The Freddie Mercury Solo Collection

Just to begin with, this is the Ten CD, Two DVD version of the solo collection, that
comes in a very nice large hardback book, the other more popular version is the 3 CD
set with selected tracks form this version.¹

When I first heard about this collection I was overjoyed. I’ve been a Queen fan for
several years; In fact, and sadly, just after Freddie Mercury died. Its interesting to note
that I haven’t met a person who hasn’t liked their music, which is probably why
Queen are so successful. I have to say that anytime I hear their music I fall in love
with it all over again. In my opinion, There is a certain something about it that makes you feel so
good inside.

So as the natural progression goes, I started to buy their solo stuff as well, not that
there is that much of it about; unlike some bands- the members of Queen grew to
respect each other, and they all had an equal footing within the group. Excepting John Deacon, who only ever backed, they all wrote,
played and sang. Also, each of the 4 members, past and present has written a
major hit.

As for Freddie, most of his solo work was done in the mid-eighties to the early
nineties. As Freddie was forced to stop touring with Queen due to illness, and
so used the time to do some solo stuff while he could, he also worked on Queen
albums, and sadly, died on the 24th November 1991.

Freddie's voice was/is fantastic, and he was/is a fantastic vocalist. His on stage presence is
awesome, he was a prolific song writer and great musician. If there was anybody I
would want to be, it would probably be him.

This collection costs around 125 english pounds (£125) which disappointed me a lot because I’d never
get it, but my wife bought it for me as a christmas present. We
ordered it over the Internet, Otherwise I think you'd have to ask the shop if they could
get it for you, or make do with the cheaper version with just 3 CDs contained.

The Freddie Mercury Solo Collection is...

Freddie’s three solo albums-

Mr Bad Guy
The Great Pretender
Barcelona

Two Singles Collections-

The Instrumentals-

The DVDs

It all comes in a very nice hard back book.

The CDs

The solo albums are brilliant in themselves, lets face it, you all must of heard ‘Living
On My Own’ and ‘Barcelona’, two great examples of his solo work. Although I say
three solo albums, one is a solo, one is with Monserrat Caballe, and the third is a ‘best of’ album - Otherwise known in the UK as "The Freddie Mercury Album", so there’s not
a lot; The Freddie Mercury / Best Of album has some tracks that aren’t on the other albums, and some of his songs also turned up on a Queen album, reworked, which together
utilised the last work that Queen were working on.²

The Singles Collections are nice too. They mostly consist of Extended, Single and
Re-mix versions of his singles, as well as none album B-sides, the nicest part is the
fact that his first single from 1973 is included; ‘I Can Hear Music’ by Larry Lurex.

The Rarities are probably the best part of the collection, much like the Beatles
anthologies and such that come out now, these three CD’s contain a lot of tracks that
you can only get in this package, including early takes, demos, re-mixes, alternative
versions, tracks that never made it, music that he did with other people, and one of the
best pieces, is a live performance of when he was in a
band called Ibex , singing ‘Rain’ by The Beatles. So there is plenty of stuff that you will want to listen to, to see how the songs developed, hear the early demos and to hear
never before heard of songs- the songs that were never finished or released.

The Instrumentals are mostly instrumental versions from the Barcelona album,
although there are a couple of instrumentals of other songs.

The Interviews with David Wigg stretch from 1979 to 1987. Not great in
themselves, but still.

The DVD’s

The Untold Story is a documentary which has been shown on TV, but this version is
almost twice as long and its very informative. It tells of Freddie’s life from his early
years in Zanzibar, to his later years in England, one thing is that it almost completely
leaves out any aspects of his days with Queen³, but if I wanted to know about Queen, I’d watch a Queen
documentary. This is, however, very interesting and told me things I never knew. Also
on this DVD, is the Freddie Mercury Photographic Exhibition, which is viewable on a computer with a DVD drive.

The Book

Having this Collection is great, it's attractive and its a really nice thing to own. This is exceptional, it's been put together
very lovingly and is really worth the price, unlike some quickly thrown together sets.

Quibbles?, well having the CD’s and DVD’s in the book and not having a case for
themselves, meaning to listen to them you have to get them out of the book first and
have to look in the book for the track listing as well, is a little troublesome, though jewel cases are available to buy separately I'm sure, and you can easily print out the tracklisting and stick it in the back
Also, the
fact that I have two of the albums anyway.................... but really, I love it.

Being a Queen completist, I’m now a Freddie Mercury completist, too, because this seems
to have all his solo work. My adivce is, if you're a Queen Fan, you’ve got to
get this, it's fantastic.