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One of the best things I had done this Christmas season was to make my Amazon Wishlist.  What a success this holiday was, present-wise.  I got everything I had wanted this year.  All these years, you would figure to get the Queen fan, something along the lines of a new deluxe hardcover about the band.  Well, this year, I did get this as a present, and more.  I would like to recommend all receivers of gifts to make their wants known by a fine website like Amazon.com or something along those lines.  Each time I opened a present, Score!



the book

I have a lot of Queen books, dozens in fact.  This one by Phil Sutcliffe, a musical journalist from Sounds magazine, Q Magazine, and more gives us the biggest and most deluxe book ever on the greatest band in the universe, Queen.  This baby weighs almost four pounds filled with pictures of the band, some very rare and unpublished, and Queen paraphernalia from over the years of all kinds.  Queen fans will get an unprecedented eyeful (outside of a Queen convention) of backstage passes, Queen concert posters, clothes, rare album covers from around the world, promotional album posters, concert stubs, clothes, comic books, magazine covers, personal notes, private photos and much much more.   

Visually, this is a Queen fans' dream come true.  Queen has finally gotten the same treatment as either KISS or The Beatles, two bands that up until now have been a more obvious choice for a book like this with all of the memorabilia available about them.  With the help of the Internet, author Phil Sutcliffe was available to amass many quality pictures of the vast Queen memorabilia available.  He gives credit to such places as QueenMuseum.com, Queenconcerts.com, and a couple of others.   The pages are quality thick paper, made to last a long time on your bookshelf, and also for many future references. 


the story of Queen, errors and all

Author Phil Sutcliffe chronicles the history of the band from the first album (1973) all the way to the release of the release of Cosmos Rocks (2008) from Queen + Paul Rodgers.  He does a fairly good job of telling the long story of Queen, yet with a preconceived bias of what he believes to be the best and worst of the band.  In other words, we don't really get all the facts when it comes to the albums themselves, but a review from someone who doesn't seem to have that much knowledge of the music itself.  He seems to pull his opinions from different sources, and once in a while he'll get it right.  Other times, when it is obviously his own idea - you can tell that this guy doesn't really have any passion for the band, but only for the quick buck he makes from people like me who will buy the book. 

He references Queen's seventh album Jazz as one of their greatest achievements ever that is after panning their sixth release News of the World when he obligingly compares the album to the Sex Pistols, where the latter wins.  The author gets simple things wrong- like the number of songs that News of the World actually has (it's 11, although he says 10).  And when he dares to go deeper he tells the reader that All Dead, All Dead is a song about lead singer Freddie Mercury's dead cat, when in reality it's a song about guitarist Brian May's childhood pet cat.  Now when he gets to the Jazz album, he goes on and on about how it's the greatest album they made because this is the album that had the nude poster in it when originally released.  So, not because of the amazing tracks found on the record, but "Jazz rocks, plain and simple...it was all about the poster."  A fourteen year old high school freshman version of Phil Sutcliffe got to see fifty pairs of naked breasts in all their glory, and for this - Queen Jazz rocks! 

I was wondering why there were about a dozen concert photos misrepresented as from the Jazz tour, when they were obviously from different eras in Queen's history.  It's because Phil Sutcliffe cannot get those one hundred boobies off of his mind still.  I remember I read once in a Circus magazine from 1977, an interview with Freddie Mercury.    He said, "I'm the first to accept fair criticism. But the dishonest reviews-where people haven't done their homework - I just tear them up. I do get annoyed when up-and-coming journalists put themselves above the artist."  He couldn't have gotten it more right when it comes to this "author".  You know Phil, you can still be lazy and not do your homework, but why don't you get a fact checker like me when it comes to your Queen books.  At least you'd get most of it right.

Now I don't want to bash Sutcliffe too much, I mean after all he did bring into fruition this beautiful book of Queen into existence.  The only problem is that the people who are going to be reading this are people like me, Queen fanatics who will notice every error, each and every opinion made from a know-nothing-know-it-all who hasn't done their homework.  Should Queen fans buy this?  I would say heck yes, just don't take too much stock in either Sutcliffe's facts or mal-knowledged opinions. 


Title:  Queen: The Ultimate Illustrated History of the Crown Kings of Rock
Author: Phil Sutcliffe
Hardcover
288 Pages
ISBN: 978-0-7603-3719-6
Released:  10/22/2009
Rating:  3 stars


For more Queen books reviewed by me:
Classic Queen - by Mick Rock
Freddie & Me - by Mike Dawson
Queen: Rex Collections - by Ray Tedman
Queen: Complete Works - by Georg Purvis

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Recommended: Yes