The Miracle Collector’s Edition - All Discussion

YES!!! I have it. Major spoilers below, I just coloured it white so you have to drag your mouse over to see it:

Straight to I Guess We're Falling Out.

The bootleg and this version sound identical in the first verse, except for one difference in timing on one line, but as we know from Face It Alone it might have been time corrected. But it's such a subtle change I wonder why they would have done that to just one word.

There are more multitrack vocals in the chorus. The second verse has a few more vocals, but still ends with a "dee da dee da da da da da daa" as before. This would have been such a great song, but Freddie seemingly wanted it to transition to Hang On In There no matter what and that wouldn't have necessarily been a good move.

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You Know You Belong To Me is a full acoustic track with Brian on vocals, a few 'strings' in the background, maybe from the Korg M1. A subtle piano joins in later. Fully releasable, nothing 'demo' about it. Beautiful song, has a sort of Beatles feel about it and I could imagine Paul McCartney singing on it.

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Dog With A Bone - Definitely some differences to the bootleg we all know. Identical in many places, but new in others, such as a solid ending rather than a fadeout with studio chatter.

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A New Life Is Born - Same as above, it sounds mostly the same as our bootleg, except for some vocal differences towards the end. There is an extra verse of piano before Freddie starts singing and the song finishes with some piano chords rather than going into I Want It All.

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Water is a Brian demo with a mostly Korg M1 backing track and a synthesised drum kit. Many ad-libs, feels weirdly like a mid-to-late 90s Bee Gees track. So different in feel to The Miracle or anything else Queen released. Makes me believe Queen could have really continued writing and releasing music had Freddie lived and still seem fresh.

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John's ending to The Miracle - WTF?! It sounds like upbeat Enya meets Super Mario.

Amazon US will probably be shipping mine later today.

I quick listen to answer my previous question - I'm glad they used the original mono live B-side tracks from Rare Live. Places them, somehow, in 1989 for me which is exactly what I wanted from this set. Nostalgia fest.

Couldn't find the hide text thing, but I don't reckon that detail isn't going to upset anyone finding out too early.

I'd go so far as to say that The Miracle Sessions disc is the best individual Queen CD released since... well... Even Rainbow '74 was flawed.
It's fun, very interesting and most of all, entertaining. Really feels like they've given us something special, which I don't think I've felt with a Queen archival release before.
Quite brilliant.

It's already available on Qobuz.


www.qobuz.com/fr-fr/album/the-miracle-queen/jurji2scp87mb

Just noticed a bit surprising on Qobuz streaming service all the miracle collector songs are credited to John Deacon as composer 😅

I don’t know what it means to get Frankensteined, but I wish they kept that line in.

Also, the alternate lines in Breakthru (breathing in someone’s air and the flame that’s burning brightly) are great.

Only listened to breakthru 😲.

It's almost like we have a live version, how brilliant is this, the closest we will ever get!

What a great time to be a Queen fan.

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Loving this Sessions disc! Party absolutely rocks, while Breakthru has a gospel feel in the beginning and launches into a tremendous live take. Invisible Man is very similar to the 2011 bonus track except that the middle-eight vocals are phased/reverbed slightly, and of course we get a frenetic guitar solo by Brian in the closing minute or so.

The start of I Want It All is utterly bizarre and almost feels like it was flown in from a different song idea altogether. Either way, this is another successful alternate take, with the double-tempo section at the end, where it might have worked better in a live environment. The end of The Miracle is so delightfully 1980s and refreshing. However, I do wish we had an extended funk/rock outro as on one of the Hollywood promo mixes.

Did anyone notice the cheat at the start of My Baby Loves Me? The 'Freudian slip' exchange was cribbed from the end of the 10-minute Stealin' take.

This brings me to my biggest beef: where are the alternate takes of the B-sides, et al? Too Much Love (alternate take was played at a convention), Stealin' (the aforementioned 10-minute take), Hang On In There (Fiddly Jam), Hijack My Heart (leaked demo with piano outro), and My Life Has Been Saved (no outtakes leaked thus far). At the VERY least, these tracks should also have been represented on the CD of instrumentals.

This version of I Guess We're Falling Out does not has the gorgeous somber guitar ending as on the leaked take. That's a real shame! Dog With a Bone feels neutered, somewhat, but what a surprise that Mike Moran is playing piano.

I wish we had an extended, 'rawer' take of 'Face It Alone' in addition to the single mix. And what a swizz that it isn't on the instrumental disc, when a vocal-free mix is the B-side of the single.

Brian was certainly on a creative streak: You Know You Belong To Me is gorgeous, and Water is ethereal and has an electronic-bluesy vibe. Add a demo of 'Why Don't We Try Again' and it would be a perfect trilogy of Brian-sung Miracle tracks.

Overall, I am very happy with this disc. However, I'm disappointed that the B-sides were not afforded the same alternate/instrumental treatment, and that Roger is seemingly more reluctant to issue his demos / guide vocals.

But let's give kudos to Brian for his enthusiasm for these 'fly on the wall' releases. Hopefully there will be more to come, although I predict Roger will keep his demos close to his vest, for the most part.

Just after midnight in UK - probably won't get it until Monday now.

Maybe they don't list multiple composers and you're seeing alphabetical order, truncated.

Cross reference with Ice Ice Baby, or anything by Eminem...

The music went me back in 1989. When there was a freshness in music, heavy metal was going more into 70s hard rock approach, many bands even the early British pop like Blur had room in the drums going away from the general 80s approch. Rock band like GnRs Aerosmith had very 70s style production.

Queen went for it , in their interviews said about live feeling in the studio. The songs with real drums and bass sound more alive and organic and joyfull, rather the final very poppy, over EQ, compressed, filtered songs.

Party, Kashogi's Ship, The miracle ( I liked it then,now is even better).
Breakthru I couldn't listen it with the synth bass , the session take is great, now is going to be in my top ten 80s songs.

I understand why they choosed the first two for the album, the live, joyfuly energy might is reason. Why later on, they used drum samples ,filters etc is beyond thinking...

Even Rain must fall with less production sound better.

I remember the miracle album sounded new and fresh in 1989. However it was very pop and synthetic missing the energy.

P.S. Freddie was a real artist, he was full ideas, and music . He was pushing them to go to music roads. I wish the documentaries had focused on this aspects of his craft.

First thought on listening to the alternative takes is that I wish they hadn’t replaced the real acoustic drums played by Roger for machines in huge swathes and on some whole tracks!

I only got my dispatch notification this morning, so mine probably won't arrive until Monday now.