album reissues with Universal confirmed on the 40th Anniversary

Speaking of Springsteen, I think he's a perfect example of what Queen is not. The Boss had a crapload of unreleased songs, more or less complete, some unheard, some works-in-progress and others alternate recordings of existing songs. All evidence points to Queen having nowhere near that kind of depth in their vault. What we're likely to see will be similar to the FM Solo Collection: early stage recordings of existing songs and the odd incomplete, abandoned idea. Besides what has been leaked, I doubt there are too many things we'd call "unreleased songs".

Karaoke Mixes and The eYe instrumentals are much more fascinating to me than demos of songs I already know (unless the demo goes off into uncharted territory). The backing tracks are so tight and so densely layered that there is a lot we don't hear in the regular mix. I feel the same way about the more effective remixes. To be clear: I like some of them, am cool with others and think some aren't so good.

On the subject of the new material, I totally understand that not everyone is a fan of the Queen+ projects, but there are some gems buried among the bunch. It's not all Britney Spears and Beyonce and Wyclef retreads. And those kept Brian and Roger working, which is important. Much the way Hot Space, though recieving mixed reviews, allowed the band to stay together and keep working, giving us even greater work on subsequent albums. 

I know I'm not going to convince those fans who hate everything released after Freddie died, but I might open a  few eyes to the fact that Queen did not die with Freddie and are still putting out a good amount of high-quality material.

As Luke Skywalker said to Darth Vader: "Let go of your hate!"

You know what, rhyeking is an absolute breath of fresh air on here - a wonderfull "glass half full" attitude towards the band that I just wish I could go with.

That said, Springsteen was a much more prolific artist in every way than Queen ever were; he worked far harder at getting himself out there in terms of gigging than Queen did and, throughout his career, recorded what he wrote at pretty much every opportunity and recorded different, surprising variations on a theme in many cases.  I'll agree that some of the "variations" and some of what is on the "Tracks" box really isn't great.  However, if you can get hold of the complete 17 volume "Lost Masters" bootleg set, it's absolutely stunning to see Springsteen's creative processes at work and some of the material that we left off of the final albums was a complete travesty.

In that way, too, some of the material that The Who rejected from the eventual "Who's Next" album was, unarguably, more important than what did get released - relegating some STUNNING material to single b-sides.

Queen didn't feel that they needed to do that, presumably, as they either didn't have the breadth of original material available to them or they simply didn't enjoy the studio experience as much as Springsteen did.

That said, Springsteen was ALWAYS the boss of what he and the E-Street band did; when Bruce decided the band would rest, they rested, when he deccided that they would work, they worked.  Queen was much more of a democratic act and, as a result, the majority verdict would, normally, win through.

The "evidence" as to what is in the Queen archive with regard to un-released (complete) songs, out-takes, alternate versions, germs of ideas, rejected ideas and the member's demos for the band is pretty thin on the ground.  Apart from what has leaked and available from Convention bootlegs, the only evidence has come from Greggy Boy in his over-blown Record Collector article from some time back.  Even that only really confirmed what we already know.

I find it hard to believe that there is such a paucity of unreleased session material - Queen, creatively, had two geniuses at work during their heyday 1973-1982.  But, the only way we will ever really know what's out there os if we get a sudden change of tack and QPL give us a stunning archive release that is all-encompassing or they delliver a book that details exactly what is existant on the tape boxes.  Judging from past evidence of the organisation's commitment to quality and the collector's market, my glass is, sadly, still less  than half empty.

I'm sure some of you received this newsletter update as well, but for those who didn't:

From Jim Beach,

"Many of you will have read bits and pieces on the internet about Queen leaving EMI and moving record companies. Although we are saying nothing official at this stage I felt that you should hear from us that it is true that Queen are leaving EMI after 39 years."
"Next year we start working with our new record company to celebrate Queen’s 40th anniversary and we will be announcing full details of the plans over the next 3 months. As Brian has already said Queen’s next moves will involve ‘’studio work, computers and live work’’. "

He doesn't go into any more detail, but instead the rest of the letter talks about his son's band. It does seem something is brewing, bit what that something is is anyone's guess. A remastered catalogue is the safest bet, but additional material? No way to tell from Jim's statements alone.

Something else I'd love to see is the rest of the original studio albums issued in 5.1 Surround Mixes.

