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View Full Version : Queen - the long awaited box set! News at last - release date confirmed....


Cockeye
12-10-2008, 22:47
And, I'm sorry but it is just a complete an utter disappointment. All those rarieties we were promised? twelve inch mixes, demos and ths like?

Nope, none of that :(

Source - Brianmay.com



EMI has set a November 17 release date for "Queen: The Singles Collection Volume 1", a project 35 years in the making and spanning no less than sixteen albums; from the debut LP, "Queen", in 1973, to the last project with Freddie Mercury, "Made In Heaven", in 1995, and beyond. This box, the first of four, kicks off with the first single, "Keep Yourself Alive", and runs through to "Don't Stop Me Now" from 1979. Box 2 will continue the story into the mid 1980s, and so on. Ultimately, the four boxes will offer every one of QUEEN's singles to have made the top 40 (except "Keep Yourself Alive" which is included because it was the first-ever single).

On July 6, 1973, EMI released the first QUEEN single, "Keep Yourself Alive". In the UK it is the first and only track to be taken from the band's debut album, "Queen". The record attracts some interest in England but gets little airplay, and so fails to appear in the singles chart. EMI's promotion team are given feedback from the radio programmers that the song doesn't fit into their playlists, because, apparently, "It takes too long to happen" — presumably referring to its 30-second guitar intro (now widely regarded as one of its most intriguing features!). In order to ensure the same excuse is not offered next time around, in crafting the band's second single, "Seven Seas Of Rhye" (from "Queen II"), the band decide to make everything happen in the opening seconds… "Everything, including the kitchen sink," as guitarist Brian May would later quip. Evidently, it works; this time the single picks up immediate airplay and charts in the first week of release: in February 1974 QUEEN achieve their first UK and worldwide hit.

From this moment on, QUEEN hit singles become a virtual certainty, with the release of each successive album, each one musically a departure from the last, and, significantly, featuring compositions from all four band members. QUEEN is to date the only group whose members have all written No. 1 hits around the world.

Packaged in a flip top box the 13 CD singles feature a selection of faithfully reproduced cover artwork from around the world.

CD1:

1. A. Keep Yourself Alive
2. B. Son And Daughter

CD2:

1. A. Seven Seas Of Rhye
2. B. See What A Fool I've Been

CD3:

1. A. Killer Queen
2. A. Flick Of The Wrist

CD4:

1. A. Now Im Here
2. B. Lily Of The Valley

CD5:

1. A. Bohemian Rhapsody
2. B. I'm In Love With My Car

CD6:

1. A. You're My Best Friend
2. B. 39

CD7:

1. A. Somebody To Love
2. B. White Man

CD8:

1. A. Tie Your Mother Down
2. B. You And I

CD9: Queen's First EP

1. A. Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy
2. Death On Two Legs (Dedicated To…)
3. B. Tenement Funster
4. White Queen (As It Began)

CD10:

1. A. We Are The Champions
2. B. We Will Rock You

CD11:

1. A. Spread Your Wings
2. B. Sheer Heart Attack

CD12:

1. A. Bicycle Race
2. A. Fat Bottomed Girls

CD13:

1. A. Don't Stop Me Now
2. B. In Only Seven Days



Queen just seem to take great delight in disappointing me time and time again :(

jpig
13-10-2008, 07:31
Agreed. Can't wait to get my hands on this so I can swap 13 CD's over just to hear the bulk of Greatest Hits 1. They have been taking the **** for years and I have long since stopped buying everything stamped with 'Queen' on it out of loyalty.

Do I really need another opportunity to own 'Bohemian Rhapsoy' or 'We Will Rock You'?

Jazzatola
13-10-2008, 08:23
EMI have released quite a few of these box sets for other bands. I have both the Marillion ones. This doesn't seem like anything special for Queen.

:shrug:

CLH
13-10-2008, 08:38
Yet more crap from Queen. Totally sold out now.

Cockeye
14-10-2008, 17:56
EMI have released quite a few of these box sets for other bands. I have both the Marillion ones. This doesn't seem like anything special for Queen.

:shrug:

So maybe you can understand why Queen fans are so ****** off then. For about eight years, now, they have been promising a series of mega deluxe box sets like the Freddie one they did years ago now.

They were going to contain rarieties, 12" mixes, never-released stuff. The fans know how much is in the vaults as most of us already own it. I have an eight disc collection of various stuff from the vaults. They really need to get this stuff out properly, and stop fobbing us off with this crap.

gjkendall
14-10-2008, 18:31
Not owning any Queen releases bar the greatest hits (1 &2), I was hoping for a lot more from the box set. I guess I won't be asking for this at Christmas!

Dxfatass
14-10-2008, 21:57
Disappointing and frustrating. From the talk of this singles collection over the last year I was hoping for a complete box with everything from Keep Yourself Alive through to No-One But You. Instead of one box of all the singles and b-sides on a handful of full discs, we are getting four volume spread pointlessly on over a dozen discs per volume. I doubt I'll be bothering with this.

