The Freddie Mercury Album [Best of]

If you're a Queen fan and you'd like to sample some of Freddy's solo work, then this might be a good buy. But if you're a true Freddy fan, then you'll be appalled at how they butchered his compositions in the re-mixing room.

In a weak attempt to bridge the gap between Queen's heavy rock sound and Freddy's gay style (I say "gay" meaning "happy"), the mixing engineers have slaughtered these pieces. The original versions, as released in Freddy's "Mr. Bad Guy", were just fine the way they were. Sure, some sounded like they could be the background to the Richard Simmons Workout Challenge, but true Freddy fans like it that way. *I* like it that way. If I want to hear something heavy, I'll pop in "Night at the Opera". I don't need some presumptuous mixing engineer adding heavy reverb on the drums, stupid house-techno beats and distorted guitars.

The worst is the absolute murder of the song "Mr. Bad Guy", originally a fully orchestrated piece, now reduced to some stupid "star search" sounding tripe with a whiny guitar soloing overtop everything.

What's next? Will some video engineer edit out all of Freddy's flamboyant concert outfits and digitally superimpose a bunch of tattoos and body piercing?

C'mon Atlantic (or whatever label was responsible for this travesty), give us some credit. Give FREDDY some credit. He liked it the way it was, and WE liked it the way it was.

Now pardon me whilst I throw this rubbish in the can, put on my leotard and listen to "Mr. Bad Guy" the way the artist intended it. Heavy on the gay. Party on.

The title of my review explains what I think about that CD. Except of The Great Pretender and Barcelona there is no real good song on it. Since you can get SOLO including the original(how Mercury himself did it and not how an engineer remixed him) Mr Bad Guy and Barcelona albums for the same price than this, you shouldn't doubt. Here, one of the greatest vocalists ever was mixed to a drunken rocker, but in the songs he made besides Queen, he was as people imagine him: a good, but a bit crazy artist who wanted to show this in his songs. THE ALBUM is the product of his vocals and a lot of studio work after his death. Would he listen to it, he'd probably turn around in his grave. Get SOLO and you'll be fine.

This album, a compilation of remixed songs, mostly from 1985's MR. Bad Guy, is a good album, the problem lies in the fact that it is almost exactly the same in content as the domestically available "The Great Pretender" on Hollywood records, with the eception that the Hollywood release has a remixed version of the song "The Great Pretender" (whereas this CD has the original, and better version)and the US version doesn't include the song "Barcelona" (instead, the US version has a remixed version of "My Love is Dangerous"). So if you really need all the tracks on this album, I suggest you buy the domestically available "The Great Pretender" and Queen+ Greatest Hits III (Which has the original version of The Great Pretender and Barcelona), you'll have more product in hand and more money in your pockets.