Barcelona re-release - What the @#8! did they do????

I realize all of your comments are valid RhyeKing, and I've read a lot of your stuff that you write under your real name and think it's well done, so I have no bone to pick with you.  But as a knowledgeable writer, you can't say with any sense of conviction that MIH was anything but the "Freddie death album", and Queen knew it.  I am a lifelong Queen fan and know my history fairly well.  So pre-internet, I and many had never heard of the opening track "It's a Beautiful Day."  So we hear this as the opening track, and if you understand Queen, the opening track has always been a key to the album.  Here's an unfinished song by Freddie, and he's showing great strength in the face of death by singing It's a Beautiful Day.  But wait!  This song was written in 1980 when he was alive and well!!!  Now the tone has been set.  Next is MIH.  As stated, the Mr. Bad Guy version may have been about a day in Freddie's life, the gay club "Heaven" that he frequented around the time Mr. Bad Guy was recorded, or about everything in life being made in heaven.  His Mr. Bad Guy version was neither happy nor sad.  But wait!  Freddie's optimistic ending became minor key and plodding, which suited the tenor of the album.  Next up was Let me Live.  Same thing as IABD.  Most people would have assumed it was a plea for Freddie to "let him live", as he has received a death sentence and he's putting his words and music down for the world to see how he's coping.  But wait?  The song was written in the 80s (a la IABD) long before he knew he was ill.  My Life has been Saved was a mostly obscure B-side, but it was rehashed for MIH.  Death, dying, theme emerging.  

Even though these songs had been around in one way or another for a long time, it comes off as a bit cynical and manipulative.   Why My Life has Been Saved instead of Rock in Rio Blues or Hijack my Heart?  Why It's a Beautiful Day instead of Silver Salmon or Feelings Feeelings?  Why Let me Live instead of Hangman the Sheer Heart Attack version of Sheer Heart Attack?  Don't you find it odd that all songs are about death and dying?  I do and did.  Lots of others too.  I know you're a fellow Canadian and maybe a Torontonian so I think you may have heard of John Sakamoto from the Toronto Star.  He is a huge Queen fan, and he called MIH "bathetic" in his review.  Or to put it differently, effusively or insincerely emotional; "a bathetic novel"; "maudlin expressions of sympathy"; "mushy effusiveness"; "a schmaltzy song"; "sentimental soap operas"; "slushy poetry."  To each their own, but I find MIH in the Micheal Bolton/Celine Dion world of Hallmark card emotion.  Innuendo was a fitting end to Queen, I find MIH mawkish, schamaltzy, and worst of all, a boring album start to finish.  That's just me though, and more power to the people who love it.

Now that i listened the album:

The Good:

- La Japonaise sounds much better because of the mix and the koto

- The Fallen Priest, sounds better and stronger
- Exercises in free love, much richer sounds

The Bad:

- Barcelona sounds bland and boring
- How Can i go on. The violin sounds like a cheap addittion. in some moments like a cat howl
- The Golden Boy. Awful mix of rufus drums (Loud). Lack of feeling in the playing too

The Ugly:

- I feel they killed all the former energy of Overture Piccante
- Guide me home ending.. they just chopped it. Fuck that!

It was the accusation of "dishonesty" that I challenged, not your feelings toward or interpretation of the album. It is art, we can make of it what we want, like it or not like it based on what it says to us. All I ever advocate is trying to fully understand as best we can what Queen were trying to say and how they said it before applying a value judgement on the finished work. To do any less, I feel, is to undervalue our role as the audience and to do ourselves the disservice.

I don't think the band was insincere with MIH and if they chose the songs they did and the arrangements/production that tug at the heartstrings, it could be because it's how they felt at the time. Brian was still experiencing ups and downs with his depression and you can hear it on the solo tracks he was recording, including some of the material on 'Back To The Light.' The same went for Roger on 'Happiness?' I recall a quote from Roger, when asked why H? didn't have the same energy as FIS and SF, or even The Cross albums. His reply was something like, "That was the feeling at the time, that's why."

