A new remixed and restored edition of Queen’s landmark 1973 debut album is here.
To achieve the new release, Queen’s Roger Taylor and Brian May collaborated with Justin Shirley-Smith, Joshua J Macrae and Kris Fredriksson to achieve a new mix that reflects what they’ve always wanted a debut to sound like. Across 63 tracks and 43 new mixes, the 6 CD LP presents the original album in its intended running order alongside rare live demos, unheard recordings, and intimate in-the-studio audio captured during the recording process in London.
“This is not just a remaster,” Brian May shares in the CD sleeve inserts, “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. 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.”
He continues: “The result is Queen as it would have sounded with today’s knowledge and technology – a first. Queen I is the debut album we always dreamed of bringing to you.”
Recorded mostly at Trident Studios, Queen captured Freddie Mercury, May and Taylor as a fresh unit just three years after they played their first gig in 1970. Queen was recorded mostly overnight at the London studio, with drummer Roger Taylor recalling: “We’d arrive at three in the morning and then go on, for all the hours that we could grab.”
In addition a new mix and master, Queen I’s revamped tracklist reinstates “Mad The Swine” as the fourth song on the album. It was originally removed amid a dispute between Queen and a producer.