Queen - Queen [Hollywood Records] [EAC-FLAC] [RePoPo]

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Queen - Queen I (1973)

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In 1993, Hollywood Records released the Queen studio albums in USA, including

exclusive bonus tracks on each album. This rip comes from that batch.





CD: Queen - Queen



01. Keep Yourself Alive [0:03:46.70]

02. Doing All Right [0:04:09.40]

03. Great King Rat [0:05:41.62]

04. My Fairy King [0:04:08.45]

05. Liar [0:06:26.40]

06. The Night Comes Down [0:04:23.30]

07. Modern Times Of Rock 'N' Roll [0:01:48.28]

08. Son & Daughter [0:03:21.15]

09. Jesus [0:03:44.25]

10. Seven Seas Of Rhye [0:01:15.45]



Bonus tracks:



11. Mad the Swine [Previously Unreleased] [0:03:21.25]

12. Keep Yourself Alive [Long Lost Retake] [0:04:04.42]

13. Liar [remix by John Luongo and Gary Hellman] [0:06:26.50]





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THE ALLMUSIC REVIEW

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Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine



Like any patchy but promising debut from a classic rock group, it's often easy

to underrate Queen's eponymous 1973 debut, since it has no more than one well-

known anthem and plays more like a collection of ideas than a cohesive album.

But what ideas! Almost every one of Queen's signatures are already present, from

Freddie Mercury's operatic harmonies to Brian May's rich, orchestral guitar

overdubs and the suite-like structures of "Great King Rat." That rich, florid

feel could be characterized as glam, but even in these early days that

appellation didn't quite fit Queen, since they were at once too heavy and arty

to be glam and — ironically enough, considering their legendary excess — they

were hardly trashy enough to be glam. But that only speaks to the originality of

Queen: they may have traded in mystical sword 'n' sorcerers themes like so many

'70s prog bands, and they may have hit as hard as Led Zeppelin (and Jimmy Page's

guitar army certainly was a forefather to May's overdubs), but they didn't sound

like anybody else, they were too odd in their theatricality to be mistaken for

another band. That much was apparent on this debut, but one thing was crucially

missing: songs that could coalesce their sound and present it in a memorable

fashion. There is an exception to that rule — the wild, rampaging opener "Keep

Yourself Alive," one of their very best songs — but too often the album plays

like a succession of ideas instead of succinct songs, and the group's

predilection for suites only highlights this, despite the occasional blast of

fury like "Modern Times Rock & Roll." This can be quite appealing as sheer,

visceral sound and, in that regard, Queen is kind of irresistible. It showcases

the band in all their ornate splendor yet it's strangely lean and hard,

revealing just how good the band was in their early days as a hard rock band.

That might not quite make it an overlooked gem — it remains patchy on a song for

song basis — but it sure makes for an interesting debut that provides a rough

road map to their later work.





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SOME SONGS REVIEWED BY ALLMUSIC

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KEEP YOURSELF ALIVE



Song Review by Ed Rivadavia



After nearly two years honing their ambitious sound (part embryonic heavy metal,

part grandiose opera) through constant rehearsals, Queen was given their first

lucky break in mid-1972, when newly founded Trident Studios offered them free

recording time in exchange for testing their equipment. Such unusual access to

top-notch recording equipment (even if during studio down-time) allowed the band

ample time to craft their eponymous debut, an album which, thanks to this rare

privilege, was technically superior to most first efforts. And no track better

represented Queen's studio savvy and facility with technology than eventual

album opener and first single "Keep Yourself Alive." Coined by guitarist Brian

May, whose uncanny talent for manipulating his instrument's tone and texture

were already remarkably well developed at this early stage, the song's lyrics

would seem, on the surface, to describe a complacent band satisfied with their

current lot. But even if his performance is not quite as commanding as on

subsequent albums, just one listen to Freddie Mercury's spitting, rapid-fire

delivery reveals that the song is, in truth, an irrepressible ode to sheer

ambition, and reveals all of Queen's desire to achieve rock stardom no matter

the cost. Still, when it was released as a single in July 1973 (backed with

another May composition, "Son & Daughter"), "Keep Yourself Alive" was given

mixed reviews and received little to no radio airplay. In fact, like the first

album, it failed to chart on either side of the Atlantic and was considered

quite a disappointment, leaving the band facing an uncertain future for the six

months which preceded their successful third single "Seven Seas of Rhye," after

which their fortunes finally began to rise.







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LIAR



Song Review by Donald A. Guarisco



This epic rocker was the centerpiece of Queen’s debut album. The verses take the

form of a dialogue between the protagonist (represented in the verses) and the

forces against him (represented by the chorus) as they presented a tormented

soul who yearns for religious guidance but is shunned as a "liar." By the end,

the lyrics spurn organized religion altogether: "Liar, liar, they never ever let

you win/Liar, liar, everything you do is sin/Liar, nobody believes you/Liar,

they bring you down before you begin." The operatic style of these lyrics is

fully supported by the music, which goes through many tempo changes and

different sections as it combines folky, ascending verses and a stomping chorus

with instrumental and vocal bridges that pull the song in other directions.

