THE COMPLETE WORKS

I guess I'll be the first to review this, although it seems almost pointless now, 21 years later. I say that mainly because this box was only released in limited quantities, and was never re-issued on CD. This release contains 14 remastered and repackaged records, starting with the band's debut, "Queen" in 1973 and going up to their latest release "The Works" in 1984.

This really is a beautiful box and contains, along with the records, a full color book with all album information, a map showing where the band had played live in concert, and another small book showing all of the band's touring equipment, lighting rig, etc. Most importantly, this comes with a final record that collects all of Queen's NON-ALBUM B-SIDES. These include "See What A Fool I've Been" (1974), "A Human Body" (1980), "Soul Brother" (1981), " I Go Crazy" (1983), and "Blurred Vision" which was at the time of release (1985) Queen's newest B-side. This is basically an instrumental mix of the new Queen single "One Vision" which also appears here a year before showing up on Queen's next studio album in 1986. Also included is Queen's ONLY non-album A-side "Thank God It's Christmas."

Die hards have to have this just because....casual fans may want to track it down on eBay, as you may find it cheap and it contains every Queen song released between 1973 and 1985. The copies that are really expensive are the first 500 which were signed by all four members of the band!!!!!!

Review Nº 652

"The Complete Works" is a very special compilation album of Queen that was released in 1985. The Box set contains, along with the records, a full colour book with all album's information, a map showing the locals where the band had played live in concerts and a small book that contains some information about the entire band's touring equipment.

This is a package that includes their first eleven studio albums "Queen" from 1973, "Queen II" and "Sheer Heart Attack" from 1974, "A Night At The Opera" from 1975, "A Day At The Races" from 1976, "News Of The World" from 1977, "Jazz" from 1978, "The Game" and "Flash Gordon" from 1980, "Hot Space" from 1982, "The Works" from 1984 and their debut live album "Live Killers" from 1979. Besides that, it also contains some non-albums' tracks, "See What A Fool I've Been", "A Human Body", "Soul Brother", "I Go Crazy", "Thank God It's Christmas", "One Vision" and "Blurred Vision".

As I've already reviewed all these albums previously on Progarchives, in a more extensive way, I'm not going to do it again. So, if you are interested to know, in more detail, what I wrote about them before, I invite you to read all those reviews. However, in here, I'm going to write something about them in a more short way. So, of course, I'm not going to analyze them track by track, as I made before, but I'm only going to make a global appreciation of all those albums.

"Queen", "Queen II", "Sheer Heart Attack", "A Night At The Opera", "A Day At The Races" and "Jazz" are the best studio albums made by Queen, only joining in the end by "Innuendo", their last great studio album. "Queen" is a great debut album with hard parts, heavy metal guitars, progressive musical changes, sublime vocal performances, fantastic chorus lines and a great musical orchestration. "Queen II" is an album with great variety of themes and the creativity displayed on it and the epic feel of "Queen II", has make of this Queen's album, one of the best and finest albums released by them. Probably, this is the darkest Queen's record and for sure the most progressive work made by them. "Sheer Heart Attack" is another great album where the music flows beautifully and the variety in styles is surprisingly good. It has fantastic melody moments and the band's members are at their best. "A Night At The Opera" is a huge landmark and a great influence in many rock genres, including the progressive rock, and became as one of the best and most creative and incredible albums ever made in the whole rock music, and not only in the progressive rock style. "A Day At The Races" is still a great album, apart from the musical material on the album can be considered progressive or not. There shouldn't be any doubts about the quality and beauty of the music on it. "News Of The World" is a bit an unbalanced album because it has some anthems, some good songs, but has some weak parts too. It hasn't practically anything of progressive rock on it, but it still is a good album. "Jazz" can be considered the last truly classic album by Queen and it can also be considered the last great album until the end of the 80's. However, it isn't a very well balanced album. It oscillates between great songs and weak songs. "The Game" is also a good album with three great songs, "Play The Game", "Sail Away Sweet Sister" and "Save Me", two good songs, "Another One Bites The Dust" and "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", but the other songs are too much vulgar and weak too. "Flash Gordon" is one of the weakest Queen's albums. It's a very strange album which has nothing to do with the usual Queen's music, with the exception of the opening track "Flash Theme". "Hot Space" is the worst album ever made by Queen. It has only three real good songs, "Life Is Real (Song For Lennon)", "Las Palabras De Amor" and especially "Under Pressure". The rest is really average or even bad. "The Works" is a good album with some great and beautiful musical moments. It's a very cohesive and balanced album with some great musical moments, especially "It's A Hard Life" and "Hammer To Fall" and only one weak song "Man On The Prowl". "Live Killers" is, in general, a good live album very cohesive and balanced. It has some heavy musical moments, some weak musical moments, but it has also some great live musical moments, indeed.

Conclusion: It's always very difficult, for me, to rate this kind of compilation albums, Box sets with complete original albums from a band. But, in this case, it's even more difficult because this is a package very unbalanced. All we know that the musical career of Queen was very irregular in terms of progressivity and music quality. On this compilation album we have six great albums "Queen", "Queen II", "Sheer Heart Attack", "A Night At The Opera", "A Day At The Races" and "Jazz", of which "Queen II" and "A Night At The Opera" are two masterpieces, three good albums "News Of The World", "The Game" and "The Works", but we have also two very weak albums "Flash Gordon" and especially "Hot Space", which is a bad album. So, despite its weak points and according that this compilation album has the five best Queen's studio albums, the first five albums from the band which are all really great, I decided to rate it with 4 stars.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)