I mentioned in a number of earlier posts on this blog that I had done some reviews for the music service KKBox, most of which are online here. However, since KKBox apparently abandoned their efforts to expand into the Malaysian and Singaporean markets, a few of the later ones didn't get published. A few months ago, I posted my complete article for KKBox on the Genesis compilation R-Kive (as noted in that post, only the first part was published on the KKBox website). Another article that never got published online was the one I did on the 2014 Queen album Queen Forever. I discussed this in the second of my two posts on posthumous Queen releases (i.e., those released after Freddie Mercury's death), where I noted that it should have been released as an EP or else more unreleased material should have been added. I was less critical in the KKBox article, where I stuck mainly to discussing the background of the album and the songs that were included (whether or not they were previously released), but it's still basically an honest appraisal, particularly if viewed from the perspective of a reader who might not have all of Queen's albums already.
Coincidentally, I recently saw Queen + Adam Lambert live. This was my first time seeing any of the band live, and I'll say it was a pretty good show. Lambert might not be Freddie's equal in every respect, but he sounded good on all the songs and great on some of them. Brian May and Roger Taylor were of course great, and I liked the fact that the keyboardist was Spike Edney, who was the fifth member of the band for their last live concert tours with Mercury and even played on a couple of studio tracks on A Kind of Magic. This made it seem even closer to the "real" Queen. The extra drummer/percussionist was Rufus Taylor, Roger's son, which was another plus (he seemed to be a chip off the old block as far as his drumming skills went). Bassist Neil Fairclough was even more quiet on stage than John Deacon used to be (not only did he not say a word, I don't think he was even introduced), but he filled the musical role well and probably sang more backing vocals than Deacon (who admitted to having a poor singing voice) ever did. Maybe someday I'll write a full review of the concert, but for now this article will do.
"Queen’s Reign Continues with Queen Forever"
Formed in 1970, by the end of the 1970s the British rock band Queen had risen to become one of the most popular groups in the world, a status they maintained through the 1980s. Songs like “Killer Queen”, “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Somebody to Love”, “We Will Rock You”, “We Are the Champions”, “Don’t Stop Me Now”, “Crazy Little Thing Called Love”, “Another One Bites the Dust”, “Under Pressure” (a duet with David Bowie), “I Want to Break Free”, “Radio Gaga”, “One Vision”, “I Want It All” and “The Show Must Go On” were big hits in countries all over the world, and the band sold well over a hundred million albums. However, Queen’s reign seemed to come to an end in 1991, when lead singer Freddie Mercury, widely regarded as one of the greatest singers in rock music (he had even recorded an album with top opera singer Montserrat Caballé), succumbed to AIDS at the age of 45. But in 1995, the band came out with a new album, Made in Heaven, put together from outtakes, re-arrangements of solo tracks, and recordings made in Mercury’s last months. After a performance with Elton John and the release of “No-One But You”, a tribute to Mercury, bassist John Deacon retired from music. While guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor continued to perform occasional concerts and do occasional recordings under the Queen name, working with vocalists like Paul Rodgers, Robbie Williams and Adam Lambert, it seemed that fans had finally heard the last of the classic four man lineup. However, this has changed with the release of the band’s new compilation album, Queen Forever.
Queen Forever is mainly a collection previously released songs, some of them hits like “Somebody to Love” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and others album tracks from throughout the group’s career. But the attraction for dedicated fans of the group is the opening tracks, which are previously unreleased Queen recordings with Freddie Mercury on vocals. The first song, “Let Me in Your Heart Again”, was written by Brian May and recorded by Queen in the early 1980s. The band didn’t end up using the song, though Brian May produced a version for an album by Anita Dobson. It is a melodic ballad with powerful vocals by Mercury and plenty of Brian May’s distinctive guitar playing. “Love Kills”, the album’s second track, was originally released as a solo single by Mercury, who co-wrote it with Giorgio Moroder, but apparently the rest of the band played on his version. The version here is a ballad, slower and with more guitar and less synthesizer than the previously released version, giving it more of a Queen sound. The third previously unreleased track, a version of Mercury’s solo song “There Must Be More to Life than This” with vocals by Mercury and Michael Jackson and Queen instrumentation, is only available on the CD release.
While long-time fans of Queen will mostly be interested in the new songs, for those whose knowledge of Queen is restricted mainly to big hits like “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “We Will Rock You” the rest of the album will be a revelation. While previous greatest hits collections gave a taste of the band’s musical variety, this collection, in particular the deluxe edition, allows listeners who don’t own any of the individual albums to explore Queen’s catalog in greater depth. While many of the band’s hits appear, including really big ones such as the aforementioned “Somebody to Love” and “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” as well as favorites like “It’s a Hard Life”, “You’re My Best Friend”, “Save Me”, “Who Wants to Live Forever”, and “These Are the Days of Our Lives”, there are also many tracks that were never released as singles in most countries. Some, such as “Love of My Life” and “’39”, are as well known as many of the hits, but others like “Lily of the Valley”, “Long Away”, “Drowse”, “Bijou”, “Nevermore”, “Spread Your Wings”, “Jealousy” and “One Year of Love” are relatively obscure. What is impressive is that many of the less well-known tracks are just as good as the hits, and at the same time are very different from them in musical style. Also, while even casual fans of Queen have heard the voices of Brian May and Roger Taylor on backing vocals and isolated lines and verses from the hits, here they can hear May sing lead on his songs “Long Away”, “’39” and “Sail Away Sweet Sister” and hear Taylor sing lead and play guitar on his song “Drowse”. They can also hear Mercury’s last recording, “Mother Love”, with the final verse sung by May because Mercury never made it back to the studio to finish it. In effect, Queen Forever is not a greatest hits album, nor is it a posthumous album like Made in Heaven, but rather it is a Queen sampler with a few completely new songs as a bonus. Dedicated fans can check out the new tracks and reacquaint themselves with old, forgotten favorites, while new fans can use the album as a starting point before going on to explore the band’s classic albums like A Night at the Opera.
