Queen Discussion Thread

Yes there were 15 studio albums by Queen with Freddie - all original songs (except the as covered See What A Fool I've Been which was only half original and God Save The Queen, which is traditional and the not yet covered The Wedding March from Flash Gordon which includes parts of Wagner's Bridal Chorus)



I'm not sure where 6 came from. There are 5 officially recognized concerts released on CD:
Live Killers - A collection of live performances from early 1979

Live Magic - A collection of edited live performances from Wembley Stadium, Budapest, and Knebworth Park in 1986

Live At Wembley - A live concert from the second date at Wembley Stadium in 1986 (The 25th Anniversary DVD released contained a DVD of the first date as well - perhaps that's where the 6th number comes from)

On Fire At The Bowl - A live concert from Milton Keynes in 1982.

Rock Montreal - A live concert from Montreal in 1981.

Now they are going to be releasing Hungarian Rhapsody on Blu-Ray this November accompanied by 2 CDs so that also could be the 6th number - This is a live concert from Budapest in 1986.

(You can kind of see why Queen fans are a little impatient now. We've had 3 concerts all from the 1986 tour with the same set list etc...and only one from the 70s and that one being at the tail end of the 70s leaving the early 70s completely untapped.)



Compilations are really hard to quantify. Different countries had different compilations and then there are different releases of similar compilations that it's difficult to know whether to call it a new compilation. Barring a few one-off compilations from different countries and only concentrating on the main US/UK compilations (I will note the others as they come up but for the sake of this exercise I will not)

Greatest Hits - Originally released in 1981, it has had several repackaging and reissuing. The original concept was the hits between 1973-1980.

Greatest Hits II - Originally released in 1991 only in the UK, there have been a few reissues and it was eventually released in the US as part of the Platinum Collection, finally getting it's own separate release in the US in 2011. Basically covers the hits from 1981-1991.

Classic Queen - A US only compilation in 1992 that happened right after Hollywood Records took over Queen and after Freddie's death. Considering at the time that the band tanked in the 80s there really weren't a lot of hits and they were trying to capitalize on Bohemian Rhapsody's second run, the company used GH II as a baseline and took off a few tracks and added some older tracks, some from GH I, others like Stone Cold Crazy to capitalize on Metallica's cover.

Greatest Hits (US) - A US only compilation. After the success of Classic Queen they wanted to release the original Greatest Hits but since they had used a few tracks on Classic Queen it included some other tracks not on the original GH.

Rocks - Released in 1997, this compilation was to feature Queen's most rocking songs. It is a mixture of GH and non-album tracks and one new track which was...a ballad, No One But You

Greatest Hits III - Originally released in 1999, it collects the remaining hits from 1991-1995 as well as a live performance, a new remix, a few solo hits, and a Queen +. Reissued as part of The Platinum Collection which was all 3 GH in one package.

Stone Cold Classics - a 2006 US compilation that really was only released because Hollywood wanted to capitalize on the band's appearance on American Idol. It includes tracks mostly from GH and Classic Queen with two tracks from QPR's Return Of The Champions (as a way to cross promote that album)

The A-Z Of Queen Volume 1 - A 2007 US compilation...I don't even know why. It was supposed to be a series compilation but the project was abandoned. It has Queen's hits in alphabetical order.

Singles Collection Volume 1
Singles Collection Volume 2
Singles Collection Volume 3
Singles Collection Volume 4

- Released between 2008-2010. This was an attempt to collect EVERY single ever released. It was a great plan but it failed a bit in concept with seemingly arbitrary choices on what constituted main single tracks, and thus missing out on some B-Sides which were only on certain formats.

Absolute Greatest - Released in 2009, the band decided to do a compilation of compilations. It is a one disc best of from the band's entire career. Fans were not thrilled but it did come with a commentary disc with Brian and Roger commenting on each song.

Deep Cuts Volume 1: 1973-1976
Deep Cuts Volume 2: 1977-1982
Deep Cuts Volume 3: 1984-1995

- Released in 2011 these three separate compilations were released one with each batch of re-releases, each aimed at taking tracks from the five albums of each period that were not on the GH compilations and would serve as a sampler to other Queen tracks.

So the fans are also a bit tired of greatest hits types compilations especially after Stone Cold Classics and The A-Z of Queen Volume 1. Absolute Greatest was at least half accepted as a one disc best of. Deep Cuts was decently received as being non-GH compilations - there were complaints over track listings, and the missed opportunities with giving hardcore fans different versions (such as the standalone versions of March Of The Black Queen and Khashoggi's Ship.

Japan had a few differing ones as did a few other countries but that's how I would see it. So that would be about 15 compilations. Perhaps a few weren't counted for various reasons but I'm not sure...

Nice story on EVH/Brian - he is getting good recognition on it

As for the link - I see that now. Yeah the only "live album" I missed Live At The Beeb (or in the US as At The BBC wasn't a live in concert album just a collection of 2 out of the 6 BBC Sessions.

The compilations I missed were the two "Best Of'" which were France only compilations and The 12" Collection which was a compilation of all the extended remixes from the 12" vinyl singles from over the years. That was a good one as there are some interesting versions there.

Me too honestly .

Sleeping On The Sidewalk

Does BM sound different in this recording? Especially in that audio YT recording of BRIAN MAY LIVE IN 1998. I thought I heard a "country" vibe style in his voice Not that I'm an expert on country music but he just sounded different. Maybe it's just me.