And volume four is on the way!

As much as the missing Lost Opportunity and Mad The Swine have pushed me to the edge, I'm going to give one last bit of benefit of the doubt to QPL, and pray that when they decided on the format of these boxes that they already had it in mind that they would be leaving EMI awhen their deal expired, and so scaled it down with the anticipation that the 'money shot' of the 12" singles, demos, remizes, outtakes etc...would follow on when the new deal was in place.

We'll see..........................

It's a shame that stuff like Mad The Swine and Lost Opportunity gets left of, while tracklists like the Let Me Live one are 'made up'. I wonder who these sets are made for: not us as fans/collectors and not for the general public either it seems...? I only have the first boxset and while I think the design of the box itself is hideous, the packaging of the discs themselves is great (shame about not using the original labels though). I will buy the remaining boxes sometimes, as I still want to complete my collection... I even bought Absolute Greatest last week for a fiver ;)

GT, just be honest here.

The reason you keep crapping on with as to why MTS and LO were off is a shit, pathetic reason that no one gives a crap about.

We all wanted MTS and LO on Headlong and Slightly Mad respectively - as you very well know.

Not giving us those tracks (especially whilst conjuring up tracklists on other discs) is nothing but a slap in the face to the fans.

And you REALLY think casual fans/joe public are buying this?!  Dream on mate!

You and GB HAVE NOT done the best you could do here - and I suspect you know that.

But you had to follow the QPL policy of giving the fans fuck all as usual, and in that at least you have been highly successful.

Well done.

AND, YOU TOTAL FOOL, THE REASON WHY PEOPLE ARE SAYING THEY ARE NOT GOING TO BUY THEM IS NOT COS THEY ARE NOT FOR THE SERIOUS FAN BUT PURELY BECAUSE YOU HAVE FAILED TO MAKE THEM EVEN 1/10th AS GOOD AS THEY COULD HAVE BEEN - ESPECIALLY ON THE FINAL SET.

Can you PLEASE answer THIS question:  why are you not at all alarmed by the degree of disappoint shown by the band's most fervent fans here?  Why are Queen not alarmed by this?  You have clearly reached a level of collective arrogance whereby you all (that's you, GB, BM and RT and of course JB) consider yourselves invincible. 

I'LL SAY IT AGAIN FOR THE HARD OF THINKING:  THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT.

And you, GT, are wrong.

@QOL Mab

The good thing about your post is that you show that you still care for the band.

However, please bear in mind that GT is just a messenger.  He has said many times that the band decides what to do.

tcc wrote: @QOL Mab

The good thing about your post is that you show that you still care for the band.

However, please bear in mind that GT is just a messenger.  He has said many times that the band decides what to do.

Indeed.  I think nearly of us here are appreciative of GT's input, which is always well meaning, informative and honest.  We may not always agree with all his points and the reasons for them, and he doesn't fly off the handle as soon as we disagree with him.   it is ultimately Brian, Jim Beach and Roger in complete control of content and output.  but I think we have gained more sensible feedback from GT in a short time than we have from GB over many years.

There is no need to attack Gary. It's not his decision how the singles box was compiled. He has never been anything but friendly, generous and helpful in any way. Gary is one of the people you can always ask for details, he is one the most knowledgable fans I have ever met. He is also very kind  in every respect in real life and it's digusting that people here act out their frustration by insulting Gary.

Agreed Barb.

Yawn.  The 3rd Greatest Hits DVD is more important than this - quit crying over the memories, Bri, and get that thing into shops already.  

Do us a favour though and make it a 2 disc affair - the first disc can be all of the actual Queen stuff, the 2nd disc can be all of the Queen+ bullshit, the utterly worthless MIH videos (anyone remember the one for You Don't Fool Me?  Christ ...) and whatever else you want to collect royalties on.

Reserve the first disc for the good stuff.  And the Making-Of's.