I do think there's more going on in MIH than simply "Freddie's Death Album." I think part of the idea was to reflect on the career of Queen, which is done by including songs previously issued as solo tracks, a B-Side and unfinished pieces, new and old. Thematically, I think they were more interested in examining what life is like in the face of adversity (including death). Personal pain is a recurring idea, but so is Hope.

[QUOTE] [b]saj ditta wrote:[/b]
i got my disc 4disc barcelona today i gotta say dvd was appalling why wasnt it on bluray?.[/QUOTE]


What would be the point of putting the videos on a Blu Ray disc? They were only created in standard definition so they will still be in standard definition even if they were provided on a Blu Ray disc as opposed to a DVD. Blu Ray is judt a storage format that enabled hi def content to be provided because it can store a lot more than DVD - they didn't need it because the total playing time of the video clips fits comfortably on a DVD.

If like to know therefore why you think it's 'appalling' that the videos didn't come on a Blu Ray disc??

Fair enough RhyeKing, plus,  I think I've moved this too far from the original thread :)

[QUOTE] [b]Ozz wrote:[/b]
Now that i listened the album:
The Good:
- La Japonaise sounds much better because of the mix and the koto
- The Fallen Priest, sounds better and stronger
- Exercises in free love, much richer sounds
The Bad:
- Barcelona sounds bland and boring
- How Can i go on. The violin sounds like a cheap addittion. in some moments like a cat howl
- The Golden Boy. Awful mix of rufus drums (Loud). Lack of feeling in the playing too
The Ugly:
- I feel they killed all the former energy of Overture Piccante
- Guide me home ending.. they just chopped it. Fuck that!
[/QUOTE]

Being that "How Can I Go On" is my favorite and they botched it (twice) I can't be bothered with this "Special Edition". I would have never thought I'd prefer a synthesized version over a fully-orchestrated one but the original was mixed properly and accentuated in certain spots for that extra "oomph". Though the "Fallen Priest" does sound great I miss the original opening and so on and so on. My expectations were too high. I applaud them for trying this out and hope it sells enough to justify re-releasing Freddie's other solo stuff. I have a sinking feeling they'll save it for Freddie's next birthday though

I'll second all of that Yaff

Not to beat a dead horse, but I agree with EVERYTHING rhyeking says. :)

Good discussion. For my part, I've listened to Barcelona maybe twice all the way through as it's something that doesn't interest me and for that reason I'm not going to get this reissue.

rhyeking wrote:
It was the accusation of "dishonesty" that I challenged, not your feelings toward or interpretation of the album. It is art, we can make of it what we want, like it or not like it based on what it says to us. All I ever advocate is trying to fully understand as best we can what Queen were trying to say and how they said it before applying a value judgement on the finished work. To do any less, I feel, is to undervalue our role as the audience and to do ourselves the disservice.

I don't think the band was insincere with MIH and if they chose the songs they did and the arrangements/production that tug at the heartstrings, it could be because it's how they felt at the time. Brian was still experiencing ups and downs with his depression and you can hear it on the solo tracks he was recording, including some of the material on 'Back To The Light.' The same went for Roger on 'Happiness?' I recall a quote from Roger, when asked why H? didn't have the same energy as FIS and SF, or even The Cross albums. His reply was something like, "That was the feeling at the time, that's why."

I do think there's more going on in MIH than simply "Freddie's Death Album." I think part of the idea was to reflect on the career of Queen, which is done by including songs previously issued as solo tracks, a B-Side and unfinished pieces, new and old. Thematically, I think they were more interested in examining what life is like in the face of adversity (including death). Personal pain is a recurring idea, but so is hope.

A fascinating discussion this one. I think that in 2012 we certainly do forget the emotions and experience, or lack thereof, that we had back in both 1991, when Innuendo was released, and in 1995 when Made in Heaven came out.
I certainly take the point that the remaining band members constructed this album with the theme of Freddie's passing in mind. Hence the name Made in Heaven I guess. But I think it very much was done in the context of their feelings at the time and was done with absolute respect for their friend who had passed.