I know I said that many of the bands I like don't give their back catalogue a lot of attention, and many don't...but some do. One artist, Mike Oldfield (of "Tubular Bells" fame), has recently been getting the rights back to his previous Virgin Records albums and has been remastering the original mixes and remixing them into 5.1 Surround. He then is re-issuing Deluxe Editions with 3 discs:

Disc 1
CD New album stereo remaster + non-album rarities

Disc 2
CD Original mix + demos

Disc 3
DVD of the 5.1 Surround Mix + whatever videos were issued for period singles

This would an excellent model for Queen to follow. Mike, being a perfection, is doing the remixing himself. For the new mixes, he's using the multitracks from the original tapes and is correcting minor mistakes and cleaning up the sound. This is why he's including the original mix, remastered, as well, with no further tinkering, so fans have their choice. His changes in the new mixes are not really noticable beyond the whole thing sounding clearer (and the 5.1 sounding downright stunning).

As great as these are, there ARE non-album tracks which are left off, which is a bit frustrating, so it comes back to the fact that very few releases from any artist are perfect. These come really close, though.

+ Disc 4 - concert from that period, or compilation of various concerts from that era

I honestly cannot believe that if a recording of pre-Queen bands like Wreckage, The Reaction or 1984 exists (and some in very good quality) that the amount of unreleased material in the archives is only very small. Look at the Freddie box. The guy made 2 solo-albums, but they managed to fill a 10 discs boxset with material from those 2 albums.

I'm sure there's an equal amount of Queen-stuff. If there are any complete, unreleased songs is of course another question. I think there'll be some jams and ideas, like Robbery, Yellow Breezes, New York etc - but I think the chances for a 90% complete, completely written song are pretty small. Anyway, I'm not only interested in new material. Maybe I'm even more interested in alternate versions, mixes or demos of songs we all know and love. Can you imagine turning on Innuendo with Roger doing some vocals? Or an instrumental version of March of the Black Queen? An acoustic demo of I'm In Love With My Car? I'd happily fork out a couple of hundred bucks to hear stuff like that :)

What I'd like would be to hear straight instrumentals of the albums (not karaoke, just the instruments), as they let you appreciate more of the song and hear the little details clearly. I remember playing the Spread Your Wings instrumental, and noticing the fingerstyle acoustic guitar part for the first time. I'm sure there are many more small things that go unnoticed by a lot of us, and instrumentals would let us hear them. Who wouldn't want to hear complete instrumentals for Queen II or A Day At The Races? 

Most of their albums were around 40 minutes long, which leaves almost half of a disc free. Let's see them use that space up, be it with B-Sides, demos, Remixes/Extended versions or instrumental/acapella versions of songs.

I think Pittrek's idea of a live compilation from that period would be excellent, featuring the best performances of songs from that era.

Pim Derks wrote: I honestly cannot believe that if a recording of pre-Queen bands like Wreckage, The Reaction or 1984 exists (and some in very good quality) that the amount of unreleased material in the archives is only very small. Look at the Freddie box. The guy made 2 solo-albums, but they managed to fill a 10 discs boxset with material from those 2 albums.

I'm sure there's an equal amount of Queen-stuff. If there are any complete, unreleased songs is of course another question. I think there'll be some jams and ideas, like Robbery, Yellow Breezes, New York etc - but I think the chances for a 90% complete, completely written song are pretty small. Anyway, I'm not only interested in new material. Maybe I'm even more interested in alternate versions, mixes or demos of songs we all know and love. Can you imagine turning on Innuendo with Roger doing some vocals? Or an instrumental version of March of the Black Queen? An acoustic demo of I'm In Love With My Car? I'd happily fork out a couple of hundred bucks to hear stuff like that :) 

***********

I´ve always thought exactly the same. If Freddie filled 10 cd´s .... what could Queen fill ? I´m sure there will hardly be any unknown/unleaked complete song, but there must be tons of demos, alternative takes, unused mixes, etc etc .. and that´s actually the stuff that interests me the most.

10 or 15 years ago I only wanted new/fresh material, I wanted Brian and Roger (and John) to keep working together and doing new music. The waiting resulted in TCR, wich I always say I like, but given the actual situation (Brian and his to be respected crusades/other interests) I see zero possibilities of getting a new studio album; yeah, we´ll get hopefully something from Roger and Brian may be playing in a couple of tracks. And that´s it.

And as I´m more and more convinced about this fact, I´m also more convinced the stuff I´m really dying for is an instrumental "Black Queen" or "Sweet Sister" in a demo stage, Roger or Brian doing vocals in a take we never expected they could do, etc etc etc..

I love the FM Solo Collection. The tracks sound great and the book is stellar.

However, as people are repeating "they got 10 cds out of 2 solo albums" as an amazing yardstick for what must surely lay undiscovered in Queen's vaults, here's a little break down of the "rarities" included:

5 discs fully contain previously available material, some of which is easy to find (Barcelona & The Great Pretender albums) and some of which is a bit harder to find (the Singles).

1 disc contains interviews. Interesting, but no actual music.

