REISSUE OF GH1 & GH2

January 1st 2011 sees Island Records re-issue Queen’s Greatest Hits and Greatest Hits 2 collections. Greatest Hits remains the best selling UK album of all time and combined with Greatest Hits 2 presents the definitive Queen collection. Together they form among one the seminal collections in rock history jointly selling an incredible 40 million copies worldwide.Both albums have been digitally re-mastered for 2011 by Bob Ludwig, the legendary mastering engineer who has worked with U2, Coldplay and Radiohead, and come complete with refreshed sleeve notes.The Greatest Hits re-issues start what is going to be a huge year for Queen, as 2011 marks the 40th anniversary of their formation in 1971.The Anniversary year kicks off with a major exhibition, ‘Stormtroopers in Stilettos’ – a comprehensive look at the early part of Queen’s career. Taking place in The Old Truman Brewery in the heart of London’s East End the exhibition opens on February 25th running through to March 12th, and will cover the band pre-Queen, their formation and their first five albums from the first half of the 1970’s.Newly signed to legendary label Island Records, and to coincide with the exhibition, the first five albums that Queen released – “Queen”, “Queen II”, “Sheer Heart Attack”, “A Night At The Opera” and “A Day At The Races – will be re-mastered and re-packaged into special deluxe album formats released in March 2011Subsequent to the exhibition there will be a major BBC TV Documentary featuring a rare interview with Roger Taylor and Brian May and many other surprises and releases to come through the rest of the year. 2011 will see filming begin of a major Hollywood movie about Queen, starring Sacha Baron Cohen as Freddie Mercury. Acclaimed script writer Peter Morgan (“The Queen”,” Frost/Nixon” ) is working on the project, which is being produced by GK Films, Robert de Niro’s Tribeca Productions and Queen Films.

For fucks sake...

Ludwig is doing them, so that's promising.
Should give us a taste of how the studio's may sound with his remastering.
He nailed ANATO I thought.

It's just so exciting waiting to get my 14th copy of GH1 and GH2, I can hardly wait!
Maybe my purchase will help save a badger or a fox....

When I first read this headline, my first instinct was to smash a few windows, knock down a couple of walls and generally just stamp on things....or people.  Getting so bored with this now.  Luckily, the funny farm let me go again and after some tramadol, I've had the chance to reconsider as the line about the first few albums being repackaged in deluxe format by March rescued things a little.  Serious question, though - although we're all getting fed up with the GH package....what happened to GH3????

This stuff is not aimed at the fan. They have to put them out to keep them available for new audiences. And maybe for die hard collectors, who need to have every existing pressing of a song. Something that I never understood....

I don't expect any miracles from the remastering, the GH albums were fine so far.
The albums will be more interesting, if they are remixed - not remastered again.

They haven't been remastered properly yet, so let's have that first before we mess with remixing.

I'd much rather a quality remastering of the studios before a third party bastardises them with remixing.
Apart from the Ludwig 2005 ANATO, the MFSL's of The Game, NOTW, ANATO and ADATR along with the DCC of ANATO we don't have any quality remasters. 

I actually think Queen are extremely underdone for quality remastering.

I think there is a real chance that Ludwig can do a pretty good job of the studios. He proved to be good on the 2005 ANATO.

Smilebrian wrote:
They haven't been remastered properly yet, so let's have that first before we mess with remixing.

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You can remaster them as often as you like, but if for example the drums are sounding bad in the mix you can't do anything.
Listen to the Beatles "Yellow Submarine Songtrack" and what they have done to songs like "Hey Bulldog". You can remaster the original 68 mix but you will never get to a similar brilliant result.

I want the albums remixed and restored faithfully once. I don't need another remaster and then in some years a proper remix, so that they can sell the stuff another two times to me.

Soundfreak wrote: Smilebrian wrote:
They haven't been remastered properly yet, so let's have that first before we mess with remixing.

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You can remaster them as often as you like, but if for example the drums are sounding bad in the mix you can't do anything.
Listen to the Beatles "Yellow Submarine Songtrack" and what they have done to songs like "Hey Bulldog". You can remaster the original 68 mix but you will never get to a similar brilliant result.

I want the albums remixed and restored faithfully once. I don't need another remaster and then in some years a proper remix, so that they can sell the stuff another two times to me.