I remember feeling very grim when I put on the MIH album for the first time all those years ago. And those early sounds on IABD make about about the grimmest sounds you can make. Then suddenly Freddie is singing "Its a beautiful day!". I found that very uplifting and felt like I was more able to listen to the rest of the album in a more positive way.

Not that rest of the album was full of joy and light. There are lots of songs about surviving death (My Life Has Been Saved and Let Me Live), but then there's Mother Love, in which it seems to me that all Freddie wanted was peace from his suffering.

So I think it was appropriate for the songs chosen to have been very contextual. I mean would you have stuck a version of "Lets Turn It On" next to "Mother Love"? I think not. Or if you did, you would change it to be consistent with the feel of the album, as occurred with "I was Born to Love You".

So the songs chosen were mostly very contextual. Had Queen had any subsequent releases with Freddie singing on them, then it would have made more sense to put any other material unrelated to the issue of death on that or those releases I think. Even an album or demos would have been interesting I think, provided they had been marketed as that.

On Barcelona, I love that album, even though the title track is not my favourite song. Will definitely be buying this version to listen to their attempts with orchestra. Hopefully its a bit more good and a bit less ugly for me than there has been for some on here.

This Special Edition looks like shit, smells like shit, sounds like shit. Do you need any more proofs that this is shit?

Hi Ole
When it comes to Freddie, I just gotta see it, smell it and hear it for myself mate.

Lol.

I can understand to some degree the criticisms of the studio l.p. "Made In Heaven" but I think it is a genious project just the same from begining to end. I also cosider it a part of the trilogy of studio l.p.s up to that point. Those being "The Miracle", "Innuendo", and "Made In Heaven".

I intend on getting the four c.d. set of "Barcelona", and the vinyl...I'm REALLY excited about this...I think it comes out next week in the U.S. if I am correct.

Am I the only one who is annoyed by the ending of La Japonaise? Sounds like an error to me, the "Soobashi"-vocals (or whatever they sing) coming in too early.

I edited them of and replaced it with the instrumental version from disc 4.

"Most people would have assumed it was a plea for Freddie to "let him live""

Most people = the dumbass literalists that thought TMLWKY was about AIDS.

I think there's a number of real issues and concerns that people have with Made in Heaven, but the stuff you're talking about here comes down to the listener. Being a Queen novice when I first heard Made in Heaven, I didn't know the origins of the songs, but neither did I assume them all to be about AIDS or death. The constant changes in the vocal style/recording quality would suggest that they weren't all done at the same time, so it's obvious to anyone with ears that the songs aren't all "aargh I'm gonna die!".

It can't be helped if some people are bound and determined to view all of the songs from the very narrow perspective of 'this is Brian and Roger manipulating me!'. I suppose some folk thought that "You Don't Fool Me" was Freddie's way of telling his doctors that he thought they were overcharging him for his AZT pills or something. *shrug*

"Why My Life has Been Saved instead of Rock in Rio Blues or Hijack my Heart? Why It's a Beautiful Day instead of Silver Salmon or Feelings Feeelings? Why Let me Live instead of Hangman the Sheer Heart Attack version of Sheer Heart Attack?"

They weren't making an anthology album; they were trying (perhaps in a futile way?) to make a cohesive piece. I've never felt they entirely succeeded - I think one or two of the songs don't sit quite in place and I honestly think Brian and Roger could've padded it out a bit with their own stuff. In any case, they had an album they wanted to make, and none of the songs you suggested would've made any sense. And some of the crap you're saying about them is callous. I don't find it offensive as such, and if I was Brian or Roger I'd probably laugh it off, but it always baffles me when people on this forum fire off broadsides at what Brian and Roger did on Made in Heaven. Whatever the missteps, these were bereaved guys, and I've never gotten the sense that they acted improperly with that album. I dunno if you've ever tried to make music with the dead, but it's rough ... and the 'manipulation' you accuse them of just does not jive with the facts.

What they've done post '97, of course, is another story. Haha.