Queen reveals details about the new album featuring unheard Mercury tracks
Queen Forever, a new CD collection from Queen, will be released on 10 November. As previously reported, the album will feature unreleased Freddie Mercury tracks, including the Queen frontman’s collaboration with Michael Jackson, There Must Be More to Life Than This.
The concept for this album was shaped after Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor discovered a stash of unreleased material in the Queen source archive. Although May had hoped to release the songs last year, they “found a few more tracks with Freddie singing and all of us playing”, he recently told BBC Radio Wales. “They are quite beautiful … [and they have] the big, big ballads and the big, big epic sound.”
The release will include unfinished Mercury-Queen track Let Me in Your Heart Again, a never-before completed song taken from The Works album recording sessions, and a stripped-down interpretation of Mercury’s Giorgio Moroder collaboration, Love Kills, a song originally recorded for the soundtrack to Moroder’s restored version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.
Audio of the featured Michael Jackson duet has since surfaced online following its airing on BBC Radio 2 today. A MOR, feel-good ballad produced by William Orbit, the song was written by Mercury during sessions for Queen’s 1981 album, Hot Space, and a version of it featured on Freddie’s debut solo album, Mr Bad Guy, in 1985.
“When I first played it in my studio, I opened a trove of delights provided by the greatest of musicians,” Orbit said of the track. “Hearing Michael Jackson’s vocals was stirring. So vivid, so cool, and poignant, it was like he was in the studio singing live. With Freddie’s vocal solo on the mixing desk, my appreciation for his gift was taken to an even higher level.”
Aside from the Mercury tracks, the rest of the release, assembled by May and Taylor, will include Queen hits, classic tracks, and alternative takes of well-known songs, matched with band recordings May describes as “things that we have collected together that are representative of our growth rather than the big hits”, including 1977’s Long Away, the only Queen single to feature May on lead vocals, and B-side Drowse, which includes a rare Queen performance from Taylor on guitar.
Queen’s Greatest Hits album was confirmed as Britain’s bestselling album of all time by the UK’s Official Charts Company earlier this year, after surpassing the 6m sales milestone. Their Greatest Hits II, released in October 1991, also reached No 10 in the all-time Official Albums Chart.
Queen Forever – Track Listings
Single CD:
Let Me in Your Heart Again
Love Kills – The Ballad
There Must Be More To Life Than This (William Orbit Mix)
It’s a Hard Life
You’re My Best Friend
Love of My Life
Drowse
Long Away
Lily of the Valley
Don’t Try So Hard
Bijou
These Are the Days of Our Lives
Las Palabras de Amor
Who Wants to Live Forever
A Winter’s Tale
Play the Game
Save Me
Somebody to Love
Too Much Love Will Kill You
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
2-CD SET
CD1
Let Me in Your Heart Again
Love Kills – the Ballad
There Must Be More to Life Than This (William Orbit Mix)
Play the Game
Dear Friends
You’re My Best Friend
Love of My Life
Drowse
You Take My Breath Away
Spread Your Wings
Long Away
Lily of the Valley
Don’t Try So Hard
Bijou
These Are the Days of Our Lives
Nevermore
Las Palabras de Amor
Who Wants to Live Forever
CD2
I Was Born to Love You
Somebody to Love
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
Friends Will Be Friends
Jealousy
One Year of Love
A Winters Tale
‘39
Mother Love
It’s a Hard Life
Save Me
Made in Heaven
Too Much Love Will Kill You
Sail Away Sweet Sister
The Miracle
Is This the World We Created
In the Lap of the Gods … Revisited
Forever
Source: The Guardian
