The Making of 'Made In Heaven'

Its ball park stuff, everyone knows this already.... I wouldnt go to a messageboard of a band I just got into and ask the obvious shit..., specially on the board marked 'serious' -' so Led Zepp fans... what do you tink of Stairway'???

I thought The Game and A Night at the Opera were the most-selling albums, and that was the idea for The Works - to have something in between these two, so it would sell more than Hot Space (get back old fans). Also, those two albums has been released on DVD's. But of course, The Works came out 11 years before Made in Heaven...

An oberservation is that a lot of people have Made in Heaven in their collections(, and maybe nothing else from Queen)..!

Thanks for the info, everyone.

This is the first time I've heard It's A Beautiful Day was recorded as early as 1980 - and very interesting it's included as an 'extra' on The Game upcoming re-master!

NOTWMEDDLE wrote: Wikipedia (or PRICKIPEDIA as I call those f*ckheads) is talking BULLSH*T! Those f*ckheads are packed with inaccuracies and removed alot of sources and articles I submitted (all of which my sources were TRUE for the record). Once I told the mods (who removed my painstaking research and articles claiming they were not reliable) there to f*ck off and die, I got banned for life (but I don't give a f*ck as I know the truth much to their high and mighty knowing dismay).

Made in Heaven was not Queen's best selling studio album, here in the US anyway (that honor belongs to The Game and News Of the World (both at 4 million copies Stateside)). Made in Heaven barely went Gold in the States (500,000 copies sold in the US) and peaked at #56 (which I remember as the album came out the same day as the final studio album from Alice in Chains with original singer Layne Staley and the "long-awaited" Cypress Hill album (which my other best friend Chuck bought while I was buying Queen's Made in Heaven) came out that day (as did the expanded version of Who's Next by The Who (which I also bought the week it came out)). Made in Heaven had little to no airplay on regular rock radio and VH1 and MTV did sh*t to promote it (here in the States anyhow)!

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Queen's US sales have always been a drop in the ocean compared to total sales anyway, especially from the 80s onwards. So I would say the fact it was not successful in the US does not mean it can't be their highest selling album, it's not even much of an indication of how globally popular the album was at all.

mooghead wrote: Its ball park stuff, everyone knows this already.... I wouldnt go to a messageboard of a band I just got into and ask the obvious shit..., specially on the board marked 'serious' -' so Led Zepp fans... what do you tink of Stairway'???
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That's incredibly ignorant. If someone is new to Queen and doesn't know these things, they're perfectly within their right to ask someone here. If it's not to your liking, don't react in the way you have. A friend of mine is still fairly new to Queen's story and most albums and I am always glad to help when he has questions. God forbid he posts something here while you're around.

When these threads pop up I have a look to see what's being said and move on. Either that or perhaps I can answer a question or shed light on something. It wasn't so long ago since I helped detect that IABD was from The Game era. If I'd acted like you and told them to piss off with more MIH chat, we'd never have gotten into that at all.

Adam.

Yeah, I first thought You Don't Fool Me was recorded around (in this case, after) Innuendo, as Freddie's voice sounds similar to the tracks from that album (very high-pitched, etc.)

bigV wrote: It is Queen's best-selling studio album, yes. I don't know what the article on Wikipedia says, but as far as sales go it's accurate. It kinda makes the people saying that MIH is not a true Queen album seem retarded.

V.
I would say if it is the best selling album it makes the global record buying public. Much as A Kind of Magic benefitted from  post Live Aid  hype, Made in Heaven capitalised on Freddies' death. It is criminally absurd that this album outsold Innuendo the last one where he was actually alive. The album while a nice listen strays very much into middle of the road Elton John type territory and does not represent the true quality and creatvity of the band at all. How can an album of patched up outtakes and solo album material  deserve to end up being the best selling . This means more people have heard My Life Has Been Saved than The March of the Black Queen. Lets not kid ourselves an EP with Mother Love, Winters Tale, You Dont Fool Me and Let Me Live would have been more honest.

Pingfah wrote: NOTWMEDDLE wrote: Wikipedia (or PRICKIPEDIA as I call those f*ckheads) is talking BULLSH*T! Those f*ckheads are packed with inaccuracies and removed alot of sources and articles I submitted (all of which my sources were TRUE for the record). Once I told the mods (who removed my painstaking research and articles claiming they were not reliable) there to f*ck off and die, I got banned for life (but I don't give a f*ck as I know the truth much to their high and mighty knowing dismay).

