Queen 40th Anniversary remasters

maybe they'll get them right this time


ALL 15 STUDIO ALBUMS TO BE REMASTERED & REPACKAGED
WITH ADDITIONAL CONTENT; DOCUMENTARY & FEATURE FILM PLANNED

Queen
Queen and Universal Music Group have signed an exclusive, long-term agreement on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the group’s formation, in 1971.
The new agreement with Universal Music covers the world outside North America, and the music of Queen will appear through Island Records from January 1, 2011.

During the course of the anniversary year, Island will remaster and repackage, with additional content, each of Queen’s 15 studio albums. The first five will be made available in March: Queen, Queen II, Sheer Heart Attack, A Night At The Opera, and A Day At The Races.

Guitarist Brian May said, “We are very excited, after all this time, to be embarking on a new phase of our career – with a new record company – with new ideas, and new dreams.”

The 40th anniversary celebrations begin with a major Queen exhibition in London, “Stormtroopers in Stilettos,” opening in late February. This will be followed by a BBC-TV documentary and the production of a major Hollywood film about the band, starring Sacha Baron Cohen as Freddie Mercury. Acclaimed script writer Peter Morgan (“The Queen,” “Frost/Nixon”) is working on the project, which is being produced by GK Films, Robert de Niro’s Tribeca Productions and Queen Films.

 

Alright.
Can't wait to hear Queen II.

 

I hope these sound decent, I have held off of getting any Queen on CD. Looking forward to the first three in particular. Back in the day my LPs seemed to have a wonky sound on the high end especially on the high-hat and cymbals, did this get fixed with the CD releases?

 

Probably my favorite Queen LP. But will they make it better or worse.

 

Hope Brian May will include all A & B-sides plus long-awaited material like demos, alt takes, mixes, BBC Sessions, etc and improved booklets.

Also, it's time to get right mastering WITHOUT NOISE REDUCTION

 

Or sparingly applied like the Beatles remasters.

 

Any word on who is mastering these. Who's to say they won't be modern compressed style remasters.

 

How many times have these albums been released now?

 

That is the big question still lingering....the content and sound.

 

So cds are not dead yet.2011 should be interesting at least.

 

The amazing sounding UK EMI lps sound nothing like the (generally awful) US Elektra releases.
Any serious Queen fans here should hit eBay or MusicStack and try to pick some of these up.

The Japanese pressing of the first Queen lp is almost as impressive.

The Hollywood Queen cds sound pretty sterile. I only have 'Greatest Hits' on the EMI cd, and it's pretty good.

 

I think CDs will still be around 3-5 more years. Once lossless downloads become the norm, that will be it.

 

No, but only us old farts rebuying 30 year old albums for the fourth time
seem to care about them anymore.

 

I am shaking my head in disbelief... I always had the impression Brian May was a highly intelligent and realistic man. New ideas, new dreams? With only two original members, their last "Queen minus Freddie Mercury" album tanking critically and commercially... who is he trying to fool?

 

Queen II - my fave album of all time by anyone - please please please do it right.

 

AFAIK, in the US at least. Aren't the original Hollywoods still in print?

 

I think I heard it was Bob Ludwig.

So it'll most likely depend on what he's told to do.

 

Existing thread on this subject here: http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=215850

 

The original EMI singles 'got it right' and are good enough for me!!

 

I doubt it...

 

Indeed..Delusional thinking at its peak.

Any word on these remasters being issued on Vinyl?

 

:thumbsdn: They started the remasters campaign with the wrong foot

http://www.queenonline.com/news/1925/

January 1st 2011 sees Island Records re-issue Queen’s Greatest Hits and Greatest Hits 2 collections. Greatest Hits remains the best selling UK album of all time and combined with Greatest Hits 2 presents the definitive Queen collection. Together they form among one the seminal collections in rock history jointly selling an incredible 40 million copies worldwide.

Both albums have been digitally re-mastered for 2011 by Bob Ludwig, the legendary mastering engineer who has worked with U2, Coldplay and Radiohead, and come complete with refreshed sleeve notes.

The Greatest Hits re-issues start what is going to be a huge year for Queen, as 2011 marks the 40th anniversary of their formation in 1971.

The Anniversary year kicks off with a major exhibition, ‘Stormtroopers in Stilettos’ – a comprehensive look at the early part of Queen’s career. Taking place in The Old Truman Brewery in the heart of London’s East End the exhibition opens on February 25th running through to March 12th, and will cover the band pre-Queen, their formation and their first five albums from the first half of the 1970’s.

Newly signed to legendary label Island Records, and to coincide with the exhibition, the first five albums that Queen released – “Queen”, “Queen II”, “Sheer Heart Attack”, “A Night At The Opera” and “A Day At The Races – will be re-mastered and re-packaged into special deluxe album formats released in March 2011

Subsequent to the exhibition there will be a major BBC TV Documentary featuring a rare interview with Roger Taylor and Brian May and many other surprises and releases to come through the rest of the year. 2011 will see filming begin of a major Hollywood movie about Queen, starring Sacha Baron Cohen as Freddie Mercury. Acclaimed script writer Peter Morgan (“The Queen”,” Frost/Nixon” ) is working on the project, which is being produced by GK Films, Robert de Niro’s Tribeca Productions and Queen Films.

Pre Order here:

Greatest Hits: Amazon, Play.com, HMV

Track Listing:

Bohemian Rhapsody
Another One Bites The Dust
Killer Queen
Fat Bottomed Girls
Bicycle Race
You’re My Best Friend
Don’t Stop Me Now
Save Me
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Somebody To Love
Now I’m Here
Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy
Play The Game
Flash
Seven Seas of Rhye
We Will Rock You
We Are The Champions

Greatest Hits 2: Amazon, Play.com, HMV

Track Listing:

A Kind of Magic
Under Pressure feat David Bowie
Radio Ga Ga
I Want It All
I Want To Break Free
Innuendo
It’s a Hard Life
Breakthru
Who Wants To Live Forever
Headlong
The Miracle
I’m Going Slightly Mad
The Invisible Man
Hammer To Fall
Friends Will Be Friends
The Show Must Go On
One Vision


So, no bonus tracks added to the GH albums. They could have included UK top 40 hits like Tie Your Mother Down and Spread Your Wings. No changes since the crappy 90s remasters in the approach :thumbsdn:

I still remember in the official site when polls clearly stated that fans wanted Singles Collection on a single box set ... and we got crappy dozens of 2-3 track CDs instead :thumbsdn:

 

Here's a radical suggestion - why don't you all wait until they have released something and then comment then?

Soooo many threads I have read where a release is all but written off before it even hits the racks. Quite insane.

 

Forum rules :

1.Complain incessantly about them not re-issuing/remastering a certain catalogue

2.Complain incessently when they actually announce said release because there are not the exact bonus tracks they wanted/because the integrity of the original release is now compromised by not puting the bonus tracks on a separate disc/because there is a DVD instead of more audio content/because there is not a DVD/because it will probably be a terrible brickwall remastering (without having heard it, of course)...etc..etc

3. Complain when it is released because mastering is brickwalled/because it is in a digipack/ if its actually well mastered but unhappy because there was one ultra rare Japanese pressing that is thought to be a superior remaster to this, that only one sad guy in a high turret in a little castle in la-la land has actually heard.....maybe...

what a joyless bunch we are sometimes...