Queen I Box Set Announced - Pre-Release Discussion Only

I don't honestly think there's been anyone "blindly supporting the band", in fact, there's plenty of acknowledgement on these boards that not everything they've done has been perfect, and some of it has been pretty dire. Look at the reaction to the umpteenth re-re-re release of Greatest Hits, as one example.

Personally, I just feel that one bit of autotune was jumped on literally minutes after the TNCD remix was heard, and the focus was drawn to that, with the rest of the track virtually being ignored. The same thing happened when Rainbow was released and we heard FFMS live for the first time, not even knowing that it was ever performed on stage before then. A treasure was unearthed and all some folks could talk about was a second of pitch correction.

The forthcoming Queen I box set will contain material we could never have dreamed of hearing a few years ago, and it will be a shame if it's pulled to pieces within a few hours of release because some of the tracks may have been tinkered with. The band and production team obviously must think they're improving the end product - I'm sure they're not simply applying autotune to annoy a group of fans that pick up on these things.

Oh my goodness, I'd actually be so jazzed to hear a refined mix of Father to Son, that's my favorite Queen song. It's so intense, with so much going on. That would be a wild ride.

20 years? try 42!!! i've been slaughtered here for not criticizing the autotune. i've already explained my reasons.
but, let's get something straight: i am almost the exact polar opposite of the "blind" fans of which you speak. I've openly criticised the band (and many of their decisions) for 40+ years. Let's face it, (for me) everything from the Game to AKoM was part of a sliding scale of disappointment to dross.

As regards TNCD, I'm not criticising a tweak until i hear the whole package (Oct 25th), because, well it [one tweak] really doesn't harm anything at all, does it? I still have the original CD, so I can listen to that if I prefer it. it's not as if one bit of autotune removes every instance of the original release from existence is it?

I'm really looking forward to Oct 25th.
now, if they skip II, SHA or Races (boxsets) to accommodate HS, Works or AKoM, then I WILL be extremely pissed and even more vocal in my complaints.

So, what's with the "What...?" You seem to be disagreeing, then backing up my point, which is that we do have criticisms here.

You have really listened to the new 2024 mix of TNCD 50 times that's about 2 hours and 40 minutes of your time ! Wow !

THIS

As the "Asia" song say's "Only Time Will Tell ".

So in the last few weeks we've learned:

- that The Night Comes Down was going to be the 3rd single from the album

- that She Makes Me was written in 1970

- the setlist of the Imperial College 1970-08-23 concert

- early rundown for the Sheer Heart Attack album

- that Freddie wrote a song called Somebody Tell Me Now for the SHA album

- that there wasn't a concert on 1970-07-18, and it's in fact 1971-07-18 - meaning that the plaque at Imperial College unveiled by Brian & Roger in 2013 is wrong

- Queen began the work on the first album in May 1972

- See What A Fool I've Been was played and recorded at De Lane Lea Studios

- that for the Night Comes Down the band "smuggled in their demo multi-track tape in a newly labelled ‘Trident’ box in order to mix the song for the album"

- De Lane Lea sessions took place between November 1971 and January 1972

- Hangman was Free-inspired, and according to official press release "was never recorded in the studio”

- Queen were playing Morning Sun (a cover of a 1970 pop hit) and Please Don't Tease (a Cliff Richard song from 1960) in 1970.



What a time to be a Queen fan. I can't wait to hear the new remix and everything else. 2 tracks from Imperial Colege is unbelievable in itself. It's only their 3rd or 4th concert, and it predates the earliest circulating live material by more than 3 years... Sure, I'd love to hear the entire concert. The Rainbow 74 tracks are disappointing. Not only it was released in (almost) complete form already, but it's not even the Queen I Tour. If they didn't deem the Imperial College show as good enough, they could've released Golders Green Hippodrome.

While it's great to see Hangman being released in any form, we have a decent tape from the same tour - Milwaukee show, which happened only 10 days before San Diego. But I don't mind, I'm sure that San Diego performance was equally brilliant, and obviously it will sound much better than Milwaukee. Doing All Right was performed one day before San Diego (in Santa Monica) and we have a very good tape of that show already.  

BBC sessions bring nothing new, but it was only logical to include them in the box set.

What surpises me is the fact that Queen official channels are flooded by comments saying how wrong it is to autotune Freddie's voice. It's literally more than half of all the comments. People are very aware of these things. 

I love the new look of the back cover. It never looked better. That's a huge improvement. 

I saw the official AI video for The Night Comes Down as soon as it was posted, and before seeing the reaction here and everywhere else. Well... personally I thought the video was disgusting. I'll just leave it at that.

I can't wait to see the book. It looks somewhat similar to the Sotheby's Freddie Auction Book, and I'm happy with that. Makes me wonder if Queen managed to buy some early tracklists, sketches etc. at the auction. Some of the items seem to be included in the new book. It looks like the book is well prepared and organised. I assume they didn't include the details such as the session dates, which would've been wonderful, but surely there's a lot of good and rare info and visuals in the book, and to me it's one of the most valuable things in the box set.

It looks to me like Queen try to follow The Beatles in recent years. Perhaps it started with the Get Back documentary. Brian commented on that, and I seem to remember he specifically mentioned how it made him look different at his own and Queen's legacy. It opened his eyes on how valuable and fun the archive released can be. Now it looks like every Queen box set is better than the previous one. Can only hope this trend will be continued. 

And then there are promo videos. So far not to be seen anywhere. But on the official website there are these 2 stills, looking not bad at all:





which surely means they are going to upload the remastered videos on the official YouTube channel pretty soon. 

All in all I'm very excited. While the box set is not perfect, it's much better than expected. October 25 can't come soon enough.

It’s interesting.Could you elaborate this please? How do we know?

From your mouth to God's ears!

Roger said so in his interview with Jo Whiley and he does have quite a good memory. 

Well Queen filmed promo videos for Keep Yourself Alive and Liar around the same time in 1973 didn't they? Wasn't it August? So maybe Liar was intended to be the second single in UK and other territories later on in 1973 which leaves The Night Comes Down as the third single early in 1974?

Seven Seas Of Rhye was rush released as a single just because of Top Of The Pops having a gap to fill so Queen got the job. It does make you wonder if they weren't planning on releasing it for another couple of weeks during the Queen II Tour?

I guess technically the Liar single didn't really happen as such and was released in the US in February '74 ahead of the American tour just to see if it got the band some momentum and attention. The band have spoken about how they didn't have much control of that single but if it was going to be a single in the UK I'm sure they would've decided an edit as surely there would've been one. 

Yes, Roger didsay that, but it's actually incorrect - that was my point.

♦ UK/Rest of World = there was NO 2nd single from the album - it wasn't a "technical non-release" it was an actual non-release. that being the case, there couldn't have been a planned 3rd? It's not possible to plan a 3rd anything, until you have a 2nd.
♦ USA/New Zealand = If TNCD was to be released as a single (3rd from LP) it would've had to be squeezed in between Feb & June 74.

they may have had ideas depending upon success/outcome of other single releases, but these could be nothing more than if/maybes