1 disc contains all instrumentals, one of which was previously available (The Golden Boy). I love this disc, but it IS a manufactured, NEW set of rarities (they're not long lost mixes or demos).

1 disc contains "Other sessions," where 4 songs were previously available, 1 is a remix (Love Kill - Rock Mix) and 1 is another manufactured rarity (Love Kills - Instrumental). Of the 8 remaining tracks 2 are genuine early-Freddie rarities and the other 6 are demos. 

1 disc of Mr. Bad Guy session material: 3 songs are manufactured rarities (the Acapella and Vocal+Piano tracks) and 2 are unreleased single mixes (Foolin' Around 12" & Instrumental versions). 12 are early versions or outtakes of album tracks, 1 is an alternate version of a b-side track, and the remain 5 are demos of abandoned ideas

1 disc of Barcelona session material: 2 tracks are manufactured rarities ("Acapella" mixes of the album tracks), 3 are from the Garden Lodge Tape of Freddie and Co. messing around at home, the remaining 13 are genuine demos, outtakes and abandoned ideas.

To sum up, the FM box gave us a lot, but for actual rare demos, outtakes, abandoned ideas and the like, we actually only find, at a stretch, 3 discs worth of this sort of material, most of which are variations of existing tracks.

Basically, we find 1 disc of demos/outtakes for each album (including The Great Pretender). 

As I mentioned in prevous posts, I'm sure Queen could give us early-stage recordings for existings songs, the same way the FM box did, and maybe some abandoned ideas, but probably not much more.

And like all of you, I still want to hear them.

rhyeking wrote:

To sum up, the FM box gave us a lot, but for actual rare demos, outtakes, abandoned ideas and the like, we actually only find, at a stretch, 3 discs worth of this sort of material, most of which are variations of existing tracks.

Basically, we find 1 disc of demos/outtakes for each album (including The Great Pretender). 

+++++++

you´re completely right there, rhyeking. We should only talk about 3 discs of "rarities" in the FM Collection.

2 FM studio albums = 3 discs of rarities

15 Queen studio albums = ....

Come on mate ! shout it out loud with me: "RELEASE ´EM QPL !!! IT´S F***ING TIME !!!"

:-D

A little comparison shopping here via the Freddie Mercury Solo Collection boxed set and recent Queen releases:

            FM box                                                                                     Queen                                                           Notes
Disc 1: Mr. Bad Guy (2000 Remaster)               2000 Digital Remaster Series albums            both remastered by Peter Mew

Disc 2: Barcelona (1992 Remaster)                  1994 Digital Master Series                                 Eddy Schulyer worked on both

Disc 3: The Great Pretender                                1999 Greatest Hits III                                        both are collections of re-made 
              (1992 Remaster)                                                                                                                       older tracks, remixes and
                                                                                                                                                                    singles

Disc 4: The Singles 1973 - 1985                       Singles Collection Vol. 1                                      both remastered by Peter Mew
                                                                                                                                                            and are previously released tracks

Disc 5: The Singles 1986 - 1993                      Singles Collection Vol. 2                                        same as above

Disc 6: Instrumentals                                          The eYe & Karaoke Hits                                        attractive for the instrumentals

Disc 7: Mr. Bad Guy Rarities                                                 N/A                                                          Would be nice to hear some 
                                                                                                                                                                    Queen demos, etc.

Disc 8: Barcelona Rarities                                                    N/A                                                          same as above

Disc 9: Other Sessions                                   1991 HR bonus tracks                                            Previously Unreleased tracks,
                                                                                                                                                                  Extended Versions, non-album
                                                                                                                                                                   tracks and remixes

Disc 10: Interviews                                         Box Of Tricks, Disc 3: Queen Talks                        Interviews...not much else to 
                                                                           Message From The Palace                                        say

Disc 11: DVD - Video Collection                Greatest Video Hits Vol. 1                                           Videos...Still waiting on Vol. 3
                                                                         Greatest Video Hits Vol. 2

Disc 12: DVD - The FM story                       VHS - The Magic Years                                               Be nice to see TMY or COTW
                                                                          VHS - Champions Of The World                               on DVD someday
                                                                          DVD - Making Of ANATO

Yeah, Queen's given us hardcore fans nothing interesting, have they?

Vali wrote: rhyeking wrote:

To sum up, the FM box gave us a lot, but for actual rare demos, outtakes, abandoned ideas and the like, we actually only find, at a stretch, 3 discs worth of this sort of material, most of which are variations of existing tracks.

Basically, we find 1 disc of demos/outtakes for each album (including The Great Pretender). 

+++++++

you´re completely right there, rhyeking. We should only talk about 3 discs of "rarities" in the FM Collection.

