My interest in Queen is waning

yes. but for a combination of reasons:

♦ like you, i respect their right to do as they wish, but the QAL and QPR (previously) - does nothing for me.
♦ other bands are better at handling their vaults. plenty of true deluxe editions/boxsets etc from the likes of Beatles, Zep, Bowie, Who, Rainbow, Purple, Elton, UFO, Lizzy, Cars, AC/DC, Lepps, ELO, Floyd and many many more besides - render Queen's ventures into their own archives all the more pathetic.

I'm probably the wrong person to be answering this, as music has some extremely rose-tinted emotional ties with me. I was introduced to music in the mid-late 60s (i was born in '62) - thanks to my dad's interest in music, During my formative years I was subjected to everything from Elvis to Iron Butterfly, Hendrix to Irish Folk and - though I had no idea at all what Monterrey or Woodstock were, I heard plenty of the music and that's got to leave a mark on a young lad.
Most importantly (for me) though, were the Beatles and Small Faces. My dad played Strawberry Fields / Penny Lane and Itchycoo Park to death. I remember dad giving me these records some years later, and I treasured them both.

That nostalgic trip down Memory Lane aside, far and away the biggest reason for me is a simple psychological one: immediacy. Immediacy = disposability. It removes the substance and worth of almost anything.
I'm old enough to remember saving up Paper Round money to buy an LP...When news of a band's new single/LP would be anticipated for months on end...When our music collections were a few dozen LPs and singles - but expanding with enthusiasm every week...where our bright, fresh newly-bought LP was played to death...where we read and digested liner notes and lyric inserts...where true classic albums* would be around "forever" - barely out of our consciousness from one end of the year to the next.

Then there's the physical process of playing music. Nobody anywhere, can convince anyone that the physical process of selecting 33/45, placing vinyl on a turntable and hearing that ambient hum of the lead-in groove as you lower the tonearm onto the record can be bettered by any other form of playback. Ever. I mean, c'mon firing up VLC, dragging a folder of music to the playback window and clicking the play icon...nah! it may be utterly convenient and accessible, but FFS - it's just so sterile.

These days everything is instant and gone almost in the blink of an eye. There's no real longevity - Album X is due this week, everybody that wants to have it has bought/downloaded it on the day of release...and it's "last weeks news" by the weekend! There's no apparent mass-appreciation of stuff these days.
Or....maybe I'm just so bloody old, and all this new-fangled digital spotify, apple itunes, YT streams etc really do have some depth that has somehow eluded my impervious ears, head, heart and soul?


*
Beatles - Abbey Rd
Pink Floyd - DSOTM
Fleetwood Mac - Rumours
Meatloaf - BOOH
Led Zep - IV

bloody bits of kids!


totally agree. i love tech - new and old. i've got mp3 players and f**k knows what else and i love the convenience and clarity. but, the only thing tech doesn;t have (for someone who grew up 20+ years before its advent) is an emotional attachment.


i hear ya! i've three archos players - an Archos 5 and 2x Archos 7. my car player will handle almost any media storage i throw at it. i've made a copy of the same music for all four devices (and my laptop). one of those is a folder of 660 songs. just scanned the list and guess what? 11 queen songs. yep that's it.

It's kind of weird for me. It's like on and off, but mostly it's been off for a long time and I can't help feeling disappointed by the total disinterest that both Brian and Roger seem to have on anything but their old hits and the odd but largely irrelevant new song or collaboration they come up with. It's like they know they could easily please the old fans but they'd rather keep touring, and it's worked well for them actually... until this year, and then again they forgot about us too.

If it wasn't for this board (and Queenzone when it was worth visiting), I would have lost interest long ago. I will always love Queen of course, the fond memories are there but nowadays I only look forward. I just find more satisfaction on any other hobby or sharing anything else with my daughter.

I agree with all the posters here, and thanks, it's nice to know I'm not alone. I was verging on super-fan at one point but now it's all just a bit lame. Maybe I'm just kind of saying goodbye to that bit of my life and keeping it in the memory box.

I was excited to hear Let Me In Your Heart Again. The song was a bit naff and I can see why Freddie didn't bother much with it at the time, it didn't have the kind of energy he was looking for although admittedly at that time Freddie had also lost direction. That said, they put together a really convincing vocal, and it was just lovely to hear Freddie sing something I hadn't heard before. Also, I liked the version of "All Dead, All Dead" that came out with Freddie's vocal, and I liked the fact that it sounded just that little bit fragile. I wasn't so convinced by "Time waits for no-one" because, although it definitely had some vocal we hadn't heard before, it was thoroughly processed. I know Time wasn't Queen Productions.

It's a little strange for me, and probably for many fans my age, a band that meant so much to me, and they already didn't exist in my teenage years. Brian and Roger have kind of given them a comic-book legacy. I remember thinking that same thing about the fan-club, it was all a bit twee. Looking back online at the archive of fan-club magazines available on this very forum and you can see that it was always a bit twee. Honestly I think the musical, although enormously successful, was probably a mistake. The Paul Rodgers tour was also probably a mistake or at least the album was. The album Cosmos Rocks just felt like they couldn't be bothered. It sounds for the most part like they weren't even in the same room at the same time. I don't even count it as part of the Queen catalogue and I think even Brian and Roger have largely forgotten it. I'm not saying it was terrible, it was just a rather polished turd. It could have been so much better.

