All dead, all dead by freddie mercury on the radio

That's correct. GB said he heard everything in multitrack and then discovered this mix on cassette.

[QUOTE] [b]MercurialFreddie wrote:[/b]

ADAD came from a cassette ? Does it mean that they don't store unfinished tracks and all the other stuff that was worked on on tapes ? :(( Or were they too lazy to go and dig into proper studio tapes ?

Can we rely on GB on this one ?

I mean... that sounds like Brian's cassette was the only existing tape in the whole wide world with the version of All Dead All Dead with Freddie on lead vocals...[/QUOTE]

Why 40 years ago would a band make a conscious decision to keep things on tape in the event of a release for the next 3/4 generations? That is why we should be grateful for stuff like this and not slagging them off.

Moog, we are grateful, really, but you must remember that depending on the source on which the track is stored, quality of said track varies.

So we can all thank Brian for keeping this cassette (and all the others) whole this time because if he wouldn't do that then we could only hear that Freddie did a take of ADAD but the recording is lost.

This reminds me... Wasn't Brian's house robbed some years ago and someone stole some of his cassette tapes ? Or was this a rumour ?

[QUOTE] [b]MercurialFreddie wrote:[/b]

Can we rely on GB on this one ?
[/QUOTE]

He's been wrong many times, and he's been right many times. This could be a typical example of ... either case.

"Mr. Brooks, which track is sourced from a cassette: ADAD or SOTS?"

GB: "Yes."

Well, imagine yourself being an artist in a recording studio, you do many things, tracks that don't get on the final product, rough takes, demos etc... and being in artist's shoes, I cannot imagine, throwing away, discarding a piece with no way of recovering it! A rough take, nearly unfinished track took time for all of the band members to make it even if it's not perfect. Not only "emotional" reasons - as some would call them - are there to keep unfinished tracks, demos etc. If they would like to finish the track at later stage in the recording sessions or generally to work more on it then there's no reason to throw it away (the perfect example here would be "There must be more to life than this" which Freddie [firstly with Michael then with the band] worked on in 1981, 1982 and then in 1984).

I suppose that we won't get specific information about Freddie's version of ADAD ? Did he make more attempts at singing lead vocals on this track ? Are there more of his takes of ADAD ?

Can someone tell me what's going on in the backing track when Freddie starts to sing the line "Her ways are always with me..." ???

Mercurial Freddie, i don't think it works like this like an artist.
I was present the recent Innuendo sessions and Noel Harris underlined how critical Freddie was.
Noel would often hear a perfect take and Freddie would say: nah this isn't good enough, discard it. Even though Noel was resistant in discarding a beautifiul perfect take, Freddie was persistant and demanded it to be discarded.
it is fully to Noel's stubborness that he kept Freddie's takes anyway.

So it is quite likely that in 1977 the unsatisfying and unused takes were discarded and only some material was kept.
Plus, i think there was also difference between the bandmembers. Brian was more a collector of his and Queen's material, Freddie saw it as disposble pop music, so that might explain why many vocal takes of Freddie might be lost.

I like how similar they sound on 'while'.

Here's my attempt at making a proper hybrid of the album mix and the new outtake - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2ezc7AqQmE&feature=youtu.be

I loved the idea for the lyric video but found the edits poorly executed. So here, I have tried to make a more seamless listening experience and also added the backing vocals and harmonies to the Freddie version whilst keeping the pitch consistent with the released version.

double post

"Well, imagine yourself being an artist in a recording studio, you do many things, tracks that don't get on the final product, rough takes, demos etc... and being in artist's shoes, I cannot imagine, throwing away, discarding a piece with no way of recovering it!"

At most you had 24 tracks of tape in the mid 70's, not an infinite amount like now. Studio time was expensive, doesn't matter who you were you had to be efficient as it was all coming out of your own pocket... probably why there hasn't been anything like this for the previous albums.

I agree with you, Moog, efficiency was very important especially considering Queen's situation with their manager before John Reid stepped in. I just thought that bearing in mind, that there are outtakes from the ANATO sessions and in some rare cases outtakes from the previous recording sessions... that guided by that logic we can assume that raw takes, unfinished tracks, demoes are still there on tapes stored in The Legendary Queen Vault.

@Sunshine, well... we definitely should thank Brian! Of course we cannot make an argument with Noel and all the studio team but when you think about Yellow Breezes, Gazelle and demos like that... well... maybe Freddie only became so critical after 1986 :)) ?

There is also question of the source as I think I did not worded my thought quite precisely. Is Brian's cassette the only material on which one would originally find version of ADAD with Freddie on vocals ? If the tape ever existed then something other was recorded on it and the recording in question was discarded ?

Is anything peculiar going on with the tape / backing track in the place when Freddie sings "Her ways are always with me" ?

The DJ says this version of ADAD is from a multitrack but he could be wrong. Fred sings "mourning always with me" not "Her ways are always with me". That awkward bit is an attempt to splice Fred's demo vocals with the album version.

Holly, yes I also hear this but there is something wrong going on with the backing track like a damaged tape or something bad.... I hope that the state of BM's cassette is okay, do any of you know how looks the process of degrading when it comes to cassette tapes ? We can assume that Brian May as a perfectionist stores his cassettes in a well conditions but the question remains how better would it sound 40 years ago when it was recorded...?