That's it isn't it. Though if any re-mixing was to be done to the original albums I'd like Brian & Roger (and preferably John) being in full control. I made another thread about the quality of the first couple of albums compared to others at the time. I know there's only so much that can be done but would love to hear some of those earlier songs really brought to life with a quality mix.

I like the originals.

I'd like all the songs re-recorded with Paul Rodgers on vocals, plus the original album artwork redone to include Paul Rodgers, for example, another starsign added to the cover of ADATR or Rodgers doing some kung fu on the giant robot on NOTW. Rodgers could also be greased up and inserted between Fred and Roger on the cover of Sheer Heart Attack. Now there's a thought for a Sunday morning ...

But remixing will just be a current producers/engineers take on the tracks.
I acknowledge that they might turn out great, and I'd certainly be interested in hearing the tracks renewed under a new mix.
I'd also bet that I may even prefer some of the tracks.
But they wouldn't be original, the intent of the tracks can never be captured up to 40 years on and would simply be someone's take on what sounds good. 

How about we get the CD's sounding as close as we can to the original analogue sound with the least amount of compression possible. OK, the drums on Queen I may never sound the greatest, but a non compressed remaster with strong dynamic range will sound significantly better than the slop available at the moment.

I don't believe Brian and Roger would be capable of performing the remixing as their hearing has deteriorated quite significantly these days, not to mention their complete lack of current creative ability (cosmos rocks) and insensitivity to how their back catalogue has been remastered (butchered). Allowing EMI to use a 1999 digital source for the latest vinyl releases was simply criminal.

It's a question of philosophy - what do you want to hear.

Do you want to hear, how the records sounded in those days  - due to limitations of technical equipment in those days?

Or do you want to hear, how the band  r e a l l y sounded, when they performed in the studio?

Think of all those artists from the days of the grammophone era. They never ever sounded that tinny and scratchy, when they recorded their songs. And I would love to hear artists like maybe the Commedian Harmonists how they really sounded - not their technically unsatisfying records.

I know how the Queen albums sounded. I don't need that reproduced on cd...;-)

And maybe for die hard collectors, who need to have every existing pressing of a song. Something that I never understood....

To be honest. Sometimes I like to have a vinyl, cd and sometimes even an 8 track copy. Cassette isn't important (though I do have a few on them) Another example, If they re-release an album in deluxe format with bonuses, I will buy it again, but if Queen does this now, and in 5-10 years does it again with MORE bonuses, I'm finding a free download site for that release. Paying for it once or twice is fine.  As for GH packages. I own GH I, II, III and the Hollywood GH and Classic Queen cd's. I did not buy AG or the GH from a few years ago. Nor did I buy the peculiar wal mart Queen A-Z collection.

Why?

NOTHING NEW ON THEM!

(PS, if they had 1 or 2 newer things, I'd have just bought the single cuts on ITunes.

It's a question of philosophy - what do you want to hear.
Do you want to hear, how the records sounded in those days  - due to limitations of technical equipment in those days?
Or do you want to hear, how the band  r e a l l y sounded, when they performed in the studio?

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Forgive my technical ignorance Soundreak, but how can we hear how they really sounded in the studio?
Surely there is no pristine unadulterated drum track, perfectly recorded from Queen 1 that a remix will fix (as an example)?
I thought that the drums were actually recorded in the way they've ended up on record. That was the De Lane Lea "house" sound of the time wasn't it? So, we're never really going to hear how they sounded in the studio unless we were there. Even then, the recording process can be quite piecemeal so you're  hardly going to hear a band rocking out in full like you would live. 

I'm sure a remix may be able to better highlight certain instrumentation, but if it wasn't recorded in a particular environment/style etc. then that can't be fixed. 

For me, the Queen I sound is part of the charm and romance of the embryonic stages of Queen. Just give it to me remastered (actually, tampered with the least) and I'll be happy.

Forgive my technical ignorance Soundreak, but how can we hear how they really sounded in the studio?
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With Queen it's quite simple as they used regular instruments. A piano or a drum always sounded the same, whether it was in the 60s or 70s or 90s.
And if a drum sounds limited or unnatural throughout a whole album, it's easy to bring it back to a more natural sound. If you even know the exact drum set, that was used it's no problem for a good sound engineer or get closer to the real thing.

Best example is Deep Purple's "Black Night". The original single sounds like a 10th generation tape copy. And Deep Purple never sounded like that. Listen to the unedited Remix on the "In Rock" album and it sounds like being recorded yesterday.