Freddie Mercury singing “Keep Yourself Alive” during a Queen live studio performance
Queen’s self-titled groundbreaking 1973 debut album, Queen (now retitled Queen I), has been remixed, remastered and expanded in a 6-CD + 1-LP boxed set titled Queen I Collector’s Edition. The collection, released on October 25, 2024, via Hollywood Records, is available in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here. Watch and listen to several live and studio performances below. “Queen I is the debut album we always dreamed of bringing to you.” – Brian May and Roger Taylor.
According to the set’s September announcement: “Over half a century since its release and a vital chapter in the band’s story, Queen’s self-titled 1973 debut album has been remixed and restored by Justin Shirley-Smith, Joshua J Macrae and Kris Fredriksson to sound the way the band always wanted it to. A new track listing, alternative takes, demos and live tracks have now been added to create the most complete version of this pivotal work. This is the very first time that a Queen album has ever received a new stereo mix.”
The 6-CD + 1-LP Queen I box set contains 63 tracks with 43 brand new mixes, comprising the original album with its intended running order restored, intimate fly-on-the-wall audio of Queen in the studio, demos, rare live tracks and previously unheard recordings from Queen’s first-ever live performance in London, August 1970. A 108-page book containing handwritten lyrics and memorabilia accompanies the release.
The original Queen debut LP
“This is not just a remaster,” writes May in the CD sleeve insert notes, “this is a brand new 2024 rebuild of the entire Queen debut album, which, with the benefit of hindsight, we have re-titled Queen I.”
May continues, “All the performances are exactly as they originally appeared in 1973, but every instrument has been revisited to produce the ‘live’ ambient sounds we would have liked to use originally. The result is Queen as it would have sounded with today’s knowledge and technology—a first.”
The new 2024 mix of Queen I now includes “Mad the Swine,” a song absent from the original LP after a difference of opinion between the band and one of its producers. It is now reinstated to its rightful place as the album’s fourth song, in between “Great King Rat” and “My Fairy King,” just as Queen wanted it to be in 1972.
CD2: “De Lane Lea Demos—2024 Mix” explores Queen I’s pre-history, with brand new 2024 mixes of the demos the band recorded preceding their album.
“The demos we made at De Lane Lea Studios were closer to what we dreamed of,” explains May. “Nice open drum sounds and ambience on the guitar. That was much more the way we wanted it to go.”
CD3: “Queen I Sessions,” and CD4: “Queen I Backing Tracks,” take the listener behind the scenes at both Trident and De Lane Lea studios.
CD5: “Queen I at the BBC,” begins with “My Fairy King,” in a slightly different version recorded for DJ and early Queen champion John Peel’s BBC Radio 1 show Sounds of the Seventies in February 1973, five months before the LP’s release. As no one had heard their album yet, the band took in backing tracks and added new vocals and other overdubs for this first session. This was the first time Queen’s music had been broadcast anywhere in the world. Three further BBC sessions are preserved here, with new versions of all of Queen I’s songs broadcast by the BBC between February 1973 and April 1974.
CD6: “Queen I Live” distills the best performances of the first album’s songs from Queen’s triumphant March 1974 headline date at London’s Rainbow Theatre, plus several previously unreleased tracks added. These include the first official release of “Hangman,” a Free-inspired Mercury/May/Taylor/Deacon composition that was a mainstay of Queen’s early live shows, but was never recorded in the studio. This performance of “Hangman” comes from a show at the San Diego Sports Arena on the last night of the band’s U.S. tour in March 1976.
The final songs on ‘Queen I Live’ revisit the historic moment Queen became Queen. Among the 108-page enclosed book’s many never-before-seen artifacts is Roger Taylor’s handwritten invitation to Queen’s first ever performance in London: “A private showing on Sunday August 23 [1970] at 7:30pm at Imperial College… lecture theatre A, level 5,” he writes.
Two songs from this historic show, “Jesus” and a cover of the Spencer Davis Group’s 1967 hit “I’m a Man,” have been retrieved from cassettes in the archive, and are the earliest Queen recordings in existence, even pre-dating John Deacon’s arrival in the band.
