FRIENDS WILL BE FRIENDS / SEVEN SEAS OF RHYE

A more obvious choice for a single, 'Friends Will Be Friends' made its way to the UK chart in 1986. As a song, it's a decent pop tune, not the best on the 'A Kind Of Magic', but perhaps the most coherent. I was never too fond of it, I have to admit, although I am a QUEEN fan and I love the majority of their output, regardless of an era or a style. It contains band's trademark signatures - easily recognizable May's guitar solo, Freddie's excellent vocals performance, even a chord progressions and a change of pace within the song are instantly recognizable.

As for the B side, I don't have any complaints about the actual song per se- it's "Seven Seas Of Rhye" from their second album, but choice is a bit awkward. I'm sure they were trying to increase the sales of older albums, so this is logical as a financial move. As an artistic one...I'm afraid they were well aware of the fact that the current album contains a lot of weak material, so they were delving their own, artistically much superior musical history. Such a strategy will became a commonplace from that period onwards. Pity. Pity for more reasons.

One song from A KIND OF MAGIC paired with (for some unknown reason), with another from the distant past of Queen when they could be considered Progressive. "Friends WIll Be Friends" is pretty run-of -the -mill modern Queen with lyrics that are a bit sappy. Good choice for a single, though. "Seven Seas of Rhye" is from QUEEN II, which is my favorite Queen disc by far. It's inclusion with the modern song is lost on me however. Money? Nostalgia? Randomness? Dumb record executives? Whatever. I think it was actually on it's own record single long ago so this is just redundent. Overall, 2 stars. New single is fair. Old single is better gotten as part of a classic Queen album-QUEEN II. And that way you get "Ogre Battle"!

QUEEN has never been among my favourite bands, but whenever there's a concert by them on the TV, I usually enjoy watching it (partly for the nostalgia, because they were all over the place in my teen years). I think they are at their best on the stage. Their music is in itself full of pretentious grandiosity and muscle, very suitable for live presence, Freddie Mercury doing his over-the-top cocky gestures and Brian May as the ultimate guitar hero...

I remember the live album these tracks are taken from. It was full of high energy and the songs followed each other in breathtaking continuity. 'Friends Will Be Friends' (from A Kind of Magic) is a powerful, near-sentimental anthem celebrating friendship, and a guaranteed show highlight. Short and sharp 'Seven Seas of Rhye' represented the early and more progressive Queen material, and this live version is very fast especially on the piano riff. I don't remember in full all the contents of the live album, but these two tracks were among the strongest ones. Unlike a previous reviewer, I have no complaints about the way they turned into their oldies, quite the opposite, it's only positive.

But who ever needs singles from concerts?