By then no-one will give a toss any more!

Hendrix and The Doors only existed artistically for a few years, yet they each have released over a dozen live albums - and of course those recordings are much older than Queen's.

The Doors recently released "Live at the Matrix 1967," a compilation of two shows played in a club before anyone knew who they were.  It's a raw stereo soundboard recording with tape hiss, far from perfect.  It's full of wrong notes.  But that's the very charm of it.  It sounds like an old tape of a band revealing themselves as human beings with plenty to prove.  For Queen, that would be something like releasing "Live At The Marquee 1972."

Let's picture it, folks..

"Queen - Live At The Forum" ... the recording is from December 22, 1977.  This is the last show of the US tour for News Of The World, so there are plenty of hits by this point as well as gems like It's Late, Liar (its last performance as a regular in the set), My Melancholy Blues, White Man, a 7-song medley, and the one and only time the band played White Christmas.  The recording exists - there's no denying it.  If they have a tape of one or both of the Long Beach shows from the two days before, they could even do a compilation called "Conquering the West Coast" or something like that.  There are pictures from the shows and newspaper reviews that can be used in the liner notes.  Ideas!  Ideas!  With the right marketing, it will sell like hotcakes.  Even without much marketing, it'll still sell well.

Don't want to release it in stores out of fear that it won't sell enough?  Then release soundboard recordings of concerts on the official website.  The "top 100 bootlegs" project failed, as few people will pay a penny for bad-sounding audience tapes recorded in someone's pocket from the upper deck.  There are undoubtedly dozens or maybe even hundreds of raw soundboard tapes collecting dust.  If it's all about money, QP will be cheerfully surprised when they see how much money they could make while pleasing the very fans that gave the band their success in the first place.  Release one per month.  People will buy every single one that has something new to offer, even if they're in mono sound with a bad mix.  I fail to see why a project like this can't co-exist with releasing new Greatest Hits compilations for newer fans.

Musically-speaking, 1976-1979 was Queen's prime as a live band.  Greg and QP are drastically underestimating how many tens of thousands of fans there are of Queen's 70s work and couldn't give a damn about the band from 1980 onward.  The first 6 albums are where it's at for most people west of the Atlantic.

In Queen (and Greg's) defense...

The only decent issues of Beatles albums on CD came after TWO members have died and one has to get "All-Stars" to generate income.

So we need at least one more Queen death and Brian to re-form the BM Band and we'll start releasing the good stuff.  Right?

[b]Why can't we just turn the Queen Catalog over to Rhino Records and get the releases we want?[/b]

[QUOTE]

[b]Micrówave wrote: [/b]

[b]Why can't we just turn the Queen Catalog over to Rhino Records and get the releases we want?[/b][/QUOTE]
Ahh, if only.. !

I'd love see Queen do stuff like King Crimson, Dream Theater and Marillion have done. Setting up a collector's club which releases limited (e.g. 1500 sets in the case of Dream Theater) sets of live, demo and other rare material not of interest for Joe Public. King Crimson puts out a new release every month I think, and as a member you can pick 6 releases in a year (or more if you want too of course, as long as you pay).

Image Queen Productions setting something up like that and releasing stuff like the following in it's first year, with basic artwork including scans of tickets, tour books and photos of the time.

- a gig by QPR from the South American part of their 2008 tour
- a late 1982 gig with lots of Hot Space tracks in the setlist (Life Is Real, Body Language, Put Out The Fire)
- News of the World tour gig
- 1980 USA tour gig with Rock It as show-opener and stuff like Need Your Loving Tonight in the setlist.
- Crazy Tour 1979 gig
- Early days compilation, Golder's Green Hippodrome, Rainbow march '74 + november '74 2-cd set.
- ANATO tour 1976 gig
- Flash Gordon tour gig
- Knebworth 1986 gig

[QUOTE]

[b]Pim Derks wrote: [/b]

I'd love see Queen do stuff like King Crimson, Dream Theater and Marillion have done. Setting up a collector's club which releases limited (e.g. 1500 sets in the case of Dream Theater) sets of live, demo and other rare material not of interest for Joe Public. King Crimson puts out a new release every month I think, and as a member you can pick 6 releases in a year (or more if you want too of course, as long as you pay).

