scapp70's Full Review: Queen - Greatest Video Hits 1
Queen's Greatest Video Hits was big news for Queen Fans. When the video collection was first released in 1981, the VHS and Beta tapes were highly priced to own as all videos were at the time. I remember the Queen videotape went for about $99. Then thankfully Hollywood Records released the collection of videos also on VHS in 1992 and Queen Fans had something nice visually to own at a very decent price. When Hollywood Records announced that they would release a new double disc DVD set of Queen's videos from the early days some ten years later, fans were very excited to own the early promos. I knew I was excited, especially to hear them in DTS surround.
What most Queen Fans and I admitted immediately, they hated the video transfer of these videos. This DVD did not look much better than the old VHS tapes, and sometimes it looked much worse. What slightly compensated for the awful video was the amazing DTS sound, and the somewhat dull commentary that accompanies every video on the first disc.
Bohemian Rhapsody is often hailed as the first concept video ever made. "Concept", I guess meaning where the artist is not performing with their instruments I suppose since there is no story here. As much as I would like to see Queen get credit for having pioneered the music promotional video, I really must give credit where credit is due. For instance, The Beatles have had promotional videos since the mid 60s with such songs as Paperback Writer and Rain. Yet the way Queen had used their new video for Bohemian Rhapsody more closely resembles the way this promotional tool is used. I remember first seeing this video when I was only five years old on such shows as Don Kirschner's Rock Concert and especially The Midnight Special. That's right, I watched the shows, my mom would wake me up around 12:30am Friday and Saturday nights, or whatever time the video came on and I would watch them and go back to sleep.
Anyway, after this video was made, Queen utilized the promotional video for every single that followed.
This video, is probably also hailed as the first promotional video, because that is exactly what it did. I love the song Bohemian Rhapsody, but I have my reservations as to whether the chart success would have resembled what it was, I mean nine straight weeks at number one in the UK, that is some feat. I think that I am right in saying that the success of the single was due in part of this attractive promo video. Most of the video is the reenacting (or the reposing rather), of the artistic beauty of the Queen II album, which came out a year and a half earlier. This is what we Queen Fans refer to the head and shoulders pose. The inclusion of a black background, and the partly hidden faces due to shadows is a little reminiscent of the Beatles first American release Meet The Beatles, but the Queen looks so much more superior and definitely more glam as Freddie strikes the Greta Garb pose.
Another One Bites the Dust is a video that shows the band "live". I remember when this video came out, I was in fifth grade and it must have been premiered on Solid Gold or something because all the kids in my class came in to school the next day and told me Freddie was gay. I had no idea, I watched the same video and I didn't detect any gayness that the average 10 year old would have. But they assured me and what gave it away was the old limp wrist that Freddie sported in the video. Well, it's twenty-five years later and I still don't see that limp wrist in this video, my sneaky suspicion is that the parents that may have watched the video with the kids, informed their children that Freddie was gay. That's dopey parenting for ya! Well, it didn't matter to me back then when I was 10, and it still doesn't matter, except that he's dead. This is not one of my favorite Queen songs, and the video is even more boring.
On the other hand, why didn't my classmates inform me of Freddie's gayness when they viewed the Crazy Little Thing Called Love video. I like this song and I like the video. The year is 1980, and Queen sport a new 'cool' 50s greaser look. They didn't pull it off; their cool was still 'Queen cool' which meant uncool. Director Dennis DeVallance even shows Freddie's motorbike as a prop that Freddie looks very uncomfortable on. Their camp shines through any masculine disguise they put on. The Village People seem manlier.
The video for Killer Queen is taken from a miming performance from the British show Top of the Pops. I think it's great. The band looks great, this is the way I like to see them anyway, with the long hair and painted fingernails. This classic look is part of what sold Queen to the public back in the 70s; I know I was hooked from way back when I was five years old. This is one of the videos, by the way, where the video is up to snuff.
Having said that, one of the worst looking videos is for John Deacon's You're My Best Friend. Queen are in the studio performing in a dark candlelight setting. The video distortion is just an utter mess. Luckily, as I've said before, the audio is great. The song sports a very commercial classic rock sound with John Deacon sitting at the electric piano, and also playing a very busy bass.
I had no idea that there was a real video made for Bicycle Race until the release of this DVD set. The usual video we're used to is a compilation of past videos, and a puppet Freddie (a la South Park style) singing the words. So here, not only is this old promo video uncovered but so are all of the ladies in the bicycle race. Yes, we have boobies here folks. Queen, for some reason always have boobies in their videos, The Magic Years, Champions Of the World and now Queen's Greatest Video Hits. If my wife is home, I'll skip to the next video.
Fat Bottomed Girls seems a bit boring in comparison, but I still like it. Just Queen pretending to play in front of an audience. They showcase their enormous lighting rig that they use for the upcoming tour.
Play the Game is one of those Queen videos I'm not that fond of. The song is pretty good, it gives a nod to the style of Queen's previous release, Jazz. The video, released in 1980, is the first that showcases Mr. Mercury's new moustache. Many people didn't understand or welcome this new look of Freddie's and I was one of them. I had no idea about the gay connotations about his new look, all I knew was that Freddie did not look like a superstar to me anymore, and he just looked like some regular schmoe. The era of the regal Queen was officially over.
Spread Your Wings is a cool video if only because it's off from one of my favorite Queen albums, 1977's News Of The World. Again here, the video transfer looks very poor. The band is shown here performing the song in Roger Taylor's freezing garden. Freddie is shown wearing the gloves he borrowed from a grip on the set. They're ordinary work gloves, but Freddie still makes it look fabulous. Brian is here showing off his newly acquired 'duplicate' guitar made by John Birch. Sadly, the life of that guitar didn't last too long.