But my understanding is that this set is not meant to be part of the fabled anthologies we've been praying for. This is simply meant to be a singles collection, not a demos/rarities/unreleased collection. Anytime the anthology sets are discussed they seem to be painted as a "book-end" project, so don't hold your breath, there's plenty more cash-ins to come before we get there. That said I wouldn't mind so much if one of those cash-ins was finally releasing Greatest Video Hits 3, since I still have pathetic geek fantasies of playing The Show Must Go On in DTS :(:dork:

mikegray
14-10-2008, 22:07
Ker-ching!

Another pile of tat from the Queen money machine. :(

Sounds a bit like the Japanese 3" box set from years ago, although didn't that actually have the b-sides? Turned down an opportunity to buy it at the time and have been kicking myself ever since. Christ knows what a copy was doing in a Wigan record shop!

Having said that, at £35 (which is the only price I can find it for - http://www.whatrecords.co.uk/items/46559.htm) for 13 discs - £2.70 each, that's a fair price each for CD singles. But I'd still have much preferred something more interesting. God knows the material exists, why let the bootleggers make all the money?

LeftHandedGuitarist
15-10-2008, 08:51
This isn't part of the Queen Anthologies set as far as I can tell, it's just a singles collection. It will mark the first release of A Human Body on CD when the next set arrives, though (plus all those 12" versions will be contained including the ones not previously released on CD).

tipicus
15-10-2008, 14:27
Oh well, that saves me a bit of cash then, what a ******.

At least the gig was good t'other night.

AdamBrunt
16-10-2008, 20:55
So maybe you can understand why Queen fans are so ****** off then. For about eight years, now, they have been promising a series of mega deluxe box sets like the Freddie one they did years ago now.

They were going to contain rarieties, 12" mixes, never-released stuff. The fans know how much is in the vaults as most of us already own it. I have an eight disc collection of various stuff from the vaults. They really need to get this stuff out properly, and stop fobbing us off with this crap.

The Freddie one is superb (both in terms of content and product quality) but, like others have said, I think the rarieties/never-released stuff is still to come. They also a released a 12" collection on CD years ago - came in the same purple box as the "Live at the Rainbow" (VHS) and the "single covers" poster - which takes pride of place on my study wall :)

tizza
17-10-2008, 07:03
Havent you realised that Brian May has been milking the Queen name ever since Mercury died?


Freddies death = the end of queen.

Saw them live at the height of all the mania, the magic tour in 86, after that it was all downhill.

Jazzatola
17-10-2008, 10:02
The best thing Queen have done without Mercury is when Taylor and May appeared in Peter Kay's video for Road To Amarillo!

AdamBrunt
20-10-2008, 00:03
Havent you realised that Brian May has been milking the Queen name ever since Mercury died?


Yeah, cos it's not as if Brian May is a great guitarist in his own right :thinking:

jpig
20-10-2008, 09:22
Saw them live at the height of all the mania, the magic tour in 86, after that it was all downhill.

I disagree. Saw them live in Liverpool on Saturday and they were utterly fantastic. Rodgers is not Freddie, but he doesn't try to be either. And May and Taylor especially are as good as ever.

This boxset is still a load of bobbins though.

AdamBrunt
20-10-2008, 09:28
I disagree. Saw them live in Liverpool on Saturday and they were utterly fantastic.


Damn. I knew I'd regret not getting a ticket for the Liverpool concert, especially as I was already there (for the football).

tizza
21-10-2008, 21:23
Yeah, cos it's not as if Brian May is a great guitarist in his own right :thinking:

I dunno about that, but hes a right boring ******* with stupid hair.

gjkendall
27-11-2008, 21:15
What are the current versions of the albums like...I think they were remastered in 1991...any good? Or is it worth waiting for the remasters that will inevitably appear at some time in the future?

EDIT: Erm tad confused...they may of been remastered in 2001 and again in 2005. I think the Japanese replica releases were remastered.

HELP...which is the best?

Boozyuzi
27-11-2008, 21:42
The Japanese were the best ones to go for, unless newer versions have been released.

I picked them up for a fiver each from 101 - great sets.

LeftHandedGuitarist
27-11-2008, 22:21
Japanese sets with the mini-LP packaging were remastered in 2001 and again in 2005. I think they are the best the albums have ever sounded but some people will tell you otherwise, and in the end any Queen release has always had a lot of care put into the audio quality so it's probably quite subjective. The packaging is lovely, though.

The remasters from 1991 had bonus tracks added for the US releases (some lovely b-sides but mostly nasty remixes), but not in the UK.

gjkendall
28-11-2008, 06:25
Thanks for the replies...

Daft, but the way to tell the difference between the 2001 an 2005 Japanese sets is purley down to the date on the back? The packaging are both the same?

jpig
28-11-2008, 07:21
A Night At The Opera was remastered again for 2005 and can be bought in its own right, with an accompanying DVD that has surround sound mixes on. The rest of the releases are best in the Japanese format release.