Image Queen Productions setting something up like that and releasing stuff like the following in it's first year, with basic artwork including scans of tickets, tour books and photos of the time.

- a gig by QPR from the South American part of their 2008 tour
- a late 1982 gig with lots of Hot Space tracks in the setlist (Life Is Real, Body Language, Put Out The Fire)
- News of the World tour gig
- 1980 USA tour gig with Rock It as show-opener and stuff like Need Your Loving Tonight in the setlist.
- Crazy Tour 1979 gig
- Early days compilation, Golder's Green Hippodrome, Rainbow march '74 + november '74 2-cd set.
- ANATO tour 1976 gig
- Flash Gordon tour gig
- Knebworth 1986 gig
[/QUOTE]
I'd buy ALL that stuff!

I agree. Just look at what The Grateful Dead have done with their live soundboard recordings.
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick%27s_Picks#Dick.27s_Picks]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick%27s_Picks#Dick.27s_Picks[/url]

There are 36 soundboard recordings released so far on CD,  in the "Dick's Picks"-series alone. They are also downloadable in flac(and other formats) from their website. Now thats a nice way to give the fans what they want.

If only Queen P. could do this...

Queen havn't done that bad with live recordings, that's all that's missing is a 70's show.  That 1977 show in December sounds like a great place to start.

Add unreleased songs, this feeling, silver salmon, sandbox, hangman, feelings feelings, face it alone....

Imagine if they rework them!!

But they will never... maybe they will add them as bonus on re-releases. How many times we are going to buy the same albums? If they will do the above...

F%%%CK, very stupid things are going to happen...

I can partly understand that Brian and Roger don't want to release the crap that was not good enough in the first place. Remember that tracks like Rain Must Fall, Party, Delilah, Pain Is So Close To Pleasure DID make the albums, so imagine how bad the outtakes from that era must be.

I'd love to see stuff like that, but for now I'd be perfectly happy with some official releases on a for-fans-only label, focussing on the band's live shows, radio-performances and stuff like that. I'd also love to see official audio-documentaries, with new interviews with Brian and Roger mixed in with archive material focussing on a specific album, i.e. a Queen II documentary featuring interviews, live snippets, maybe throw in some instrumental stuff, demo's etc.

"For example, if Queen was (not were; there is only ONE Queen, not several) your band, the band that YOU founded, would you actually want an huge Anthology definitive retrospective all-singing boxed set, or some such monster, to be released while you're still merrily working and creating, and far from the end of your career???"

You mean like The Who did....?

Two points. 

1. Bending the law of dimishing returns to suit this scenario, the original poster has a very good point. The time will come when the cost of producing and distributing what is wanted by the fans will far outweigh the potential profit of doing so. And let's face it - Queen Productions is all about the profit.  In contradiction to that, however, one thing is in your favour: *this* type of product will sell, even in an increasingly digital-download-why-buy-what-you-can-steal landscape. I can't say the same for new or even plain old re-release material; but this will sell. 

It's just down to whether or not you have enough of a market to sell it to in 2012, 15, 30, whatever. 

2. Pareto's law, when applied in a marketing concept, means that about 80 percent of your profit will come from 20 percent of your customers.  Well, Queen's 20 percent - certainly that 20 percent that will shell out £100 for a decent box set is shrinking as each year goes by.  This is not to say that the popularity of Queen is shrinking - but the ABC customers who have collected, followed, gone on tour with, etc etc certainly is.

Oh sure, there's a "new generation discovering the magic of Queen", but ask them to pay 79p for a 1min 38sec length alternative intro to Sweet Lady, and you will find out the difference between the 80 and the 20 very quickly.



By the way - does anyone actually think that "Queen Archivist" comes back to these threads after he pulls the pin out and rolls the grenade down the table?  I really don't know why we bother.  After all - he is only the monkey - not the organ grinder. I agree with him - he has no influence on releases, or indeed anything else outside of cleaning the tapes.  Ergo, why not just fuck off Greg? All you've shown is that you have access to the goodies. We're the suckers for actually getting involved in these threads.

When the stuff is actually released, maybe then we'll give a vote of thanks for the part you played in ensuring their sterling quality. But other than that - just get back to the dusty archives and get on with your job.

