New Queen Album "Forever"

The 2012 version is stunning!

 

It was common practice in those days that bands delivered alternate studio versions or alternate mixes to the BBC and they announced them to be a BBC Session. You will even find quotes from Brian May, where he talked about that. You can even hear it, many of the BBC session-songs from Queen are just variations of the regular versions like "Liar" or "Keep yourself alive" or "Flick of the Wrist"
Quote:"We started off with backing tracks, which were already in progress for the album, and over-dubbed the vocals - a guitar here and there, and other things. So what you are hearing is a mixture of stuff recorded at Trident Studios, and stuff recorded very hurriedly in the BBC studios. Time and facilities were tight, which dictated that we record the sessions in that way. Typically, we would do one or two tracks live, but adopt this compromise for the others."
So this describes pretty much the "1977" session with "Spread your Wings" and "My melancholy Blues" sounding really live, but the other two tracks being fully produced with choirs, additional guitars and other stuff, that doesn't sound like a BBC recording.

 

Soooo...... it seem's as releasing only the Orbit's version of There Must Be More To Life Than This was part of the deal with Jackson's Estate. Does Jackson's familly really care about the quality of music or only they do care about is money ?

Source here:
Roger Taylor interview on Loose Women ITV, 27/11/2014 - TMBMTLTT

 

Perhaps with the release of Live At The Rainbow and now this new compilation in quick succession we are seeing some kind of strategy of targeting two parts of the fan base - the hard core who love Queen the rock band and want the heavy deep cuts and live stuff, and those who love Queen as the hitmaking pop group. I'd like to think that QPL will continue to consider the hard core worth catering to, and we don't just end up with endless rehashes.

 

yeah uh how many times has the "We Will Rock You"/Montreal 1982 concert been re-released now?

 

Oh so this would describe the 2 tracks on the Sheer Heart Attack 2011 remaster on disc 2? They just sound like variants of the original versions.

Scott B

 

The Montreal concert which was released under the title "We Will Rock You" was never an officially released item. So this was something QPL had no control over. They finally purchased the rights to the concert and released it as Rock Montreal in 2007.

 

The truly amazing thing is, Queen deliver awesome, full of rarities laden box sets for their solo work...the Freddie Mercury Solo Collection and Roger Taylor's "The Lot" box sets are things of beauty!!! (After the glitches in Roger's were fixed that is...) These come with beautiful, stunning books similar to the McCartney archive books. CD's with every available remix, B-Side, non-album single, contributions to other artists work, etc....DVD's with all video clips, epk's, documentaries.......great discography liner notes about where all the stuff is from as well. Truly two of the greatest box sets I own! Why oh why can they not get it right for the Queen albums themselves?? The recent remaster box sets were a start. The DVD-A's for The Game and A Night at the Opera sound great, especially in 5.1. Some of the DVD's, especially On Fire at the Bowl were nicely done. The Live at the Rainbow set is gorgeous and hopefully is a sign that they have turned the corner. I would by a deluxe book-like edition for every album!!

 

"I want it all - and I want it now"....;-)
Give them time, the deal with Universal was not done just to release the old catalogue. Also their releases are done with great care and that also takes time.

 

That's what they are. Even the tracks from the official BBC Disc like "Liar", "My Fairy King" or "Keep yourself alive" use the original album backing tracks. Only very few tracks like some from the "Queen 2" album sound like real BBC live recordings.

 

Hi, OB; I'd like to think that, I really would. But 'Rainbow' is the first instance I can think of that QPL are thinking of fans who are more than 20 years old. They've had MANY opportunities in the past to please us (and they do have some fan input in their 'policy' meetings), but they just seem to go the opposite way every time. What QPL need - IMO - is someone like Jeff Jones at Apple (Fabs, not computers) who, I believe, has genuinely changed the way Apple board think about future releases. He's a fan and collector and that's what's needed at QPL.

 

To be fair to QPL, that 1981 show now looks and sounds like it should have the first time it was released.

 

It certainly WAS officially released; several cinema runs (both indoor and outdoor showings, plus several video releases) with a LOT of band involvement, too.

 

That's what I thought as the tracks sound too perfect to be live.

Thanks

Scott B

 

I misspoke. Queen Productions did not hold the rights to the We Will Rock You release. All mixing, cutting, editing decisions were not their own. It wasn't until they purchased the rights and the original negatives that they could release it under their banner.

 

It's still the least exciting Queen video release, ever. That audience just wasn't into it. The Live At The Bowl video is nowhere near as good a production, but a much more energetic performance.

 

Yes I agree. The audience doesn't know 'Love of my life' and Brian says that to Freddie. Still other then the Rainbow show I like this show for the song selection and medley of songs that come the mid 80's they would no longer play.

Scott B

 

Hey, only 2 more years til the inevitable Live at Wembley 30th anniversary re-issue...

 

Once the BBC started using four-track machines for recording sessions (early '70s, IIRC) very few bands performed 'live' as they had to in the '50s and '60s.

 

My fault, it was placed betwen 'I Want It All' and 'The Invisible Man'.

proof

 

Just heard the CD version of that song. Jesus, you are right, the sound quality is appalling.

The distortion between about 1:00 and 1:15, and again at around 2:00 was so bad, it sounded like song was actually breaking up.

It was so bad that I in fact I wonder if anyone actually listened to the final master before the CDs were pressed.

 

That William Orbit is deaf.

 

I burnt an expanded 'Made in Heaven' with these new tracks plus 'No one but you', it seemed a better resting place for these tracks than trying to slot them into their relevant time period related albums.
Anyway they all sounded really good together in with the MIH tracks except for 'There must be more to life...' which stuck out like a sore thumb, very harsh and wrong sounding.
Even disregarding the eq and mastering issues on it there is some very sloppy mixing on it - different elements vying for space, some of it just sounds like a mess. I also don't like the stuck on strings at the beginning either, very un-Queen sounding.

 

Probably not. I had a conversation with Orbit on Twitter about it, my tweet was more shared than his, guess why?
It's the single worst song on the entire album. Not only is the dynamic range appalingly low (DR5, lowest of all songs), it sounds out of phase and the mixing is just very, very off. The earlier broadcasted version had the vocals mixed crappily (you couldn't hear either Michael or Freddie under the guitars), but it sounded better overall. Orbit really is no mixing/mastering engineer.