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King of Pop meets Queen: Freddie & Michael duet on “Queen Forever”

By Paul Sinclair

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Three previously unreleased Queen tracks featuring late singer Freddie Mercury will feature on a new Queen album, Queen Forever, which will be released in November on Virgin Records.

The tracks include the much talked about Queen and Michael Jackson number, There Must Be More to Life Than This, a previously unfinished Mercury-Queen track Let Me In Your Heart Again (from The Works sessions), and a ballad version of Mercury’s first solo hit, Love Kills.

The rest of the album is loosely themed around Queen love songs gathering up some hits, classic tracks and “new takes on well-known songs”. The Michael Jackson track originally dates from the Hot Space sessions in 1981 and it was worked on – on and off – in the early eighties during which time Freddie Mercury visited Jackson at his home studio in Los Angeles and recorded his vocal. This was obviously never released (although a Mercury solo version appeared his 1985 solo album Mr Bad Guy). This new version reverts to Queen’s original backing and has been produced by producer William Orbit.

Let Me In Your Heart Again is a Brian May composition that features newly recorded guitar parts and new backing vocals from Brian and Roger and a 30-year old original vocal from Freddie Mercury!

Love Kills, was a composed by Freddie Mercury and Giorgio Moroder. Although Mercury recorded a high-energy dance version of the song (his debut solo hit in 1985) the original track featured all four members of Queen. This new Queen-Freddie studio version has  some newly recorded guitars and drums by May and Taylor.

Queen Forever will be issued as a 20-track single CD and as an deluxe 36-track, two-CD set and is released on 10 November 2014. Full track listings for both below.

2CD Deluxe Edition

Track listing

Queen Forever – Track Listings

2-CD Deluxe 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

2CD Deluxe Edition

Standard single CD

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19 Comments

19 thoughts on “King of Pop meets Queen: Freddie & Michael duet on “Queen Forever””

  1. @Runicen – I agree. The Barcelona reissue was imaginative and offered something new. The Freddie Mercury Collection was exhaustive, containing every single edit, b-side and remix, along with 3 discs worth of demos and unreleased material. The Lot mopped up every last bit of Taylor’s catalogue into one place. So, it’s clear these guys know how to do it, they just don’t want to. I mean, they are actively promoting this as a NEW album, not a compilation. All trace of integrity has gone!

    1. @Paul Kent: You’re absolutely right on all counts. At this point, I’d even settle for a slightly scaled back version of the Mercury box set back in print (scaled back on the packaging, not the contents).

      For that matter, I’d settle for a FULL B-Sides and rarities set from the band proper. I mean, it may be a minor quibble, but one of my favorite 12″ mixes was left off of the bonus disc from The Miracle (Breakthru, incidentally) and it’s not like we can say they crammed those things to the gills with content either.

      In the meanwhile, for the right price, I may score this for the “new” tracks, but it’s only going to be with a great deal of reluctance and at a fire sale price that I do.

  2. “New takes on well-known” songs… that’s clearly a description of the 3 new songs, then. Queen fans know Let Me In Your Heart Again already and, as it stands, it’s now Queen covering Anita Dobson!!! Love Kills is a Moroder production and co-wrote and a Moroder production and co-write without Moroder is pointless. There Must Be More To Life Than This was bloody awful first time round and I can’t see how William Orbit’s production will improve MJ’s shrill warbling heard on the demo. After that, you’re all fooling yourselves if you think it’s going to be more than another boring compilation. If the “new takes on well-known songs” were anything beyond those three, they would have been shouting it from the rooftops. One to miss. Once again, ‘Maylor’ are chasing the coin and insulting the fans by refusing to release the Anthology set promised in The Freddie Mercury Collection box set.

    1. I really wish I could offer an impassioned disagreement, but this collection and what’s been going down under the Queen name for the past few years fly in the face of the EXCELLENT treatment of Barcelona on its anniversary and even (despite its release issues) The Lot. Those were value-packed collections that gave the fans something new, not “meh” compilations trading on, “Oh, look who we have on THIS song!”

      Hoping to see this trend modified at some point in the future. Queen are and were one of my all-time favorite bands and even an album of 100% new re-recordings would have enticed more than this.

  3. Basically another compilation except 3 lost tracks and maybe some alternate versions. If the latter are on the single CD [something tells me no] by the single CD.

  6. I have to admit to serious disappointment here. Previous announcements made it sound like we were looking forward to another “Made in Heaven,” with a full album of new music (if not new vocals).

    I think I could have even dealt with the compilation approach if ALL of the tracks were reimaginings rather than rote reissues.

    All told, I may pick this up if the price is right, but it feels like a bit of cheap fleecing.

  7. I too was expecting more ‘unreleased’ Tracks on ‘Queen Forever’. We will see if it will be their 10th UK No.1 Album. Both they & ABBA have been on 9 No.1 Albums since 1995.

  8. This is very disappointing. The third Jackson duet was the song Victory. And i thought this album was going to be comprised mostly, if not fully, of unreleased material. Instead we get 1 of 3 Jackson duets, a solo remake, and ONE unreleased song. Yes, I know, it’s better than nothing. But it’s also far less than originally stated.

    1. Very much agreed. Plus the ‘unreleased’ song is the Queen version of a mediocre Brian May composition that has already been available for ages on an album by Brian’s missus, Anita Dobson. (Freddie sings it much better, though!) All three ‘new’ tracks were up on YT today – with the MJ one already taken down.

  10. Although I’m eagerly awaiting this release I have to say I’m a little disappointed that there aren’t more re-discovered tracks featured here (as mentioned above too) as that were mentioned by May and Taylor some time ago. Any new versions of Queen tracks will be interesting to be heard though

    1. ‘I Was Born To Love You’ is probably the terrible power-ballad version from Made In Heaven.I,too,am disappointed in the track-listing and the other two Jackson & Freddie duets that are missing.I suppose its better than calling it ‘Greatest Hits 4’!!!

  12. The Freddie version of “State of Shock” is the only other track I know of, but then this release is really a mellower version of “Queen Rocks” I guess. I’d be up for hearing more of the Moroder/Mercury Sessions. Cool title, huh? Then again, if the other two can’t scribble all over it with their crayons…

  13. Maybe the other 2 tracks belong to the Jackson estate and they will churn them out on their next MJ album?
    Who knows. This seems a strange album to me, more like a compilation than what I was expecting.

  14. wouldn’t surprise me Bob if they are saving the two other tracks so they can release more of these hits with a couple of new track albums to really rinse us fans as much as they can! … saying that I shall be buying this

  15. I thought there were 3 Michael Jackson/Freddie Mercury tracks in the vaults, that’s what Brian May said many months ago. I wonder what happened to the other two?

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