Take a look at this beautiful book that accompanies the Queen Studio Collection box set:
OUT 25 SEPTEMBER – PRE-ORDER: Digital Stores
[028] Studio Collection: Part 2 – Hardback Book (2015)
– https://youtu.be/Bu4JZRzouM4
Here is the 108 page hardback book that is contained in the Studio Collection Box Set that was released on 25th September 2015. Piano by Mariano Bryner.
Below are quotes taken from the book that accompanies the forthcoming release. New quotes will be added as we move towards the release date on September 25th
. ‘Jazz’ – Roger Taylor: “Bicycle Race was one of Freddie’s mad ideas which I thought was a really good hard pop record. And then we had Fat Bottomed Girls as well, we felt that image-wise they went together rather well. The Tour De France came cycling by one day and Fred was gazing at it with absolute amazement. I think it triggered something in his imagination.
” ‘News Of The World’ – Brian May: “Apart from each having contributed two tracks to the album, Roger and John have been much more involved, in the playing. Roger sings and plays rhythm guitar on some of his cuts (Sheer Heart Attack and Fight From The Inside) which makes sense, because he had a better idea of how he wanted it to go. John plays acoustic guitar on one of his as well (Who Needs You). I played maracas on it. While we may not do it that way on stage, in the studio that makes more sense.”
‘A Day At The Races’ – Brian May: “I wish in some ways that we had put A Night At The Opera and A Day At The Races out together, because the material for both of them was more or less written at the same time and corresponds to a similar period in our development. I regard the two albums as completely parallel, and the fact that one came out after the other is a shame, because it was looked on as a follow-up, whereas really it was sort of an extension of the first one.”
‘A Night At The Opera’ – Freddie Mercury: “There were a lot of things we wanted to do on Queen II and Sheer Heart Attack, but there wasn’t space enough. With Opera there was. Guitar-wise and with vocals we did things we’ve never done before. Nothing was out of bounds.”
‘Sheer Heart Attack’ – Roger Taylor: “We really got there on Sheer Heart Attack. It’s got a lot of fire and it’s slightly more streamlined. It holds together very well and it’s much more concise. It’s very varied and dynamic. The different sounds were pleasing. With the second album I think we sort of did everything we could possibly think of doing, to the point of almost over-complicating things. I think we were starting to refine things down by this album, and actually Sheer Heart Attack is still one of my own personal favourites. I think it stands up as well as anything we’ve ever done really. Maybe other albums sold more, but for me it’s a very clear statement. That was the first time we found a sort of unified, slightly stripped down direction.”
‘Queen II’ – Brian May: “When Queen II came out it didn’t connect with everyone. A lot of people thought we’d forsaken rock music. They said: ‘Why don’t you play things like Liar and Keep Yourself Alive. All we could say was, give it another listen, it’s there, but it’s all layered, it’s a new approach. Nowadays people say: ‘Why don’t you play like Queen II? A lot of our close fans think that, and I still like that album a lot. It’s not perfect, it has the imperfections of youth and the excesses of youth, but I think that was our biggest single step ever.”
‘Queen’ – John Deacon: “Quite a lot of the songs on that first album were songs we’d had for a long while, that we just used to play together, like Keep Yourself Alive, Liar and Great King Rat. So we just went in and recorded them. And there were one or two numbers where we were getting interested in doing things in the studio. My Fairy King was a number Freddie wrote which we built up in the studio. Whereas other numbers were essentially live songs, basically just the track with some backing vocals and over the top guitar solos added, and that was it.”