Queen’s recording of "Liar" wraps this complex tale in a grand, bombastic

arrangement that alternates delicate acoustic touches on the verses with surging

waves of power chords during the instrumental bridges and the chorus. It also

works in a cowbell-driven percussive breakdown for the song’s penultimate vocal

bridge that pushes the drama to a frantic peak. Freddie Mercury tops it off with

a suitably dramatic vocal that ranges from a falsetto whisper to a baritone roar

and his impressive efforts are cushioned by operatic harmonies from Brian May

and Roger Taylor. It all added up to an artsy but powerful rocker that became a

backbone of Queen’s early live shows and became a cult favorite with the group’s

fans. More importantly, its grandiosity a solid prototype for later, even more

ambitious pomp-rockers like "Brighton Rock" and "Bohemian Rhapsody."







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THE NIGHT COMES DOWN



Song Review by Donald A. Guarisco



Queen’s first album differs from many debut albums because it shows an unusually

high level of technical polish in its songwriting and arrangements. A good

example of this advanced craftsmanship is "The Night Comes Down," an ambitious

song that combines a delicate melody with a hard-driving arrangement to create

an intriguing fusion of ballad and rocker. The lyrics seem to chronicle the

disillusion that many people felt when the late 1960's gave way to the early

1970's as they portray a distraught soul lamenting the magic he can no longer

feel in life: "Once I believed in everyone/Everyone and anyone can see/Oh, the

night comes down/And I get afraid of losing my way." The melody contrasts

gentle, yearning verses with a rousing chorus that adds an earthy element of

heaviness into the mix. Queen’s recording of "The Night Comes Down" gives the

song a complex arrangement that shows off Brian May’s considerable guitar

skills: gently, chiming acoustic guitar textures underpin the verses while

heavier, electric slide guitar textures support the chorus. Also, this recording

alternates the vocalized parts of the song with instrumental sections that build

up a tapestry of fast-moving acoustic and electric guitar riffs over a steady

beat. The end result transforms what could have been a simple ballad into the

kind of complex, multi-tiered rock epic that Queen has become known for.







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SEVEN SEAS OF RHYE



Song Review by Ed Rivadavia



Though it had failed to chart, Queen's eponymous 1973 debut album had generated

enough of a buzz to secure them a support slot on Mott the Hoople's U.K. tour.

This, in turn, served to introduce the band's bombastic stage show to large

audiences and earned them quite a reputation, leading to their being voted

Britain's "third most promising act" in the January 1974 by the respected music

weekly Sounds ( Nazareth and Blue took the top spots). Interest in the band was

clearly building, but they still needed one more stroke of luck to break

through. Then, shortly after returning from a dismal visit to Australia (and

being met at the airport by hordes of confused press agents mistakenly expecting

her majesty, the Queen), the band was offered a last minute replacement slot on

Top of the Pops. Understandably, they jumped at the opportunity, premiering

"Seven Seas of Rhye" from their as yet unreleased second album Queen II on

February 21st. Once little more than an instrumental musical sketch closing

their first album, the track had been properly fleshed out for Queen II, and was

rush-released as a single (backed with a non-album track, "See What a Fool I've

Been") a mere two days later. A short, compact slice of Queen's "anything goes"

creative mentality, the song combined majestically chorused vocals with an

energetic Freddie Mercury piano figure and Brian May's soon-to-be trademark

guitar orchestrations, before concluding with a sea chantey of sorts. And while

it is now one of Queen's least remembered singles, "Seven Seas of Rhye" became

their first chart entry after being accepted for airplay by BBC's Radio One -- a

landmark event for Queen which persuaded Mercury to finally quit his day job

working at his clothes stall at Kensington Market.







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EAC LOG EXTRACT

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Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 4 from 23. January 2008



EAC extraction logfile from 19. June 2009, 14:28



Queen / Queen



Used drive : HL-DT-STDVD-RAM GSA-H55N Adapter: 0 ID: 0



Read mode : Secure

Utilize accurate stream : Yes

Defeat audio cache : Yes

Make use of C2 pointers : No



Read offset correction : 102

Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No

Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes

Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No

Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes

Used interface : Installed external ASPI interface

Gap handling : Appended to previous track



Used output format : User Defined Encoder

Selected bitrate : 1024 kBit/s

Quality : High

Add ID3 tag : No

Command line compressor : F:Archivos de programaExact Audio

CopyFLACFLAC.EXE

Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%a" -T "TITLE=%t" -T

"ALBUM=%g" -T "DATE=%y" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%n" -T "GENRE=%m" -T "COMMENT=%e" %s -o

%d



...





No tracks could be verified as accurate

You may have a different pressing from the one(s) in the database



No errors occurred



End of status report





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IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ (A REQUEST)

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in your configuration. It's normal, after a few hours/days downloading and

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