Queen: The Complete Works

by Georg Purvis

  In the never-ending cycle of compilation release after compilation release, The A–Z Of Queen, Volume 1 takes an old idea and puts a different spin on it. Instead of being ordered chronologically, the songs are presented alphabetically, though someone should have had the compiler take a remedial course in alphabetics. Pedantry aside, The A–Z Of Queen, Volume 1 was an exclusive, Wal-Mart- and Amazon.com-only release, designed to cash in on nothing in particular. However, it did allow Queen a good amount of shelf life in the chain store conglomerate, though this didn’t amount to substantial sales. The bonus of a DVD mixing promotional videos and selections from their live releases made the package appealing, while, more significantly, the ‘Innuendo’ promotional video was released for the first time in the US, as well as for the first time on DVD. (Further bonus material included downloadable ringtones of ‘Play The Game’ and ‘Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy’.) Whatever Hollywood Records’ intentions for future alphabetically-themed compilations seems to have stagnated, for further volumes never appeared.

  THE SINGLES COLLECTION, VOLUMES 1–4

  Volume 1: Parlophone 50999 243358 2 9, December 2008

  Disc 1: ‘Keep Yourself Alive’ (3’48), ‘Son And Daughter’ (3’22); Disc 2: ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’ (2’49), ‘See What A Fool I’ve Been’ (4’33); Disc 3: ‘Killer Queen’ (3’01), ‘Flick Of The Wrist’ (single version) (3’17); Disc 4: ‘Now I’m Here’ (4’14), ‘Lily Of The Valley’ (single version) (1’39); Disc 5: ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (5’54), ‘I’m In Love With My Car’ (3’05); Disc 6: ‘You’re My Best Friend’ (2’52), ‘’39’ (3’30); Disc 7: ‘Somebody To Love’ (4’58), ‘White Man’ (4’59); Disc 8: ‘Tie Your Mother Down’ (single version) (3’45), ‘You And I’ (3’27); Disc 9: ‘Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy’ (2’54), ‘Death On Two Legs (Dedicated to......’ (3’44), ‘Tenement Funster’ (single version) (2’58), ‘White Queen (As It Began)’ (4’35); Disc 10: ‘We Are The Champions’ (3’03), ‘We Will Rock You’ (2’03); Disc 11: ‘Spread Your Wings’ (4’35), ‘Sheer Heart Attack’ (3’27); Disc 12: ‘Bicycle Race’ (3’04), ‘Fat Bottomed Girls’ (single version) (3’27); Disc 13: ‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ (3’29), ‘In Only Seven Days’ (2’30)

  Volume 2: Parlophone 50999 965497 2 8, June 2009

  Disc 1: ‘Love Of My Life’ (live) (3’43), ‘Now I’m Here’ (live) (8’42); Disc 2: ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’ (2’45), ‘We Will Rock You’ (fast live) (3’08); Disc 3: ‘Save Me’ (3’50), ‘Let Me Entertain You’ (live) (3’14); Disc 4: ‘Play The Game’ (3’33), ‘A Human Body’ (3’43); Disc 5: ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ (3’36), ‘Dragon Attack’ (4’19); Disc 6: ‘Flash’ (single edit) (2’52), ‘Football Fight’ (1’29); Disc 7: ‘Under Pressure’ (4’07), ‘Soul Brother’ (3’39); Disc 8: ‘Body Language’ (4’34), ‘Life Is Real (Song For Lennon)’ (3’30); Disc 9: ‘Las Palabras De Amor (The Words Of Love)’ (4’32), ‘Cool Cat’ (3’29); Disc 10: ‘Calling All Girls’ (3’54), ‘Put Out The Fire’ (3’20); Disc 11: ‘Back Chat’ (single remix) (4’12), ‘Staying Power’ (4’12); Disc 12: ‘Radio Ga Ga’ (5’50), ‘I Go Crazy’ (3’43); Disc 13: ‘I Want To Break Free’ (single version) (4’26), ‘Machines (Or ‘Back To Humans’)’ (5’09)

  Volume 3: Parlophone 50999 984839 2 0, May 2010

  Disc 1: ‘It’s A Hard Life’ (4’10), ‘Is This The World We Created...?’ (2’13); Disc 2: ‘Hammer To Fall’ (single edit) (3’41), ‘Tear It Up’ (3’26); Disc 3: ‘Thank God It’s Christmas’ (4’23), ‘Man On The Prowl’ (3’29), ‘Keep Passing The Open Windows’ (5’23); Disc 4: ‘One Vision’ (single edit) (4’04), ‘Blurred Vision’ (4’42); Disc 5: ‘A Kind Of Magic’ (4’28), ‘A Dozen Red Roses For My Darling’ (4’45); Disc 6: ‘Friends Will Be Friends’ (4’08), ‘Princes Of The Universe’ (3’32); Disc 7: ‘Pain Is So Close To Pleasure’ (single remix) (4’01), ‘Don’t Lose Your Head’ (4’39); Disc 8: ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’ (single edit) (4’04), ‘Forever’ (3’21); Disc 9: ‘One Year Of Love’ (4’29), ‘Gimme The Prize (Kurgan’s Theme)’ (4’35); Disc 10: ‘I Want It All’ (single edit) (4’04), ‘Hang On In There’ (3’46); Disc 11: ‘Breakthru’ (4’11), ‘Stealin” (3’59); Disc 12: ‘The Invisible Man’ (3’59), ‘Hijack My Heart’ (4’12); Disc 13: ‘Scandal’ (4’45), ‘My Life Has Been Saved’ (3’16)

