Queen – ‘Queen 40 (Volumes 1-3)- Box Set Review

Published on by 2loud2oldmusic

For Christmas of 2020, I received the ‘Queen 40’ Box Set, all three volumes. You would think, John, you have most of these on vinyl, why do you want the CDs? Well, easy…these are all remastered CDs from 2011 and each album includes an extra CD E.P. with anywhere from 5 to 7 Bonus tracks that I don’t have on the vinyl. So, that is why I wanted this set.

Let me tell you this set is great. They broke it up in to 3 separate volumes with each Volume getting 5 Studio albums so for the cost conscious person, you can buy one volume at a time or if money doesn’t matter, get all 3. Now that I have all 3 Volumes, with all 15 Studio albums, I am going to clue you in on something. Each Studio album will get its own, detailed review. My goal is to review all these albums by the end of 2021 and then do an Album Ranking of what I thought was the worst all the way to the one that is first on the list. It is going to be an exciting time at 2 Loud 2 Old Music for 2021!!

Let’s go through each Volume starting, of course, with Volume 1…

VOLUME 1:

Volume 1 covers the first 5 studio albums of the band which includes, ‘Queen’, ‘Queen II’, ‘Sheer Heart Attack’, ‘A Night at the Opera’ and ‘A Day at the Races’. Each CD comes in a plastic CD case with the original artwork and CD Booklet and they are housed in a carboard box. The Bonus E.P’s contain 27 Bonus tracks that include demos, Singles mixes, live and BBC Session recordings. This is everything you get…

And they throw in a little extra with a Mini Poster of the band. I say mini because these are CDs and you can’t fit a whole full size poster in the box. Each picture on the posters is a snapshot of the band in that era.

VOLUME 2:

Volume 2 takes us through the next 5 studio albums including ‘News of the World’, ‘Jazz’, ‘The Game’, ‘Flash Gordon’ (which was strangely still wrapped in plastic unlike all other discs) and finally ‘Hot Space’. The Bonus E.P’s include a total of 26 Extra Tracks to enjoy. Again, the CDs are in the plastic cases with the CD booklet. And this set looks like this…

And here is the poster for this one. Take note of John Deacon’s death stare at Freddie. I wonder if there was something going on in the band at this time. He doesn’t look happy.

VOLUME 3:

The final set includes the final 5 studio albums which includes ‘The Works’, ‘A Kind of Magic’, ‘The Miracle’, ‘Innuendo’ and the final album ‘Made in Heaven. Now the bonus content on these E.P’s is a grand total of 31 extra tracks which brings the 3 Volume total of bonus songs to 84 bonus tracks. I can’t wait to dive in to them all. Here is what Volume 3 looks like…

And the final poster is as follows…

And that is the ‘Queen 40’ Box Sets. Starting very soon, we will get in to the Album Review for ‘Queen’ and work our way through their studio albums. I am really excited and I hope you enjoy the series. If you want to know the order, it will look like this going from left to right…

As far as rating this box set, I have to say it is an okay release as there aren’t a ton of extras, but you do get a lot of bonus tracks. For me, I think the price is great as you can get all 3 Volumes for around a $100 or less depending on the day. That’s not bad for 15 Remastered Studio albums along with 15 Bonus CD E.P’s for each album. It isn’t anything fancy at all and I think they could do a better more appealing set and for that I will give it a 3.5 out of 5.0 Stars. I am okay without the frills and I just wanted the music anyway, so this is perfect for me. Thanks for stopping by and we will see you real soon with the first review in the series. Have a great day!!

36 thoughts on “Queen – ‘Queen 40 (Volumes 1-3)- Box Set Review”

  2. I am looking forward to the Queen album reviews as I took a break from this band for about two years before trying to get back into them again. I will say, it is cool how they incorporated 40 into their classic logo. This is the fangirl in me speaking, but I wish Roger kept his hair long for a few more years (at least until ‘Jazz’) because he looked good with long hair. Ok, I’m done with that haha! Did you get that box set from Amazon by the way?

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    1. Ha!! I love that it had all the bonus tracks as well. I hope you enjoy the series. It has been fun so far with the 3 I’ve written. Can’t wait for them to start posting starting next week.

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            1. I am starting 2…Queen and Priest!!! They won’t be as comprehensive as Kiss…studio albums mostly with a few live albums. I went balls to the wall with Kiss since I have so much in my collection.

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  11. I think I ended up getting all these separately, which was costly at first when they were new! But I took my time, and bought them up slow, sometimes new sometimes used.

    Having said that, the box sets look absolutely brilliant John. Really sweet looking collectible. And sweet sounding!

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