I have always listened to Queen exclusively in the form of the “Greatest Hits” and “Greatest Hits II” collections, which were reissued on SACD.
In terms of the content of these collections, in principle, I was more or less satisfied with everything. But in terms of sound quality, not everyone likes it, because the older songs were clearly inferior in this sense to the later ones. But there’s nothing that can be done about it, to be honest – it is what it is…
I listened to the collections only because, as in the case of Radiohead, I didn’t listen to Queen’s albums. This is not really my music. As a rule, I like two or three songs from albums. It is for people like me that God came up with singles and compilations.
But again, as in the case of Radiohead, I decided to listen more carefully to Queen’s music. Perhaps you will like it thoroughly, because the group is called great for a reason… Moreover, all of their studio releases were released on SACD. But, of course, I didn’t forget about regular CDs either, there were a lot of them and in different versions.
Ok, then let’s discuss Queen’s records. I won’t talk about the group itself, I think everyone knows everything without me. From myself I can only say one thing, and I will repeat it again, Queen is a great team that created great music, and the fact that I do not fully perceive their work speaks only of my certain inferiority and nothing more.
Of course, everything was listened to not in a day or a week, the process was lengthy…
I immediately started listening to the SACD editions. Further there were numerous releases on CD. To be honest, I didn’t notice any particular superiority between the first and second ones, except for the different mastering. While still listening to the “The Greatest Hits” collections, it became clear to me that Queen sounded so-so in some places, I mean precisely the quality of the recording.
Listening to the numbered albums, my opinion only became stronger – the sound is clearly not top-notch. Releases from the 70s of the last century sound rather weak. Compare them, for example, with Dire Straits or Pink Floyd albums of the same years – the difference is noticeable. Why this is so, I don’t know. But the most unpleasant thing is that in the same album the quality of the recording varies – one song can sound at a good level, while another cannot. It feels like everything was recorded in different studios. Sometimes it even seems that the songs were recorded at different volume levels. To be honest, I somehow don’t understand this…