Made in Heaven was not Queen's best selling studio album, here in the US anyway (that honor belongs to The Game and News Of the World (both at 4 million copies Stateside)). Made in Heaven barely went Gold in the States (500,000 copies sold in the US) and peaked at #56 (which I remember as the album came out the same day as the final studio album from Alice in Chains with original singer Layne Staley and the "long-awaited" Cypress Hill album (which my other best friend Chuck bought while I was buying Queen's Made in Heaven) came out that day (as did the expanded version of Who's Next by The Who (which I also bought the week it came out)). Made in Heaven had little to no airplay on regular rock radio and VH1 and MTV did sh*t to promote it (here in the States anyhow)!

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Queen's US sales have always been a drop in the ocean compared to total sales anyway, especially from the 80s onwards. So I would say the fact it was not successful in the US does not mean it can't be their highest selling album, it's not even much of an indication of how globally popular the album was at all.

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Not necessarily. The United States of America is a huge market, biggest music market in the world. News Of the World sold more in the States than it did in the UK (it reached #3 in the US, UK it stalled at #4) and stands now at 4 million copies in the US alone. Same deal with The Game which was Queen's biggest seller in the States and highest charting (it hit #1). A Night at the Opera has sold over 3 million in the US to date. Live Killers has sold 2 million to date in the US. A Day at the Races and Jazz (and Live at Wembley), each million sellers. Queen I, Sheer Heart Attack, Flash Gordon, Hot Space, Innuendo all went Gold (500,000 copies sold). Made in Heaven was the Let it Be of Queen. Innuendo was their Abbey Road. I didn't count the configurations of Greatest Hits available in the US. The 1970s era of Queen is loved in the States. Hot Space was first nail in coffin. I Want to Break Free was second nail. A Kind of Magic BOMBED in the States.

Apart from the big US Queen cities, most of American rock fans (the Bible belt and Dust Bowls, in particular) wanted during the 1980s was Van Halen, Def Leppard (before Steve Clark died), Whitesnake and hair metal (how Iron Maiden and Judas Priest did successful amidst the poodle rock sea is a miracle). It don't take much to sell in Europe, Japan and Australia as they are smaller countries. Most artists now tour overseas as the concert market is better than the US due to the DEPRESSION!

Huge market and all, but still an album that sold relatively poorly there (compared to others) can still be Queen's biggest selling world-wide. The world's got other 194 independent nations (soon to be 195).

About the size of the U.S. market, I agree, and it's an excellent point.  Even albums that were just seen as doing "OK" in the States still sold a LOT of copies.

For example, if the sales numbers published online are to be believed, even INNUENDO sold a total of 700,000 copies in the U.K. but 1 MILLION in the U.S.

And A Kind of Magic which, as was said, basically bombed in the USA, now shows 1.5 million copies sold vs. 1.65 million in the U.K.

According to my notes, the Innuendo Sessions were from December of 1989 to November of 1990.

November 23rd, 1990, the band was finished the album and were filming the "Headlong" video and the Electronic Press Kit. The "Innuendo" video was also well into production.

January 1st, 1991, the EPK is released.

January 7th, Hints Of Innuendo is released.

January 14th, "Innuendo" single is released in the UK & US (including the video).

January 15th, "Headlong" single is released in the US (including the video).

February 4th & 5th, 1991, the Innuendo album is released in the UK & US.

All this is by way of pointing out that the band had between the end of November 1990 and the end of January 1991 to send the album off to get pressed and shipped to stores worldwide. That's two months. Which is to say that if "A Winter's Tale" was recorded in December of 1990, it was not for Innuendo or during those sessions.

More than likely it was a case of: "Okay, the album's done. Let's get it out quickly and get to work on more recordings!" It's been established that Queen didn't record a lot more music between the completion of Innuendo and Freddie's death ("A Winter's Tale," scraps of "You Don't Fool Me" and part of "Mother Love"), but it seems fair to say that their intent was to keep working during that last year.

As noted by other posters, the rest of the album was adapted from existing recordings.

"January 15th, "Headlong" single is released in the US (including the video)."

You sure about that?  I only ask because I never saw the Headlong video here in the States when Innuendo first came out (and I was looking for it, as Headlong was the first single here, etc.)

I just assumed the video was not finished yet or they held it back until the single was released in the U.K.

I'm pretty certain of that, yes.

They worked on the "Innuendo" video at the same as "Headlong" and the EPK. The "Headlong" video is pretty much entirely present (intercut with interviews and behind-the-scenes footage) on the EPK, so I don't think it getting finished in time would be an issue. 

The reason they did both those videos simultaneously was because the "Innuendo" video didn't require the band to perform anything, it's all animated and uses stock footage (including "Headlong" footage). "Headlong" was the first video off the album that required the band to perform and be directly involved on-camera. The other reason was they knew "Headlong" was going to be the lead single in the US and Canada. They needed two videos at basically the same time. 

