Love Kills - the ballad (released as a single on Spotify)

The best version is Rock Mix. That "ballad" is absolutelly boring and unneeded.

Gotta agree. ^ above. I think the metropolis mix is the closest to an authentic queen release as you'll get.

Considering the "influences" inherent on their 80's material and the synth sound of radio gaga recorded around the time it just makes more sense.

Never thought I'd hear Brian playing boring arpeggiated chords on a release.

I think they pulled back ONE modern element. They pulled back from doing the typical electronic crap drum "stutter rise" or whatever you call it. ("Crap club music convention that sounds like a monkey toy drum player)

You can even hear where they pulled it at the 2:22 mark.

A couple of useful changes in it though if you avoid that.

Need to drop two more cents. Firstly, the Wolf Euro Mix was as substandard as the title suggested. Freddie backed up by a pub band, that's what it sounded like. Second, the new LK version is actually growing on me. Just played it to a friend who doesn't normally listen to Queen and he was very impressed. I think the bad thing for us fans is that we heard this song so many times before and we also heard the QAL version, but this new take actually has its merits. And thankfully, it sounds fairly raw, unlike some of the stuff on Made in Heaven.

I've listened to the ballad and I liked it. I searched for it on YouTube but it still isn't there.

When you say the "Metropolis version", do you mean the one in The Freddie Mercury Album?

[QUOTE] [b]Silken wrote:[/b]

I've listened to the ballad and I liked it. I searched for it on YouTube but it still isn't there.

When you say the "Metropolis version", do you mean the one in The Freddie Mercury Album?[/QUOTE]

Metropolis version = Original 1984 version = Queen track

First time I heard this new version I absolutely loved it. Not sure what some of you guys are on about.

I don't feel the new rhythm suits it nearly as well as the original. Brian's lead guitar work is quite nice though, replacing some of the synth interjections.

[QUOTE] [b]waunakonor wrote:[/b]

First time I heard this new version I absolutely loved it. Not sure what some of you guys are on about.[/QUOTE]

I'm on Queen.

Thanks for the replies, guys!
The Ballad has grown on me A BIT, but I still think it's kinda dull - the guitar "stops" a little, and I feel like "come on!"

If the original intention for Love Kills was as a Queen song in this form, then I'm glad that (either) one or more of the other band members decided it didn't fit Freddie or Freddie pulled it. Frankly, it deserves nothing more than being resigned to the ranks of the poor solo material Queen's individual members have been responsible for. The critical reception given to Mr. Bad Guy is a direct result of the generally poor content......... Imagine this version of Love Kills on A Kind Of Magic.........

Posting is not being kind to me in this thread. What I said was something to the effect of finding Love Kills much better than anything off Mr. Bad Guy, with Freddie's vocals being some of his best from 1984 through 1989. Brian's guitar work is also really nice, with a really subdued tone.

[QUOTE] [b]Benn Kempster wrote:[/b]

If the original intention for Love Kills was as a Queen song in this form, then I'm glad that (either) one or more of the other band members decided it didn't fit Freddie or Freddie pulled it. Frankly, it deserves nothing more than being resigned to the ranks of the poor solo material Queen's individual members have been responsible for. The critical reception given to Mr. Bad Guy is a direct result of the generally poor content......... Imagine this version of Love Kills on A Kind Of Magic.........[/QUOTE]

It would have been arranged differently and vocal takes would be different.

IT WAS RECORDED during THE WORKS
....it's radio gaga ish so it's likely it would sounds just the same as the FM solo bit.

I don't know what contemporary sound they were going for but in general when queen stretched in the 80's it was due to a "flavor" in the charts

@Tom I wouldn't compare Love Kills with Mr Bad Guy as the solo album has a few great tracks but stylistically it differs from Love Kills. Love Me Like There's No Tomorrow, Made in Heaven, even FM's solo version of TMBMTLTT and the title track are great. Yes the album is under-produced bearing in mind that Freddie realised that his solo project isn't going in the right way and he simply lost faith in his project. Much of the elements of this album need to be reworked (drums, synths, the mixing of majority of the songs). But I don't think that BM and Rog. would do it.

@Benn Kempster BM stated that Love Kills has been reimagined as ballad and the idea itself is his alone. There was a point in the whole process when he started to think if this is gonna work (source: BM on Chris Evans show).
It is easy to tell that Adam is delivering the ballad better as Freddie has sang to the backing track which was played 2x faster ! I'm curious if Brian and Roger attempted to use other Freddie's vocal takes of the song as it's shame that they did that only with TMBMTLTT. Maybe combining other vocal takes and the original one would suit better this new BM's backing track..... Also it would be great to hear the original Queen demo of Love Kills from the Works recording sessions.

Listening for the first time now. It was always an awful song. Nice to hear, but a pass from me.