Well, I just got the "Made in Heaven" cd the other day, and

all I can say is wow! This was a very special treat for me and my wife as I didn't know Freddie sang on this due to the release date.

I always thought it was a tribute album with the remaining band members doing all of the vocals.

God, its hard not to get emotional listening to this album, especially after reading what the wiki had to say about it, and the general message's from the songs themselves.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Made_in_Heaven

The wiki said that Freddie was wanting to sing anything they could write for him so that there would be enough in the end.

He literally gave all he had.

I really think that had Freddie lived Queen would still be on the charts today. However I do wonder if there are any old recordings of songs that didn't make it on to albums, etc waiting to see the light of day.........well, one can hope.

M-train...I celebrate this moment for you and your wife!

It is an incredible album.  Gorgeous, in fact...while still heartbreaking.

Indeed. The thrill of hearing that album for the first time is beyond compare. I envy you.

V.

Agrees with BigV...I still remember getting it for Christmas in 1995, and was just blown away with the songs and the level of production. Fantastic CD, enjoy every minute of it. I don't think there is any more, though I think I speak for everyone on this site that we all wish there WAS more. I guess time will tell, but don't hold your breath haha!

This was the album that got me into Queen as a teenager in 1995, and it still brings back some very happy and special memories for me!  I am glad that this now "old" album has brought something NEW to another fan, and this just shows that Queen are absolutely timeless.

Love ya Freddie, think of you every day!

Having myself discovered some Queen material only in the last two years, I can imagine how you felt when you listened to it! It's wonderful when after so many years of listening to what you thought was everything that existed about Queen,  you find "new" songs. A really moving experience.

I was 15 when Made In Heaven was released and I still remember when my dad came home and gave it to me. I was so thrilled! I love it, It's my second favourite album. It's also the only one that I listened to "in real time" since I knew Queen  after Freddie's death. Beautiful songs that sometimes make me sad but always give me peace.

I cried the first time I heard "Mother Love". It's still one of very few (four or five) songs that has ever brought me to tears.

V.

I was only 11 when my mother gave MIH to my father as a birthday present, and from the moment Freddie sings: "its a beatiful daaaayy.." was WOOOW, I want more!.. I was aware about the band by the time and the odd Queen songs, like anyone, but MIH was the album that made me a fan.. and well.. here we are!. I think that probably a 25% or more of the Queen fandom started with MIH in 1995..

And looking forward to the 2011 remaster!!!!

took me years to listen to it........

i have mixed feelings about it. i'll try to explain.

having been a queen fan since '74, i assumed (albeit justifiably) that by 1991 it WAS all over. So, in '95 the release of MIH gave my ears hope of one last "new" blast from a band i'd grown up with for 17 years.  The aniticipation was soon replaced with some disappointment.

Too many old tracks - yes i get the idea, MIH was about a final sign-off for Freddie. but surely not by rehasing five or six old tracks. Of those here's my honest (if brutal) assessment

2. made in heaven - it doesn't matter (to me) that some fans like the Brian guitar sound added to it - it's not how Freddie wanted it to sound, his MBG album version was the "vision" for him
3. let me live - fantastic song, shame it was never finished with freddie - but woulda been better with maybe a group of friends etc doing a choral version of Brian's verse
5. my life has been saved - not much of a change to an older track
6. born to love you...compeletely ruined....i love frieddie's version
7. heaven for everyone - prefer the Cross version with Freddie taking lead
8 too much love - just a tarting up of Freddies demo

basically, this album "misses" too often because Brian and Roger didn't have the benefit of Freddie's input into quality control, and it suffers for it.

If we put nostalgia and sentiment aside - realistically it doesn't stand up, as a queen album it's a 5/10, as a gesture to Freddie it's a 10/10

brENsKi wrote: born to love you...compeletely ruined....i love frieddie's version

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Completely agreed.  They ruined the version on MIH.  The version from Freddie's solo album was the best and how could they change that awesome song in such bad way, I wonder.

brENsKi wrote: i have mixed feelings about it. i'll try to explain.

having been a queen fan since '74, i assumed (albeit justifiably) that by 1991 it WAS all over. So, in '95 the release of MIH gave my ears hope of one last "new" blast from a band i'd grown up with for 17 years.  The aniticipation was soon replaced with some disappointment.

Too many old tracks - yes i get the idea, MIH was about a final sign-off for Freddie. but surely not by rehasing five or six old tracks. Of those here's my honest (if brutal) assessment

2. made in heaven - it doesn't matter (to me) that some fans like the Brian guitar sound added to it - it's not how Freddie wanted it to sound, his MBG album version was the "vision" for him
3. let me live - fantastic song, shame it was never finished with freddie - but woulda been better with maybe a group of friends etc doing a choral version of Brian's verse
5. my life has been saved - not much of a change to an older track
6. born to love you...compeletely ruined....i love frieddie's version
7. heaven for everyone - prefer the Cross version with Freddie taking lead
8 too much love - just a tarting up of Freddies demo

basically, this album "misses" too often because Brian and Roger didn't have the benefit of Freddie's input into quality control, and it suffers for it.

If we put nostalgia and sentiment aside - realistically it doesn't stand up, as a queen album it's a 5/10, as a gesture to Freddie it's a 10/10

Yeah. They shouldn't of rehashed those songs and I agree with your assessments. It would of been nice if they had of worked on some of the un-released stuff perhaps.

Totally agree with Brenski.  FWIW, my least favourite Queen album by a mile, and an album to this day that I find creatively dishonest.  As Brenski said, some versions (MIH, IWBTLY) were written by Freddie in a certain way outside of the Queen world.  Then Brian and Roger get them and "Queen-ify" them.  If Freddie wanted that, he would have presented the songs as Queen songs.  The ending of MIH with its minor key dirge like tone is a stark contrast to Freddie's sad, yet optimistic version on MBG, and reeks of "Fred's dead" manipulation over the listener.  Freddie wasn't here to give his stamp of approval or disapproval to the versions if not the concept, however, as a band that fought pretty vigorously over a note, I find it hard to imagine that Freddie had anything to do with the way songs came out on MIH because they stray so far from what HE wanted on the record.  Middle of the road music with a nice sentiment but ultimately Celine Dion/Mariah Carey over the top schmaltz.  Unless you love it then my opinion is just my opinion.

Sheer Brass neck wrote:  If Freddie wanted that, he would have presented the songs as Queen songs.

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How do you know? Freddie recorded as long as he could. So there must have been some talk with him, how an album after his death might be like. And as the the "Mr Bad guy" songs were not very successful in the days of the original release and quite unknown to many people, he may have given his okay to make use of them. I don't think that they ever had a strict seperation of Queen and solo songs. Leftovers from Queen albums were used on solo-albums in several cases. 

I was also a bit disappointed by the use of many known songs for this album. But the album also shows how they made use of every short leftover they could find and turn it into a full song. So there is no wealth of unreleased recordings.
What most people seem to ignore is the fact, that the Queen members could read and write music. So if they had an idea they wrote it down in notes unlike most other bands, who recorded every song-idea instead resulting in a huge archive full of demos.

i disagrree with the notion that they used every scrap of every workable song

there are plenty of songs more complete than Let Me Live was