pick from in this time period (
News Of The World
through
Hot Space
), and the omissions are glaring. Where are ‘Get Down, Make Love’, ‘All Dead, All Dead’, ‘Who Needs You’, ‘My Melancholy Blues’, ‘Let Me Entertain You’, ‘In Only Seven Days’, ‘Leaving Home Ain’t Easy’, ‘Dreamers Ball’, ‘Need Your Loving Tonight’, ‘The Hero’, and ‘Calling All Girls’? If the point of the
Deep Cuts
series is to present the lesser-known material from Queen’s catalogue, then
Volume 2
is a relative failure. True, only three of the songs appeared on a compilation (
Queen Rocks
) before, and five can be found on live albums, but the problem with
Volume 2
is that it doesn’t dig deep enough. John Deacon is again under-represented, with only the superb ‘Spread Your Wings’ making the cut; it was during this period that the bassist really hit his songwriting stride, so to have only one of his songs here is a slap in the face to his abilities. Freddie, too, is represented by only three songs, with several of his better ones from this period being left behind.

The sequencing, too, is uninspired, with most of the songs bunched together according to album
release, and the decision to close with ‘Battle Theme’ an odd one. Furthermore, there were chances to take on
Flash Gordon
inclusions; the second side is mostly bogged down with reprises of the main theme, but the one-two punch of ‘Execution Of Flash’ and ‘The Kiss (Aura Resurrects Flash)’ would have been a nice, unexpected twist. While Taylor Hawkins, who helped Brian and Roger compile the album, shouldn’t be blamed for the running order, there’s an unnecessary emphasis on rock songs instead of the diversity from around this time. It’s true that Queen started to focus more on perfecting their arena rock skills, but
News Of The World
and
Jazz
were just as diverse as their first five albums, and the most predictable songs were chosen from these two albums.

It’s easy to get lost in quibbling over what should have been, and forget that these are really intended as tasters to the 2011 remasters catalogue, not as diehard fan-pleasing compilations; the die-hards will all make their own mixes, while casual fans with copies of
Greatest Hits
,
News Of The World
or
The Game
will probably be turned off by too many rare or obscure songs, so this track listing, flawed as it is to purists, is probably the safest compromise. But the definition of “deep” when it comes to these compilations has been blurred; the first volume was full of interesting selections unfamiliar to casual fans, but the second volume is the weakest of the trio, which is ironic, as the second volume pales in comparison to its predecessor, which is a shame, considering the strength of the deeper cuts on these five albums rivalled or often surpassed the quality of the hits.