I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree with both Barb and Adam on this - GT has virtually always responded to questions in a polite and courteous manner and pretty much answers the question.  This is in direct contrast to his cohort Greggy Boy.

I DO have a problem though with their pointing out to us that their original plan was the 10-CD set bla-de-blah. 

If they were so certain that their plan was the best thing to do in terms of catering for the people that actually give a shit these days, why on earth do / did they lend their taklents to supporting the release of these pathetic money-grabbing attempts at re-polishing a turd (not the music - the GH concept)? 

Surely, if they had the courage of their convictions, they would have walked away whent hey saw what the band and QPL had so brilliantly conceived..........

I agree with Barbara's comment. It's really sad that some people attack one the good guys.

Like cmsdrums said: "... we have gained more sensible feedback from GT in a short time than we have from GB over many years".

Don't know about you Benn but I'd rather keep my dream job, working with my musical idols, than splitting over "creative differences".

There are surely many projects to follow after this one: some will be good, some will be bad, but I would want to be there if I were GT. I wouldn't quit in a million years.

Yes, well said.

As I've said, I think the contents of the Singles Collections miss their mark and because of the cost, I chose not to buy them. If I ever see them cheap (used or on sale) I might pick them up. I categorize them in the column:

Queen-Related Things I Don't Need
- Singles Boxes
- Crown Jewels Boxed Set
- Ultimate Queen Boxed Set
- The Complete Works Boxed Set
- Japanese Mini LP CDs
- The Queen Collection Boxed Set
- Box Of Trix
- The UK & Japanese 3" Singles Sets
- The Platinum Collection
- The Remastered LP Re-issues
- Freddie Mercury Action Figure
- Many of the biographies out there

I don't ever fault Queen for issuing any of these, though. I'm interested in the music, not the format. If I have the song or version already, I'm just not too interested. Getting a better version (remastered) might be a deciding factor, which is why Greg's original plan for 10 discs containing a lot of alternate versions was appealing, but it didn't happen. Oh well.

Wiley, re:

>>Don't know about you Benn but I'd rather keep my dream job, working with
my musical idols, than splitting over "creative differences".

I've had some experience of this and, let me tell you, you get to KNOW your idols as an "employee" and you are treated as such.

>>There are surely many projects to follow after this one: some will be good,
some will be bad, but I would want to be there if I were GT. I wouldn't
quit in a million years.

Well, there's the difference - because if it were me in this case - I'd tell them to find someone else.  And, if what we read here to be true from other threads, suggestions have been made to these "idols" on numerous occasions, only to have either been completely ignored or havehalf a job done.

As fo the many more projects......no one will give a shit in 10 years time when they eventually see the light.

The reality here is that Queen need to stop waiting and either release all the stuff the fans desperately want or issue a statement along these lines:

''Some of you will have been disappointed by the exclusion of Mad The Swine and Lost Opportunity from the recent Singles Collections Volume 4 release.  We do not have any plans to issue any rare material in the foreseeable future and this includes the forthcoming reissues on Universal.  Please understand that this is a decision that we are comfortable with and we do not intend to reconsider this at the present time.  The reissues on Universal will feature extensive new liner notes by Rhys Thomas but the tracklistings will remain as they are and will not feature bonus material.''

At least this would mean that we didn't bother getting our hopes up in future - but they won't even do that much for us!

YourValentine wrote: There is no need to attack Gary. It's not his decision how the singles box was compiled. He has never been anything but friendly, generous and helpful in any way. Gary is one of the people you can always ask for details, he is one the most knowledgable fans I have ever met. He is also very kind  in every respect in real life and it's digusting that people here act out their frustration by insulting Gary.

Mmm.

He is defending the project though and giving nonsensical reasons for the decisions made.  I would have more respect for him if he held his hand up and said ''do you know what?  These sets are very poor value and the tracklisting on the fourth set is ridiculous.  I'm sorry but there was nothing I could do about it''.