And volume four is on the way!

GT wrote:

[QUOTE]This series was not made to bend in favour of the customer...[/QUOTE]

...which is exactly why it has been a failure.

I'm not sure what's worse - the abhorrent way Greg Brooks has conducted his business here, or the fact that GT is going far out of his way to defend this latest Queen product.

Usual bollocks from GT.

The boxsets were titled "Singles Collection" - not "7" singles collection", so why follow the 7" tracklisting from an era where CD singles were more popular and featured more tracks? Fucking useless and another shafting of anyone who was buying these.  The only logical reason for sticking to the 7" tracklistings would have been if they were being re-issued as, er...... 7"s.

Funny - the concept of a Queen singles collection is pretty redundant from the start anyway, seeing as they were never ones for providing value for money by providing new b-sides like most other bands and then these clowns cut out 2 out of only a very small handful of actual b-sides. You couldn't make this shit up.

At least these box sets appealed neither to normal collectors (you'll get a handful of collectors who HAVE to buy everything for no reason) and particularly not to casual fans and has sold fuck all - GOOD. I wonder what percentage of those actually sold have actually been opened and not kept sealed by such types. haha. "Oooh - but it comes in a shitty box that'll get tatty if you handle it too much and looks nice in the shops" - but actually they don't as shops have barely stocked them! haha

In defence of the boxsets I have to say they do look nice... As long as you look at the in the store, and don't look at the flipside to see the contents.

It's been mentioned that the firts two volumes were limited to 10,000 and 4,000 respectively (wonder why?), and I can still find half a dozen of each in just the stores of this town.

And I'd add that we can't overlook the fact that they are in fact cuboid.  In that they did indeed set out to be 'box' sets, I think it would be unfair to overlook that, as in this sense they were wildly successful.

I might not look at the message boards because of the personal attacks people give each other it is nasty and uncalled for especially mab and a few others,there is nothing wrong in giving your opinions but when it becomes personal i don`t want part of it.

Negative Creep wrote:

The boxsets were titled "Singles Collection" - not "7" singles collection", so why follow the 7" tracklisting from an era where CD singles were more popular and featured more tracks? Fucking useless and another shafting of anyone who was buying these.  The only logical reason for sticking to the 7" tracklistings would have been if they were being re-issued as, er...... 7"s.

Very, very good point

Hi guys.
Apologies.......I haven't been on here for a while as I have been involved in Queen stuff, which has taken up all my time.

Where were we?

I think some people were a bit annoyed about the box sets GT.

I can understand sticking to the tracklistings of the original 7" singles wherever possible, but I don't understand why anyone would decide to make a product that doesn't swing in the favour of the customer. It just seems a bit pointless. 

I just hope that the good stuff is on hold for next year, and that it is what you're working on at the moment.

Personally I am not too bothered that they are missing some tracks, as they are available on CD anyway. As a relatively new fan not in possession of the original singles, I welcome the premise of these box sets, put perhaps a little more though could have been put in to produce something that will entice the hardcore fans as well as the ones like me.

GinjaNinja - he's asking you to be jealous of him. Haha. His latest post reads "I know the product was wank and no one rates them, but I'm still getting payed by QPL so it doesn't matter". Oh dear.

This is the one box set I don't feel remotely bad about not getting, not because of quality or expense, but because I have all the original CD singles, save one or two, alternate tracklistings notwithstanding.

Negative Creep wrote:
The boxsets were titled "Singles Collection" -
not "7" singles collection", so why follow the 7" tracklisting from an
era where CD singles were more popular and featured more tracks? Fucking
useless and another shafting of anyone who was buying these.  The only
logical reason for sticking to the 7" tracklistings would have been if
they were being re-issued as, er...... 7"s.

This is exactly the point i was going to make before i checked if anyone had already said what i was thinking about. Very good point, Negative Creep! Who gives a toss about the replica of a 7" single from an era where people where more interested in cd-singles? Hell, they even put Lost Opportunity and Mad The Swine on cd only to boost the sales of that format right?

Cheers,
MR

Being a fan, like yourselves, I do still care about what gets released......even after all these years. But as I have said time and again, any track listing was a joint decision between quite a few of us and not just down to me or GB. Then the final say is with the band. It is their product and is up to them and management as to what they want to do with it.

Sorry if this box, or indeed any of the other boxes, didn't meet up to expectations, but believe it or not a lot of people are happy with them, including myself.
I am sorry that the initial idea of a 10 CD box set was not issued instead, which I would love to of seen too, but what we have is a good alternative. Hopefully something like a 10 CD box set, including all the single mixes, 'b' sides and extended versions will be on the agenda with the new label.

From the start it was said that the box sets should replicate the original singles, and as nearly all of them were released on 7" vinyl, there was no reason not to follow this route. It was agreed that if and when a 7" single could not be replicated because of repeat tracks, then an alternative would be used from the next logical format. In box 3's case it was the track 'Forever' from the 12" vinyl instead of 'Killer Queen' for the 'Who Wants To Live Forever' single.

From the outset the record company wanted 13 discs in each box, which fitted the exact amount of Top 40 singles that we were going to include in these sets, including the use of three 'double' A' sides in total for box 3 and 4.
'Princes' fitted in perfectly with 'Friends', 'I Was Born To Love You' with 'Too Much Love' and the live single of 'Rock You'/'Champions' with 'Let Me Live'. The 'double A' sides were made to link two 'A' sides together on one disc and get rid of the duplicate tracks that box 4 threw at us.

The reason that LO and MTS aren't in these sets is because they were not featured on the original 7" single formats. Had there not been a 7" of 'Headlong' as an example, then we would of used a 'b' side of a track from the 12" or CD, and then you would of got those 'sought after' tracks in this box.
Nobody was trying to piss anyone off, especially the fans, otherwise the other rare 'b' sides from box 3 wouldn't of been used.

It was also stated in the press release as to why the 'Bohemian Rhapsody' / 'Days of our lives' single was to remain in it's original 'double A' side 7" format, and with the last two singles we just took out the duplicate tracks and used the remaining tracks from the original CDs. 

The reason that there are sometimes three or four tracks on any one CD in these sets, instead of two like most discs, is because that is what was on the originals too.

So I hope that explains some of the actions we took throughout this series, but obviously it wont meet some peoples expectations or match their own ideas of what they would of chosen for the box sets.

"The reason that LO and MTS aren't in these sets is because they were not featured on the original 7" single formats"

Nor was 'Queen Talks' Gary. Yet that still made it on to the yet.

Yay for including a remastered spoken word "song" b-side but yay for not including remasters of 2 other non-7" b-sides?

I don't understand why people are so worked up about this. Surely the last 10 years have lowered your expectations a bit? Or were you actually expecting something interesting? The Black Dog of depression is my faithful companion in Queen-related matters these days...