And that's not the first time Queen did that. In 1986, The US got "Princes Of The Universe" (single and video, March 12th) at the same time at the UK got "A Kind Of Magic" (video and single, March 17th).

NOTWMEDDLE wrote:

Not necessarily. The United States of America is a huge market, biggest music market in the world. News Of the World sold more in the States than it did in the UK (it reached #3 in the US, UK it stalled at #4) and stands now at 4 million copies in the US alone. Same deal with The Game which was Queen's biggest seller in the States and highest charting (it hit #1). A Night at the Opera has sold over 3 million in the US to date. Live Killers has sold 2 million to date in the US. A Day at the Races and Jazz (and Live at Wembley), each million sellers. Queen I, Sheer Heart Attack, Flash Gordon, Hot Space, Innuendo all went Gold (500,000 copies sold). Made in Heaven was the Let it Be of Queen. Innuendo was their Abbey Road. I didn't count the configurations of Greatest Hits available in the US. The 1970s era of Queen is loved in the States. Hot Space was first nail in coffin. I Want to Break Free was second nail. A Kind of Magic BOMBED in the States.

Apart from the big US Queen cities, most of American rock fans (the Bible belt and Dust Bowls, in particular) wanted during the 1980s was Van Halen, Def Leppard (before Steve Clark died), Whitesnake and hair metal (how Iron Maiden and Judas Priest did successful amidst the poodle rock sea is a miracle). It don't take much to sell in Europe, Japan and Australia as they are smaller countries. Most artists now tour overseas as the concert market is better than the US due to the DEPRESSION!

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I am aware of the numbers, none of that contradicts anything I said, you just basically repeated what you said before. The US numbers are irrelevant unless you are going to compare them to the global numbers for each album, so trotting them out again doesn't support your argument any more now than it did before. 

It doesn't matter a damn that News of the World sold 4 million copies in the US, that still doesn't mean Made in Heaven couldn't have outsold their other albums globally. The US is a single country out of a couple of hundred.

Pingfah wrote: NOTWMEDDLE wrote:

Not necessarily. The United States of America is a huge market, biggest music market in the world. News Of the World sold more in the States than it did in the UK (it reached #3 in the US, UK it stalled at #4) and stands now at 4 million copies in the US alone. Same deal with The Game which was Queen's biggest seller in the States and highest charting (it hit #1). A Night at the Opera has sold over 3 million in the US to date. Live Killers has sold 2 million to date in the US. A Day at the Races and Jazz (and Live at Wembley), each million sellers. Queen I, Sheer Heart Attack, Flash Gordon, Hot Space, Innuendo all went Gold (500,000 copies sold). Made in Heaven was the Let it Be of Queen. Innuendo was their Abbey Road. I didn't count the configurations of Greatest Hits available in the US. The 1970s era of Queen is loved in the States. Hot Space was first nail in coffin. I Want to Break Free was second nail. A Kind of Magic BOMBED in the States.

Apart from the big US Queen cities, most of American rock fans (the Bible belt and Dust Bowls, in particular) wanted during the 1980s was Van Halen, Def Leppard (before Steve Clark died), Whitesnake and hair metal (how Iron Maiden and Judas Priest did successful amidst the poodle rock sea is a miracle). It don't take much to sell in Europe, Japan and Australia as they are smaller countries. Most artists now tour overseas as the concert market is better than the US due to the DEPRESSION!

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I am aware of the numbers, none of that contradicts anything I said, you just basically repeated what you said before. The US numbers are irrelevant unless you are going to compare them to the global numbers for each album, so trotting them out again doesn't support your argument any more now than it did before. 

It doesn't matter a damn that News of the World sold 4 million copies in the US, that still doesn't mean Made in Heaven couldn't have outsold their other albums globally. The US is a single country out of a couple of hundred.

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IT DOES MATTER SHERLOCK! The USA is THE BIGGEST MUSIC MARKET IN THE WORLD! IT IS BIGGER THAN GERMANY, ITALY, ENGLAND, IRELAND, AUSTRALIA, JAPAN (DON'T TAKE MUCH TO SELL THERE).

PRESS RELEASES JUST ARE INFLATED HYPE! FOR THE RECORD, QUEEN HAVE SOLD MORE THAN BRITARD SNEERS IN THE US.

THE US HATED THE POST-1980 QUEEN OUTPUT, THANKS TO M (FUCKING) TV. IF FREDDIE HADN'T TAKEN PAUL PRENTER'S ADVICE ON IGNORING THE US (PLUS THE POP SINGLES AND I WANT TO BREAK FREE VIDEO), QUEEN MAY HAD GOTTEN THE US BACK IN THE 1980s BUT NEVER HAPPENED!