Tag: Made in Heaven

Queen – The Albums Ranked Worst to First (The Studio Album Series)

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Here at 2 Loud 2 Old Music, we went through and reviewed all the Studio Albums for the band Queen. And to do this, we are used the 40th Anniversary 2011 Remastered CDs as our source as I picked up the 3 Volume Box Set for Christmas 2020. And with any good series, we will start with their debut album and work our way through all the studio albums in chronological order. There were 15 albums and all with the same band members of Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon. How many bands can say that? Not many.

What was great about going through them all in order is that you see how the band evolved over time and how much they experimented whether it was successful or not. You see the highs and the lows, where the band hit its groove and where they were wandering around lost. They did move soundtracks, the rocked out, they had fantasy songs, rockabilly, disco and even metal. They did it all. Now let’s go through and see where they ranked worst to first.

THE WORST – ‘MADE IN HEAVEN’ (1995):

The album did not have a cohesive feel and it shouldn’t since it wasn’t really written as an album. It was a last ditch effort to pull as many Freddie songs together as they could for one final release.  And I don’t think it is one they should’ve done mainly because all these songs aren’t really up to the Queen Standard in my book.  There were way too many ballads, they used two songs that were already released as Freddie solo songs and I don’t think the material was all that great to begin with.  I feel they should’ve left well enough alone as I think ‘Innuendo’ was a great way to go out, but what do I know.  My Overall Score is a 2.0 Out of 5.0 Stars. There were a few tracks worth having, but overall not enough to make this a must have album.

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Queen – ‘Made in Heaven’ (1995) – Album Review (The Studio Album Series)

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We are now to the final studio album by Queen called ‘Made in Heaven’ which also means this is the final review in The Studio Album Series. The album was released on November 6, 1995 almost 4 years after Freddie’s death which was on November 24, 1991. It is the only studio album from the band released with Freddie after his death so where did the music come from you might wonder. After the band finished their last album, ‘Innuendo’, which was around November 1990, Freddie was very ill due to the AIDS virus. He had his mind made up that he would sing as much as he possibly could and leave that for the band to finish at some point down the road. Normally Freddie would do the vocals after the music was done and recorded, but due to his failing health, he sang whatever he had written or the band had put in front of him to sing. He only wanted to leave these last bits of gift to the world.

The remaining members of the band, Roger Taylor, Brian May and John Deacon, tooled around on the songs for years, mostly due to Brian May heading out on tour for his solo album, ‘Back to the Light’, which coincidently is getting a Deluxe Edition released in a couple months. The band worked some of the new material Freddie had completed and they added the Queen sound to them. However, that wasn’t enough songs to complete the album so the band also dove in to their back catalog and searched for material that Freddie had sung, but was never used even dipping in to Freddie’s solo work. It was a hodgepodge of songs and that is exactly how the album feels. It is a little disjointed and not very cohesive as a complete album work. It felt like a money grab in my book, but that is only my opinion.

The album cover is a picture of Freddie’s statue that was erected in Montreux, Switzerland where the band had a recording studio that had used for years. It as the town’s way of celebrating Freddie. The picture was taken at sunset and overlooks Lake Geneva. The back cover of the CD was the remaining band members looking out upon the Alps. Now, if you got the vinyl and not the CD, your front and back cover would be the picture above which was taken at sunrise and actually had the band standing near the statue overlooking the Lake. It is a very fitting picture actually.

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

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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:

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