  Volume 4: Parlophone 50999 909215 2 0, October 2010

  Disc 1: ‘The Miracle’ (5’03), ‘Stone Cold Crazy’ (live) (2’10); Disc 2: ‘Innuendo’ (6’33), ‘Bijou’ (3’37); Disc 3: ‘I’m Going Slightly Mad’ (4’25), ‘The Hitman’ (4’57); Disc 4: ‘Headlong’ (4’36), ‘All God’s People’ (4’22); Disc 5: ‘The Show Must Go On’ (4’32), ‘Queen Talks’ (1’44); Disc 6: ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (5’57), ‘These Are The Days Of Our Lives’ (4’16); Disc 7: ‘Heaven For Everyone’ (single edit) (4’46), ‘It’s A Beautiful Day’ (single version) (3’58); Disc 8: ‘A Winter’s Tale’ (3’54), ‘Rock In Rio Blues’ (4’35); Disc 9: ‘Too Much Love Will Kill You’ (4’22), ‘I Was Born To Love You’ (4’52); Disc 10: ‘Let Me Live’ (4’48), ‘We Will Rock You’ (live) (2’57), ‘We Are The Champions’ (live) (4’05); Disc 11: ‘You Don’t Fool Me’ (single version) (3’56), ‘You Don’t Fool Me’ (album version) (5’25); Disc 12: ‘No-One But You (Only The Good Die Young)’ (4’15), ‘We Will Rock You’ (Ruined by Rick Rubin) (5’02), ‘Gimme The Prize (Kurgan’s Theme)’ (instrumental remix) (4’02); Disc 13: ‘Under Pressure’ (rah mix) (4’09), ‘Under Pressure’ (Mike Spencer remix) (3’55), ‘Under Pressure’ (Knebworth mix) (4’18)

  Starting in the late 1990s, it was popular for bands to go beyond issuing greatest hits collections and instead issue singles collections, usually box sets of a dozen or so singles that faithfully reproduced the sleeve art of the original 7” vinyl. In the modern era of technology, such excesses – thirteen discs, with two songs per disc, depending on the era (for instance, singles released in the 1980s might have additional tracks, depending on variations released on 12” vinyl or CD singles) – was deemed unneccessary, and its exorbitant price tag didn’t help the format find acceptance among casual fans. This niche product understandably found favour with the hardcore fan, who was overjoyed with finally having long-unavailable single edits, rare extended remixes, and non-album A- and B-sides collected into one complete package, but availability was limited due to the expense of production. So while the idea in theory is a solid one, in practice, singles collections struggled.

  After the popularity of these collections peaked in the early 2000s, Queen Productions finally jumped on board toward the end of the decade, after years of hinting from Greg Brooks, the official archivist, who indicated a variant of the singles collection box: a ten-disc set with every known single released throughout the world in a book-bound box à la The Solo Collection. But before long, what started off as a good idea devolved into a farcical display of disinterest and pretzel logic: the single edit of ‘Liar’ was voted out, because Brian and Roger officially disowned it; same with the various remixes of ‘You Don’t Fool Me’. Additionally, an arbitrary rule was imposed to include only singles that reached the Top Forty anywhere in the world, with the exception of ‘Keep Yourself Alive’, included only because of its significance as Queen’s first single. This meant ‘Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)’, ‘Mustapha’, ‘Jealousy’, ‘It’s Late’, ‘Need Your Loving Tonight’, and ‘Long Away’ were all deemed unnecessary simply because they weren’t accepted by the hit parade, unique edits (in some cases) be damned.

  The integrity of the 7” format was maintained, with the argument against using any of the extended remixes being that if they didn’t appear on the original vinyl single, it wouldn’t be authentic. What of the unique pairings of ‘Friends Will Be Friends’ and ‘Princes Of The Universe’, then? Or ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’ and ‘Forever’, or ‘Let Me Live’ and live versions of ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘We Are The Champions’, or ‘Too Much Love Will Kill You’ and ‘I Was Born To Love You’? These weren’t
released as singles together anywhere in the world; in fact, in the case of the first two singles from 1986, ‘Seven Seas Of Rhye’ and ‘Killer Queen’ were the respective B-sides, but Queen Productions decided that to repeat those singles once again would be overkill – a fair assessment, of course, but then on the fourth box, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is once again present, this time as a double A-side with ‘These Are The Days Of Our Lives’. With an average running time of seven minutes per disc, certainly some concessions could have been made to include the remixes and CD single tracks? (Which means that, because it wasn’t a B-side of a 7” release but instead an extra track on the CD single of ‘Headlong’, ‘Lost Opportunity’ is nowhere to be found.)

  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?)