Everything they've released in the past 10 years has had an air of being a bit shite really, even the live albums that were doctored, and while I understand they always doctored live releases even when Freddie was still alive (Live Killers...), it just felt that everything was overpriced, over worked, and not that interesting. I don't want replica ticket stubs and all that crap, I want good material, and it's not exactly forthcoming from them.

I've always said that we can't and shouldn't force artists to release product, but it is a little bit frustrating when they keep serving up the same stuff over and over again in different form. The singles collection CDs were a missed opportunity and I'd honestly have probably shelled out for a vinyl edition. The Absolute Greatest album was pointless when there's the platinum collection, and Queen Forever was a bloody mess except for the previously unreleased tracks, and honestly, the Love Kills ballade version I just can't imagine that was ever how it would have sounded in 1984 as a Queen track (but that's not necessary an appropriate criticism). There was probably enough for at least an EP that they overlooked, but the whole package was just a great disappointment. Even Roger said as much.

Now we are missing the 30th Anniversary Miracle Boxed Set (well, actually, that's probably a blessing), and next month it'll be time for the Innuendo 30th Anniversary but I'm quite sure that it'll go un-marked, or there'll be some sub-standard boxed set that comes out. I'm bitching now, I realise that, but like all of you, I just decided not to part with the cash, nor to feel obliged to part with it because QPR (read: BM) decides to put out a legacy product that isn't that good.

Going back to recent Queen releases, I think they've missed a lot of opportunities to quite easily give us something more interesting. The Forever album had several tracks that they could have given us proper stand alone versions of, but they just chose to butcher the album versions (LOML, Nevermore, Lily Of The Valley). The 2011 remasters should have included 5.1 mixes of all the albums, and they could have added more live stuff instead of bloody backing tracks that anyone could have made from the stems. The NOTW box had the best bonus material for years, but to get that you had to shell out a hundred quid for a load of other tat that most of us probably looked at once and put back in the box.

Personally, I'm not all that excited about The Miracle box, if it ever appears, but I'd certainly get excited about a Jazz box, with an outtakes CD and a remixed album, or a Live Killers box, including full concerts from all the shows that made up LK, like UFO have just done with their Strangers In The Night box. We can but dream...

I think the reason for everyone's interest to be fading away is the lack of new content, the last (actual) thing we got was the Budapest (re-)release.
Don't fade away though, sooner or later the later (movie) generation will begin demanding more materials, and with more time we'll get more releases.

In conclusion, QPL can't handle an archive (properly).

I think their creativity as a unit was greater than that of any one of them, so obviously in that way they would miss Freddie. That said, Back To The Light was the 'Queen' album I'd been waiting years for, even though it was only Brian, and Brian wrote as many of my favourite Queen songs as Freddie did. They were all talented writers separately as well as together.

I'm probably one of the youngest Queen fans here. I was born in 1988 and didn't discover Queen until 2003. So that's only 17 years of obsession. I do go through phases where I listen to less Queen, because I'll admit that no matter how good their music is, I need a break once in a while. But for me, it's more than just the music that I'm a fan of. Like any kid, I was very impressionable, and I discovered them at just the right moment. My personality, taste in music, and even my career choice were shaped by my love and respect for the band. I make no apologies about it. The things we love define us. And Queen's no different. I wear them on my sleeve proudly...literally, I've got Queen tattoos!

So like many here, I may grow tired of the music from time to time, but they'll always have a place in my heart. Always.

Well, now I'm curious Frank.  What is your career choice? 

You are young Frank, and I think that's great. To me, that's the beauty of this timeless band. I'm old enough to have seen Queen when Freddie was with them, but I have to admit they weren't even on my radar at the time so I never bothered.  I saw lots of concerts including the Stones, Elton John, and Rod Stewart, but I was not interested in Queen. I also saw James Taylor, Simon and Garfunkel and John Denver which is some indication of my varied taste in music.  I've lived in several areas of the states where Queen performed and I missed them when they played in New Orleans, Philadelphia, NYC, and my current midwestern city.  I was aware of them, but that's about it. I did see their performance on Live Aid and went out and bought the greatest hits album the next day, but that was it.  Then maybe four years ago I happened to be watching Amazing Race when the contestants were sent to Zanzibar and their first clue/task was to find the birthplace of Farrokh Bulsara.  Not one of the contestants knew the name and neither did I so I was fascinated to find that Farrokh was Freddie Mercury.  I started Googling immediately and haven't stopped soaking up information since.  Seems like my discovery of the band happened at just the right time for me.  

It will be a long time before my interest wanes, but I understand what all of you are saying though it makes me a little sad because perhaps that loss of interest is in my distant future too.  I'm really glad you  all still post and share your knowledge because there are many like me who are still learning and you are wonderful sources of info.   I hope all of you stick around in spite of the fading interest. 

How do you go about EQ'ing your tracks?

Thanks, I've got Audacity on my PC but never delved into it to that degree.