The final track on the original Queen album is the urgent-sounding one and a quarter-minute instrumental snippet of “Seven Seas Of Rhye.” The finished song wouldn’t appear until Queen II, and became a U.K. Top 10 hit. In a sense though, this abbreviated version’s frantic rhythms, hammering piano and orchestral-sounding guitar captures the spirit of Queen’s debut: it’s the sound of a restless, determined young band eager to take the next step.
Queen I Collector’s Edition (6-CD+LP)
CD1: Queen I – 2024 Mix
1 Keep Yourself Alive
2 Doing All Right
3 Great King Rat
4 Mad The Swine
5 My Fairy King
6 Liar
7 The Night Comes Down
8 Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll
9 Son And Daughter
10 Jesus
11 Seven Seas Of Rhye…
CD2: De Lane Lea Demos – 2024 Mix
1 Keep Yourself Alive
2 The Night Comes Down
3 Great King Rat
4 Jesus
5 Liar
CD3: Queen I Sessions
1 Keep Yourself Alive (Trident Take 13 – Unused Master)
2 Doing All Right (Trident Take 1 – with Guide Vocal)
3 Great King Rat (De Lane Lea Take 1 – with Guide Vocal)
4 Mad The Swine (Trident Take 3 – with Guide Vocal)
5 My Fairy King (Trident Backing Track In Development)
6 Liar (Trident Take 1 – Unused Master)
7 The Night Comes Down (De Lane Lea Takes 1 & 2 – with Guide Vocal)
8 Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll (Trident Takes 8 & 9)
9 Son And Daughter (Trident Takes 1 & 2 – with Guide Vocal)
10 Jesus (De Lane Lea Take 2 – with Guide Vocal)
11 Seven Seas Of Rhye… (Trident Take 3)
12 See What A Fool I’ve Been (De Lane Lea Test Session)
CD4: Queen I Backing Tracks
1 Keep Yourself Alive
2 Doing All Right
3 Great King Rat
4 Mad The Swine
5 My Fairy King
6 Liar
7 The Night Comes Down
8 Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll
9 Son And Daughter
10 Jesus
11 Seven Seas Of Rhye…
CD5: Queen I At The BBC
1 My Fairy King (BBC Session 1, February 1973)
2 Keep Yourself Alive (BBC Session 1, February 1973)
3 Doing All Right (BBC Session 1, February 1973)
4 Liar (BBC Session 1, February 1973)
5 Keep Yourself Alive (BBC Session 2, July 1973)
6 Liar (BBC Session 2, July 1973)
7 Son And Daughter (BBC Session 2, July 1973)
8 Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll (BBC Session 3, December 1973)
9 Great King Rat (BBC Session 3, December 1973
10 Son And Daughter (BBC Session 3, December 1973
11 Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll (BBC Session 4, April 1974)
CD6: Queen I Live
1 Son And Daughter (Live at the Rainbow – March 1974)
2 Guitar Solo (Live at the Rainbow – March 1974)
3 Son And Daughter (Reprise) (Live at the Rainbow – March 1974)
4 Great King Rat (Live at the Rainbow – March 1974)
5 Keep Yourself Alive (Live at the Rainbow – March 1974)
6 Drum Solo (Live at the Rainbow – March 1974)
7 Keep Yourself Alive (Reprise) (Live at the Rainbow – March 1974)
8 Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll (Live at the Rainbow – March 1974)
9 Liar (Live at the Rainbow – March 1974)
10 Hangman (Live in San Diego – March 1976)
11 Doing All Right (Live in San Diego – March 1976)
12 Jesus (Live at Imperial College – August 1970)
13 I’m A Man (Live at Imperial College – August 1970)
Watch Queen perform “Son and Daughter” at the Rainbow in 1974
Related: Our Album Rewind of Queen’s Sheer Heart Attack
1 Comment so far
Jump into a conversationI discovered this album in a used record store/head shop in 1974 when I was all of 15 years old, before anyone knew who Queen was, and it’s still my favorite Queen album. And to my surprise, a bit less than a year later, I’m hearing “Killer Queen” all over the airwaves, and going, “Hey, I know that band!”