2 FM studio albums = 3 discs of rarities

15 Queen studio albums = ....

Come on mate ! shout it out loud with me: "RELEASE ´EM QPL !!! IT´S F***ING TIME !!!"

:-D

+++++++++++

:-)

That's what I said, that Queen could probably cobble together a disc of demos and outtakes (of existing songs) for each studio album. I also said I want these as much as the next person.

Just don't expect much more than that.

And not to split hairs, Vali, but I stick to my ratio of 1:1 (1 demo disc to 1 studio album), particularly with Freddie.

Yes, I know he had only 2 issued in his life time and that The Great Pretender/The Freddie Mercury album was posthumous, but he was working on a solo album other than Barcelona and certainly had enough songs to put one together with even 2 more completed tracks.

The Great Pretender
Exercises In Free Love
Time
In My Defense
Hold On
Love Kills
She Blows Hot And Cold
Stop All The Fighting

The FM box reflects this

I'd be very happy if they decided to fully remix every album (Jazz, Miracle, Innuendo anyone?) and added the following extras on a bonusdisc:

Queen: BBC sessions + De Lane Lea + Mad The Swine
Queen II: BBC session + See What A Fool I've Been + Rainbow March '74
Sheer Heart Attack: BBC Session + Rainbow '74 remixed
ANATO: Hammersmith
ADATR: Hyde Park
NOTW: BBC session +
Jazz: Hammersmith '79 (not Jazz tour but what the heck)
The Game: Soul Brother, Human Body (single disc package)
Flash: add some alternate mixes without samples from the movies (single disc package)
Hot Space: Cool Cat with Bowie, Staying Power and Back Chat 12" mixes (single disc package)
The Works: all 6 extended mixes + Thank God It's Christmas & I Go Crazy
Kind of Magic: Blurred Vision + Dozen Red Roses + Original AKOM version from Highlander + extended version
Miracle: Extended versions + b-sides
Innuendo: The remix of ICLWY from Queen Rocks, Lost Opportunity (single disc package)
Made In Heaven: haven't got a clue (single disc package).

All in a deluxe digipack, with an extensive booklet containing quotes, pictures of sleeves and merchandisign from around the world, maybe an interview with a producer/bandmember/roadie. Maybe throw in a DVD with the videos, some live bits etc.

Pim Derks wrote: I'd be very happy if they decided to fully remix every album (Jazz, Miracle, Innuendo anyone?) and added the following extras on a bonusdisc:

Queen: BBC sessions + De Lane Lea + Mad The Swine
Queen II: BBC session + See What A Fool I've Been + Rainbow March '74
Sheer Heart Attack: BBC Session + Rainbow '74 remixed
ANATO: Hammersmith
ADATR: Hyde Park
NOTW: BBC session +
Jazz: Hammersmith '79 (not Jazz tour but what the heck)
The Game: Soul Brother, Human Body (single disc package)
Flash: add some alternate mixes without samples from the movies (single disc package)
Hot Space: Cool Cat with Bowie, Staying Power and Back Chat 12" mixes (single disc package)
The Works: all 6 extended mixes + Thank God It's Christmas & I Go Crazy
Kind of Magic: Blurred Vision + Dozen Red Roses + Original AKOM version from Highlander + extended version
Miracle: Extended versions + b-sides
Innuendo: The remix of ICLWY from Queen Rocks, Lost Opportunity (single disc package)
Made In Heaven: haven't got a clue (single disc package).

All in a deluxe digipack, with an extensive booklet containing quotes, pictures of sleeves and merchandisign from around the world, maybe an interview with a producer/bandmember/roadie. Maybe throw in a DVD with the videos, some live bits etc.

+++++++++++++++++

Interesting list and I agree with pretty much all of it.

Why put "Soul Brother" with The Game? It's a Hot Space-related track.

On the other hand, the Queen Live at the Bowl DVD was released showing Brian having problems with his guitar in the middle of the guitar solo.

Earlier this year I asked Greg Brooks about the possibility of Queen releasing a 4-member-Queen song that is good enough to be a hit. Why, because Queen is the only band in the world that has had hit-singles (or number-one singles, not quite sure about that) in 4 decades. So to make that position unbeatable to others it would be great to have a Queen hitsingle in the decade 2010-2020. (I can't imagine other bands to produce 'new' music over a 50-year span with exeption of perhaps The Beatles and U2 - I'm no fan ot that last one)

He confirmed that there is at least one song on the shelves that can make this happen.
So... a great opportunity to commemorate Freddie's and Queen's genius in 2011, 20 years after his departure.
Perhaps the move to Universal puts fuel to this smoldering desire to start a fire so the Queen Phoenix arises again...

(I'll just keep on dreaming, if that's okay by you all) :-)