To be honest I think in 1990, or 89, Freddie was still able to record - and he was still being treated. I think somewhere inside he probably thought it would be OK, you know, denial. I think the rest of the band probably went into denial too, and I also think that they thought they'd have more stuff to work with after Freddie's death than they did (I mean, at the time of recording, not after he died). I think that even as late as October 1991, Brian was still in a state of shock and denial about what was happening, and I can only assume that the John and Roger were too. Although, it's fairly obvious that they all knew that Freddie was going to die.
Peter Freestone claims that Freddie's doctor had told him (had told Peter, not Freddie) that he wouldn't make it to Christmas of THAT year. The band were probably told this, too. When Freddie pulled through and had a second wind , perhaps they thought that he'd pull through a second and maybe even third time. If he had managed that he might even still be here today - but there's no point in going down that road since it didn't happen that way. You know when someone is dying - we've pretty much all been through it with friends or family with various illnesses - there is sometimes, towards the end, an absolute burst of life when they can sort things out and perhaps realise some of their ambitions before the final deterioration happens. In every case that this burt of energy happens, all the friends and family think or hope that somehow they will be OK in the long run.
So, without trying to turn this into yet another Freddie's illness thread, I think the signing of the contract with Hollywood in 1990 was done with good intentions. I'll bet that when the fan club wrote in their magazine in the last magazine before Freddie died that there'd be another Queen album in 1992, that the four of them believed it at least at the time of writing, or if they didn't believe it, they were trying their best to block out what was actually happening. Fair enough. Who wouldn't. Young man, who is the centre of your brand and a close friend, catches terrible illness and dies. Natural thing is for friends to say 'no, this is not happening' and get on with life, at least for a while.
regarding Roger's comments on Queen Forever - I think he was probably quite uncomfortable with the idea from the start. Brian probably likes it. There'll be a combination of record company pressure and Brian and Roger wanting something in the charts to coincide with the Queen tour. Personally I think a single or an E.P would have been better, something packaged nicely on a 7-inch or 12-inch to hark back to the 1984 days (after all, it's from their 12-inch extended remix period...... did anyone actually ever like these remixes? I thought they were crass). Perhaps even a boxed set with the 7-inch or 12-inch, or CD, with a little booklet with some unseen pictures, a little story about MJ and FM, perhaps some out-takes. If the MJ estate had allowed them to release all the MJ and Queen tracks we'd probably be having a different conversation, and if they'd been mixed with a little more care, too.
Along with many others I'm quite confused by Queen sometimes. How many times have they released the albums? There was the original release of each LP/Tape/and CD in the case of the Works/Magic/Miracle/Innuendo/Wembley/Heaven, then there was the CD re-issue campaign in the late 1980s with the albums that weren't previously available on CD given the digital treatment, but they made some mistakes with these ones. Then there was the Digital Master Series in 1993/1994 which many people didn't like but they at least had a small touch of class in the packaging. There were still some odd things with the mastering and I can only think that they were released fairly quickly as the demand for Queen product rose in anticipation of Made In Heaven.
Then there was the Mini LP CD series, which I think happened in Europe and Japan in about 1998, then there was the CD-booklet series, then there was the Vinyl series in 2009, but apparently they were the same masters as the Digital Master Series, then there was the 2011 remaster series with two sets of CDs made available (why didn't they just release the two-disc sets only?), and then I believe we are being treated to another set of vinyls next year (read it on this forum, not anywhere else).
Not to mention the Hollywood records 1991 reissues, and of course the Complete Works in 1985, and the CD cabinet in 1995, and lets not forget that even in the UK there were some special versions of the albums released at the time of release, and a couple of EMI 100 re-issues in 1997, two versions of Made In Heaven on vinyl in the UK....
The fan who has to have everything will end up having at least 10 copies of every album. In most cases there was nothing, sonically at least, to be gained from buying a reissue.
The comments about PR not being that easy to work with - yes, perhaps, but we're talking a bunch of rock megastars here, are any of them that easy to work with? I'll bet every member of Queen could be very difficult. Somebody once told me that Tori Amos used to phone up her personal assistant at 4 in the morning demanding a hamburger, and if no where was open then she'd demand that the assistant come round and makes one from scratch. The stories we hear.....
