Queen - Greatest Hits Island ReMasters

Motley Crue

So to celebrate Queen's 40th Anniversary (the band formed in early 1971) and as part of their new record label - Island Records - the people responsible for the Queen catalogue are reissuing all their albums with 2011 remastering throughout the year

First up, a reissue of Greatest Hits and Greatest Hits 2

Picked up the latter today (the first album I ever owned) and despite little changing in terms of artwork or inlay - although the CD is now housed in a "Super Jewel Box" and the artwork on the front has been darkened - the songs sound pretty well polished and mastered. What does anyone else think?

I don't see this album changing things, or making the charts, but after 20 years of Greatest Hits 2 (originally released in November 1991) it's nice to get an update on sound quality and see what Island have done with the music.

The band have promised an updated site soon and even Brian May seemed to ignore the re-release of this material....one for the fans perhaps.

http://www.queen.shanemcdonald.org/news/2011-01/greatest-hits-1-2-reissued-by-island-records/

Max Power1

Another queen greatest hits?

Motley Crue

Max Power1 wrote: »

Another queen greatest hits?

It's a 2011 reissue of the 1991 GH2 with improved sound, digitally remastered apparently

They've also released GH1 and given it a new cover

Max Power1

I wonder which member of the band is behind this?

*cough brian may cough*

Kess73

So the Band that released a greatest hits of remastered tracks at the end of 2009 in Absolute Greatest, is to reissue and remaster their older greatest hits albums, the same two greatest hits albums that they have already reissued in the past.


Greatest Hits came out in 1981 and Greatest Hits II came out in 1991.

Then both were rereleased as part of a remasted set in 1994, and then they were released yet again in 2000 along with the rerelease of Greatest Hits III as the Platinum Collection.


So Greatest Hits 1 and II will have been released four times apiece when the latest versions comes out.


There was also the Single collection releases in four volumes between 2008 and 2010.


Money grabbing is all that it stinks of, either that or the cost of perms has really gone up.

jack presley

It's not just Queen.

A lot of bands release and re-release the same stuff over and over again. How many faith No More compilations are there? Soundgarden just released their second. U2, Iron Maiden, Oasis the list is endless.

Motley Crue

The only difference with this re-release is that the sound has been improved, previous incarnations of GH2 were simply from the original released in 1991. This is the first one to do anything to improve the sound on that album.

Kess73

Motley Crue wrote: »

The only difference with this re-release is that the sound has been improved, previous incarnations of GH2 were simply from the original released in 1991. This is the first one to do anything to improve the sound on that album.

GH2 was part of the 2000 platinum set that included GH, GH2, and GH3. It is marked fairly clearly on the cover that it is a remastered version.


The 1994 set with GH1 and GH2 in the one box is also listed as being a remastered release.


No matter how it gets spun, Greatest Hits II was released in 1993, 1994, 2000, and now again in 2011.

Kess73

jack presley wrote: »

It's not just Queen.

A lot of bands release and re-release the same stuff over and over again. How many faith No More compilations are there? Soundgarden just released their second. U2, Iron Maiden, Oasis the list is endless.

You are right it is not just Queen, but Queen have now released Greatest Hits four times, Greatest Hits II four times, Greatest Hits III twice, and had Absolute Hits out in 2009.

And that is not including the four Singles compilations.


That is not taking into account a number of boxsets and US only greatest hits type albums that they released.

And it is not as though all those releases were spread out of a long period of Queen's existence as a band either.

All bar two of those releases cames after Freddie had died.

GH and GH2 were out before he died.

so that would mean that between reissues and releases that there have been
at least 14 greatest hit type compliations or singles compilations released since his death.


Surely there must be some great gigs in the Queen archives that could have been released as live albums. At least that way fans could get to hear some songs live that they may not have heard before in that format.

johndoe99

these were remastered before, what have they done now... remastered the remasters.

Danco

Kess73 wrote: »

Surely there must be some great gigs in the Queen archives that could have been released as live albums. At least that way fans could get to hear some songs live that they may not have heard before in that format.

This is bang on, I've been thinking the same thing for a good while. Why keep tossing out slightly different versions of the same stuff when there's much more interesting stuff in the vaults? Personally I'd love to see a live album from the Sheer Heart Attack / A Night At The Opera era released. For one thing, they should put out a properly mastered version (on CD and vinyl ideally) of the Rainbow show from 1974 that was originally on the vhs in the Box of Trix. There are videos from that show on youtube and they're killer.