We Will Rock You was also filmed in Roger Taylor's garden that same day. The band emphasize to the viewer that the Stomp! Stomp! Clap! are really stomps and claps overdubbed millions of times as well as the voices in the chorus to make it sound like a stadium full of football fans.
When I was younger, I would always see the alternative video for We Are the Champions on The Midnight Special. They always aired the BBC version, which sort of looks the same, but it has different parts in it as well. So I was disappointed when this more official video was included, maybe they'll stick the other one on some future release.
Somebody to Love is one of Queen's greatest videos. The song is not one of my favorites, Freddie's attempt at gospel choir style, Bo Rhap part 2, yet the song shows Queen at their prime recording the song in the studio and also with snippets of video taken from their 1976 free concert in Hyde Park.
The Tie Your Mother Down video was recorded in the US on one of the band's free days during their 1977 tour. This is another great video, and the song is a great rocker as well from Brian May. The video shows the band miming the song on a stage with lots of fog and orange light.
Queen tried to convey to the video watcher of how the soundtrack for Flash Gordon was conceived. The video, Flash shows Queen in a sound stage studio watching the movie and attempting to accent the music to the film.
The Don't Stop Me Now video is pretty good. It, again, shows Queen on a stage pretending to perform for thousands. This video showcases their stage show that year from the Jazz tour from 1978.
The video for Save Me is a first for Queen. The song is a ballad, written by Brian and released in 1979 in single form, and then appearing again in 1980 on their long playing release The Game. The first is that Queen utilizes some artistic animation throughout the video. This video is the first by Queen to have some sort of storyboard concepts.
Disc 2
The highlight of Disc 2, or the whole of the two discs is the Inside the Rhapsody section. Within this section of the DVD, there are some song facts and pictures pertaining to the video. This section is divided into four sections.
Inside the Video
Roger & Brian recollect the making of the video in separate interviews. Roger gives away pretty much all of the video "secrets", as he attempts to cheapen the memory of it. Brian merely goes into the reasons why they decided to make a promotional video. Running time: 6 minutes.
The Greatest Song?
This section is pretty short, probably somewhere around three minutes. It records the brief British ceremony of when Bohemian Rhapsody was named greatest pop song of all time by the British Hit Singles organization. The ceremony was held in 2002, so it was very recent relative to this DVD's release. Brian & Roger accept an award, and in brief interviews, they are asked to reminisce about the creation of Bohemian Rhapsody. This is the shortest section of the four, it runs around three minutes.
Creating the Rhapsody
The interview with Brian May in the studio is the greatest. He plays the master transfer of Bohemian Rhapsody and goes through the song track by track, and instrument by instrument. I found this the most fascinating section of the entire content on both DVDs. This is the longest of this section, it runs about 27 minutes.
The Bohemian Rhapsody Story
Separate interviews with Brian, Roger and producer Roy Thomas Baker recollect about the creation of the historical song in this nine minute featurette.
Also there is audio commentary for each video. It is filled with mildly interesting chatter from Brian and Roger, and archival interviews from Freddie and John Deacon.
They also included some other videos that did not get any special DTS sound format treatment, but it's still cool that these five videos were included.
Keep Yourself Alive is from Queen's debut LP, Queen released in 1973. Queen are just shown on a soundstage miming to the song, looking very young and hungry for stardom. It looks like Freddie did not discover the eye makeup yet here, and he is wearing the infamous gauntlet that he showcased in almost every picture on the back of their first LP. This was their first single, written by Brian May, this rocker of a song was a flop probably part in due that the sound was new and different, and perhaps the DJs didn't know what to make of it.
Liar was also from their first LP, and it looks as though Queen are miming on that same soundstage as Keep Yourself Alive. Liar was written by Freddie, this song was sort of a leftover from one of Freddie's previous bands.
The Love Of My Life video is the same that was included on the original Queen’s Greatest Flix. It’s the live version taken from the Live Killers album. The video is too dark, as it was originally, but this is a great version of the song. The audience sings alone with Freddie with every word, and when Freddie pauses to let the audience take over, it shows one of the highlights that was the Queen show.
This Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy video is from a BBC performance. This is very special and unique because here is one of the few times Queen re-recorded the song for a television performance. I believe that it was sort of required that the bands performing on the BBC would re-record the backing track and perform live to their own backing track. I think The Beatles used to do that when they did those television shows. At the very least we have a really nice alternative version of one of Queen’s better songs, and at the most we have a great video as well.
They used to edit the We Will Rock You (Fast Version) video at the end of the one filmed in Roger’s garden found on the first disc when it would appear on Friday Night Videos or something of the like. It’s very cool to have the video unedited. This video looks stretched on my conventional CRT screen, I have to remember to play this on a 16:9 screen and see if it looks more natural. This video, I believe is taken from Queen Houston 1977 show. Let me know if I’m wrong, I just always assumed this.
Easter Egg
An alternative video for Bohemian Rhapsody can be found if you type in that you want to go to title 10 on your DVD remote. This video is later claimed by Brian (from the 30th anniversary release of A Night At The Opera) to be the actual official promotional video, not the one we have seen countless times.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Some More Amazing Scapp70 Queen-DVD related Epinions~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This DVD collects a selection of Queen's videos together as a companion piece to the best-selling "Greatest Hits" album. spread over two discs, classi...More at HotMovieSale.com
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