Queen: Studio Collection

Product Information

It would take 15 months and a radical re-structuring of internal band dynamics before Queen regrouped in London’s Townhouse Studios on December 3rd, 1987, to start work on their thirteenth studio album. For the first time, Queen would share songwriting credits equally, regardless of who conceived each song, a consensus of opinion that was to have fertile results. “Splitting the credits was a very important decision for us. We left our egos outside the studio door,” says Brian, “and worked together as a real band – something that wasn’t always the case. I wish we’d done it 15 years before.” This feature contains behind the scenes footage of ‘I Want It All’, ‘Scandal’, ‘The Miracle’ and ‘Breakthru’ videos. Said Roger: “D ecisions are made on artistic merit, so ‘Everybody wrote everything’ is the line, rather than ego or anything else getting in the way. We seem to work together better now than we did before. We’re fairly up-and-down characters. We have different tastes in many ways. We used to have lots of arguments in the studio, but this time we decided to share all the songwriting, which I think was very democratic and a good idea.”

Undimmed by time or fashion, ‘The Platinum Collection’ is a reminder that Queen were always colourful, always dynamic, always ablaze with passion and pride. One further ingredient in the mix was David Richards, who had worked with Queen since his billing as assistant engineer on Live Killers. After further credits on A Kind of Magic and Live Magic, Richards stepped up to co-produce The Miracle, praised by May for his “whizz kid” technical prowess. The band discuss, in their own words, the creative process behind the album. The first interview, Queen for an Hour, was broadcast on BBC Radio 1 on 29 May 1989. Host Mike Read speaks with the band for what would be their final group interview. In this interview, Freddie suggests for the first time that his touring days are over. There are a few intriguing wrinkles to this collection. Firstly, both Innuendo and Made In Heaven were formatted for CD, each holding a relatively long running time, so the contents had to be edited down to fit them on to the two sides of the original vinyl editions. Now, specially for this edition, for the first time, these two albums have been cut at full length as double vinyl LPs.All the LPs come with printed inner sleeves as well as polylined protective inner sleeves. The LPs themselves are also in individual cellophane covers. George Michael + Queen – Somebody To Love (Live, The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert For AIDS Awareness, Wembley, April 1992) News Of The World - Originally released in October 1977. Gatefold sleeve with lyric/picture inner sleeve, published by Queen Music Ltd./ EMI Music Publishing Ltd. - Green vinyl. In terms of percussion, the original had a bloated, boomy lower end. Now, the percussion had a focused and tighter presentation that removed the swollen lower frequency aspect but did provide a series of clean strikes. Moving to A Day at the Races and playing the 1999 release from the 1998 remaster of Somebody To Love, I was beginning to see a trend because the new master benefitted again from that open and airy suite of upper mids and treble that gave the overall presentation a rich, deep, spacious aspect that allowed the vocal to sound simple and pure while cymbal strikes had a welcoming fragility. Percussion, from Roger Taylor roamed around the wider and more fulsome soundstage while the bass from John Deacon was sharper and rounder.

The set is housed in a gold coloured box with a flip-open lid. The box has the Queen name in logo form on the front and STUDIO COLLECTION just beneath, along with the Queen crest near the bottom. Queen always had a special fondness for vinyl, the medium in which they first began to create, around 1970. As a matter of principle, every Queen studio album was offered at the time of original release on vinyl, even well into the era when CD’s had taken over as the medium of choice for most of the public. However, the final two albums, ‘Innuendo’ and ‘Made In Heaven’ were actually formatted primarily with the CD in mind, with a longer running time, so the contents had to be edited down to fit them on to the two sides of a vinyl album. Now, specially for this edition, for the first time, these two albums have been cut at full length as double vinyl LP’s - four sides each – making up a vinyl set that is complete in every way. The twelfth album, A Kind of Magic’, features a reproduction of the original gatefold sleeve, an inner lyric sleeve with extended liner notes, and a transparent orange vinyl; a lighter shade of vinyl than the original 1986 New Zealand pressing. Finally, the 13th album ‘The Miracle’ features an inner lyric sleeve and a turquoise green vinyl pressing. But perhaps the real gemstones of The Miracle Sessions CD are the spoken segments that bookend the musical takes. As the studio tape keeps rolling in London and Montreux, the four members are caught at their most candid, giving listeners the uncanny fly-on-the wall experience of standing amongst Freddie, Brian, John and Roger as they banter, debate, swap jokes and show both joy and occasional frustration. While Freddie could no longer tour, Queen remained a band of staggering creative resourcefulness. As John Deacon implied, they instead channelled their live chemistry into the studio: “In the first few weeks of recording we did a lot of live material, a lot of songs, some jamming, and ideas came up.”Jazz - Originally released in November 1978. Recorded at Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland and Super bear Studios in Nice, France. Gatefold sleeve with embossed JAZZ on front and rear, picture inner sleeve and nude bicycle race poster with lyrics on reverse, published by Queen Music Ltd./ EMI Music Publishing Ltd. - Pink vinyl. The album is dedicated to John Harris.