Something else I'd love to see and which would be extremely easy to issue would be a complete b-sides compilation. I was sure they'd put something like that out after those ridiculous singles boxes had been released seeing as the b-sides were all available on itunes at that stage. But no sign of it so far. Why not cash in on something the fans might actually want? They could make it comprehensive this time and include some of the original CD single b-sides (such as the live version of My Melancholy Blues) which were scabbily omitted from the recent singles boxes to sweeten the deal aswell.

Queen are far and away my favourite band but there has to be some effort made if Brian, Roger and the new label want to keep us interested in spending money on what they release. The press release for the Island re-masters did say that the new versions will contain bonus content which is promising, but it would want to be something substantial to warrant shelling out for the back catalogue again.

delbertgrady

+1 for Danco's comments, especially that Live at the Rainbow film.

The constant reissues of the Greatest Hits is one thing, but personally I'm not that bothered by it, since even Queen diehards shouldn't feel obliged to buy them again. (Although Universal would get a bonus point from me if they've inserted the missing bar back into the GH2 edit of Under Pressure). What Queen fans should concentrate on is the forthcoming Universal remasters of their back catalogue of albums.

It's no secret that Queen became something of a cash cow after Freddie died, but if you think about it, their catalogue was never handled well by EMI. Anyone old enough will remember the first wave of CD issues in the 1980s, and the shambolic banding of the tracks - the tail end of The March of the Black Queen tacked onto the beginning of Funny How Love Is, putting the end of Good Company onto the start of Bohemian Rhapsody (including on the 3" single version), the intro of Tie Your Mother Down banded as a separate track and having the reprise of You Take My Breath Away at the start of Long Away. Ridiculous.
They screwed up with the Singles Box Sets, leaving off material that should have been included, like the Houston 1977 version of My Melancholy Blues that Danco refers to. There's plenty of live material out there that warrants releasing, and would arguably be of better quality than "Live at the Bowl featuring Air Horn Man", to give it its full title.

Okay, I've wandered off topic here, but while the Greatest Hits have been reissued to the point of stupidity (as previous posters have pointed out), I'm hoping the forthcoming remasters finally deliver impressive versions of the original albums, with decent additional material, at which point Brian, Roger and Universal can redeem themselves.

Oh, and I'd like the same attention to detail for the 2011 Rush remasters too.

delbertgrady

I'm putting this here, as opposed to creating a new thread, 'cos it's sort of the same discussion.

The sleeve notes for the new Queen remasters have been posted on the Queen site. They're terrible. They come across like an over-enthusiastic teenage fan writing for a fanzine. I know Rhys Thomas is a massive fan of the band (he appeared on Celebrity Mastermind answering questions on Queen and is collaborating on a forthcoming documentary), but that shouldn't have warranted him getting the job of writing the liner notes, the end result being what any major Queen fan could have written. But probably without the mistakes.

Any thoughts?

http://www.queenonline.com/en/features/queen-rhys-thomas/
http://www.queenonline.com/en/features/queen-ii-review-rhys-thomas/
http://www.queenonline.com/en/features/sheer-heart-attack-review-rhys-thomas/

scudzilla

And the record companies are wondering why people illegally download music :rolleyes::rolleyes:

Motley Crue

scudzilla wrote: »

And the record companies are wondering why people illegally download music :rolleyes::rolleyes:

If I'd known the job of writing the linear notes had been advertised I would have went for it myself to stop them hiring this fan boy

Maybe I'm a bit bitter, but I got beaten up one day in school when I was 10 for admitting to liking Freddie Mercury, and the problem with the "children" who did that too me was because Mr Mercury was gay. He was also dead, which apparently made it stupid to be a fan of him, and so I deserved a good kicking.

Now everywhere I look on TV I see people saying they love Freddie and he's the saviour of all music - rappers and Indie artists and Pop stars and that twat from X Factor all claim him as their idol....some of these people share a love, sure, but how many times are we going to keep destroying the name of a good man - a dead man - in order to sell records.

I'm all for people listening to and loving Queen, people of any age discovering the band for the first time or being fans since they were babies themselves...sure, that is brilliant, but it just seems like there is too much talk of Freddie's influence being exploited in the media these days