[QUOTE]

[b]Sir GH wrote: [/b]


Let's picture it, folks..

"Queen - Live At The Forum" ... the recording is from December 22, 1977.  This is the last show of the US tour for News Of The World, so there are plenty of hits by this point as well as gems like It's Late, Liar (its last performance as a regular in the set), My Melancholy Blues, White Man, a 7-song medley, and the one and only time the band played White Christmas.  The recording exists - there's no denying it.  If they have a tape of one or both of the Long Beach shows from the two days before, they could even do a compilation called "Conquering the West Coast" or something like that.  There are pictures from the shows and newspaper reviews that can be used in the liner notes.  Ideas!  Ideas!  With the right marketing, it will sell like hotcakes.  Even without much marketing, it'll still sell well.

Don't want to release it in stores out of fear that it won't sell enough?  Then release soundboard recordings of concerts on the official website.  The "top 100 bootlegs" project failed, as few people will pay a penny for bad-sounding audience tapes recorded in someone's pocket from the upper deck.  There are undoubtedly dozens or maybe even hundreds of raw soundboard tapes collecting dust.  If it's all about money, QP will be cheerfully surprised when they see how much money they could make while pleasing the very fans that gave the band their success in the first place.  Release one per month.  People will buy every single one that has something new to offer, even if they're in mono sound with a bad mix.  I fail to see why a project like this can't co-exist with releasing new Greatest Hits compilations for newer fans.

Musically-speaking, 1976-1979 was Queen's prime as a live band.  Greg and QP are drastically underestimating how many tens of thousands of fans there are of Queen's 70s work and couldn't give a damn about the band from 1980 onward.  The first 6 albums are where it's at for most people west of the Atlantic.
[/QUOTE]
It'd be so easy... and it would surely at least pay off. Don't they feel the need to have something tasteful in their catalogue? I know, Brian May doesn't have any taste. But it's hard to believe there is no-one in the Queen-camp who could convince him and point out how great such releases could sound, look, and feel, how they could impress the public. And they could do wonders regarding Queen's image even outside the cheesy classic rock magazines. Even hipster-bands like The Gossip publicly admire Queen - they could reach all kinds of music enthusiasts, if only they'd produce anything with passion that appeals to people who don't care for compilations and Radio GaGa. My god, QP are SO behind the times, although they have so much money and could simply buy the best and most creative people who could then (and probably would love to) take care of everything. There are many examples of other "old" artists who still take risks, are innovative and kick arse.

This must have been discussed about 5748473 times since about 2001 on this board... I haven't been much in here lately, but many of the same old posters still don't seem to have lost interest and are still buying whatever rubbish "Queen" release (or at least feel the need to stress that they aren't - congrats). It's hard to comprehend, actually to me it seems almost masochistic. I have long lost hope and interest, Queen have really been boring me to death for at least the past five years, and to wonder about it once a year is more than enough.

Plenty of good ideas, Greg, where are you?  What are your thoughts?

I'm broke and even I would find the money for a good compilation of live 70's stuff.  Fuck's sake...
[/QUOTE]
[/QUOTE]Stuff like the bonus live videos from Absolute Greatest (which I will proudly admit I downloaded without buying that utter cack of a product).  Put that on DVD and you'll have my money.  [/QUOTE]

[QUOTE]

[b]Zebonka12 wrote: [/b]

I'm broke and even I would find the money for a good compilation of live 70's stuff.  Fuck's sake...
[/QUOTE]
There was a time when I would've complained about live-compilations. These days I would be perfectly happy with a "Live Archives: 1973-1976", "Live Archives: 1977-1979", "Live Archives: 1980-1982" and "Live Archives: 1984-1986" type of releases, combining several tours on 2/3 CD-sets to offer an as complete possibile overview of Queen songs performed live. Throw in a nice booklet with pictures, recollections and merchandising pictures, plus maybe a bonusdvd with live stuff (like they did with Absolute Greatest, but then to own instead of to download/watch online) and I'm sure everyone will buy it - if it's priced right I'm sure even Joe Public would have some interest.

Lets not let this become a 'what should be in the box sets' thread, theres at least 3 million of them so far....