It’s over 50 years in the making, and for the first time ever, one of Queen’s records has received a new stereo mix featuring a new tracklisting, alternative takes, demos, and live recordings.
Retitled Queen I, the band’s iconic self-titled 1973 debut album, has been remixed, remastered and expanded as a 6 CD + 1 LP box set collector’s edition that includes 63 tracks with 43 brand new mixes.
Sir Brian May has teased: “This is not just a remaster. This is a brand new 2024 rebuild of the entire Queen debut album, which, with the benefit of hindsight, we have re-titled QUEEN I.
“All the performances are exactly as they originally appeared in 1973, but every instrument has been revisited to produce the ‘live’ ambient sounds we would have liked to use originally.
“The result is Queen as it would have sounded with today’s knowledge and technology – a first. Queen I is the debut album we always dreamed of bringing to you.”
And now the 77-year-old guitar legend has shared a special Queen I unboxing video, which you can watch in full above.
Read more… Brian May and Roger Taylor share huge Queen news – ‘we always dreamed of this’ [NEW INTERVIEWS]
Queen I is released on October 25 (Image: QUEEN)
Opening the special box set, which is released on October 25, Sir Brian said: “So the Queen I box set in all its beauty and glory. Why do we call it Queen I? It just seemed like we’d always referred to it as Queen I anyway, since the days of Queen II and onward, so why not call it Queen I? Also, it distinguishes this from the original and it is quite a bit different. It’s quite a bit improved in our view, because it’s completely remixed. It’s not just re-mastered, this set of original recordings, it’s completely remixed in the way which made it sound like we had it in our heads in those days.”
Absent from the original 1973 record is Mad The Swine, which has been restored to the tracklist of this album. Sir Brian shared: “I don’t think I mentioned that was supposed to be on the original Queen album, and at the last minute it was taken off because [co-producer] Roy [Thomas] didn’t feel it was up to standard, and I think people thought the album was too long or something. But for this release, Mad The Swine is restored back in there, all shiny and gleaming and beautiful. A nice little song from Freddie, I think.”
Aside from the vinyl are the CDs, which he went through one by one: “So here we have what you might call the core of the package, which is six CDs. Why six? What’s it all about? Well, the first one is the 2024 mix of the original Queen, in inverted commas, album. And it’s the CD version of the vinyl.”
Brian May unboxes unprecedented Queen album with unreleased content in new footage (Image: QUEEN)
On CD2, Sir Brian said: “This is the original De Lane Lea sessions, and in a sense, it’s a reconstruction of a demo which I have in my collection, which has the five songs on it. And these five recordings are the ones we took around to all the record companies to see if they were interested and they weren’t. That’s the story of this album. We love this. We love the way that our tracks and our performances sound in the De Lane Lea Studios. The chaps have remixed this as well, very beautifully. Again, cleaning up a little bit because in the digital domain you can improve things a little, get rid of noise and stuff. But, I find this very pleasant to listen, to Keep Yourself Alive, The Night Comes Down. Great King Rat, Jesus and Liar. So this is the initial seed of what became the first Queen album. De Lane Lea sessions.”
On CD3, the Queen guitarist added: “This is called sessions and this is the result of our chaps, Justin and Kris and Josh, going back into the original Multi-tracks and finding things which we didn’t use on the album, and it’s really interesting. So this is what the album might have been like if we’d made different decisions at the time. You find different guitar solos, different vocal takes, and the chaps have been very, very skillful in weaving them into something which actually makes sense as an album. So you can call this an alternative Queen I album if you like. Queen I sessions, we call it. And you’ll also hear what went on behind the scenes in a sense, because at the beginning of the tracks, you hear us arguing, talking, discussing, tuning up, having a laugh. So you’re very much in the studio with us when you’re listening to this sessions thing.”
Early Queen (Image: GETTY)
On CD4, Sir Brian said: “[This is the] Queen Backing Tracks. Basically, the tracks without the vocals, so you can use them as karaoke if you want, or have your way with them without the lead vocals and generally without the backing vocals as well, I think. Although, in some cases, I think some of them are on there to help you through.”
On CD5, he shared: “This is a collection of a number of sessions that we did for the BBC in those very early days, one of them before the album came out. In some cases these are specially put together tracks, so they’re kind of half live and half using the tracks that we were putting down in the studio. So two live sessions in different ways, in a sense, they were put together specially for the programme, and this is the first time Queen’s music was ever heard on the radio.”
And on CD6, the rock star added: “Here we have Queen Live. This is a collection of live takes, and the idea initially was to do a live version of the whole album. Not quite possible because we never played The Night Comes Down live, but a lot of lovely, good quality live recordings came from The Rainbow in March 1974. So you’ll find quite a lot of these which correspond to the album tracks, but there’s a few really nice extras here. There’s Hangman live in San Diego, which we never have released on any kind of record as far as I know, but it was an early staple of the Queen set, so you get a very good feeling on this record, I think, of what Queen were actually like live in those days versus what actually got onto the first album.”
To pre-order Queen I for release on October 25, click here.