Queen expanding debut album into deluxe box set

Queen’s groundbreaking 1973 debut album remixed, remastered & expanded into 6 CD/1 LP box set

Over half a century since its release and a vital chapter in the band’s story, Queen’s self-titled 1973 debut album has been remixed and restored by Justin Shirley-Smith, Joshua J Macrae and Kris Fredriksson to sound the way the band always wanted it to. A new tracklisting, alternative takes, demos and live tracks have been added to create the most complete version of this pivotal work. This is the first time a Queen album has received a new stereo mix.

The 6 CD + 1 LP Queen I box set contains 63 tracks with 43 new mixes, comprising the original album with its intended running order restored, intimate fly-on-the-wall audio of Queen in the studio, demos, rare live tracks, and previously unheard recordings from Queen’s first-ever live performance in London, August 1970. Absent from the 1973 release, the song “Mad the Swine” has been reinstated to its original place in the running order. A 108-page book containing handwritten lyrics and memorabilia accompanies the release. It’s set for release on October 25th via UMG.

“This is not just a remaster,” writes Brian May in the CD sleeve insert notes, “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.”

May continues, “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. 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.”

Queen began life in the early summer of 1970, but took their first steps in the studio after vocalist Freddie Mercury, guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor recruited bass guitarist, John Deacon, in July 1971.

“The first three years were really faith and fumes,” says Roger Taylor. “We were penniless but we had a lot of belief in ourselves and a lot of energy.”

While Queen struggled for recognition, their music and stage act were developing. If their previous band Smile were a band for the late 1960s, then Queen’s sound and image were about the here, now, and tomorrow. Their songs were filled with huge riffs, choral harmonies and classical flourishes.

After John Deacon’s arrival, Queen secured a production, song publishing and management deal with Trident Audio Productions. Having heard the band’s demos, the company’s owners, brothers Norman and Barry Sheffield, agreed to fund the recording of Queen’s first album, which they would then shop to potential record companies.

The Sheffields also owned Trident Studios, a state-of-the-art facility in London’s Soho, which had been used by Elton John and The Beatles and was rarely available to young, unsigned bands. Trident’s popularity was such that the studio was usually fully booked during the day, meaning Queen could only record during what was known as ‘downtime’, those rare moments when the studio was empty, usually at night.

Queen began work on the album in May 1972 and spent the next four months living a fractured, nocturnal existence. Evenings would be spent waiting around Soho until the studio was ready. An exhausted Queen would emerge from Trident several hours later.

Queen recorded the album with Trident’s in-house co-producers, John Anthony and Roy Thomas Baker. Both were staunch advocates of Queen and had been instrumental in the band signing with Trident. However, the group quickly ran up against the studio’s rules and regulations.

While relatively inexperienced, Queen already had a clear musical vision. However, the huge guitar and drum sounds they heard in their heads proved difficult to recreate at two o’clock in the morning and on the studio’s in-house perspex drum kit rather than their own.

Queen’s frustration was compounded by the fact that the songs themselves already displayed the breadth of Queen’s ideas and vaulting ambition. “Keep Yourself Alive,” was like a rallying cry, cueing up the likes of “Doing All Right,” “Great King Rat,” “Liar,” “Modern Times Rock’n’Roll,” and “Son And Daughter.”

Meanwhile, Freddie’s imagination had free rein on the biblically-inspired “Jesus” and on “My Fairy King,” where the singer (who was soon to assume the stage name ‘Freddie Mercury’) sang about “horses born with eagles’ wings” and implored “Mother Mercury, look what they’ve done to me.”

Crucially, this new 2024 Mix version of Queen I now includes “Mad The Swine,” a song absent from the original LP after a difference of opinion between the band and one of its producers. It is now reinstated to its rightful place as the album’s fourth song, in between “Great King Rat” and “My Fairy King,” just as Queen wanted it to be in 1972.

Despite the restrictions imposed upon them at Trident, the band still managed to break the rules. Brian’s composition (and the box set’s first single), “The Night Comes Down,” blueprinted that layered acoustic and electric guitar sound that was soon to become part of Queen’s signature. But the band insisted on using a recording from De Lane Lea Studios rather than attempting a new version at Trident. They smuggled in their demo multi-track tape in a newly labeled “Trident” box to mix the song for the album.

The second CD, De Lane Lea Demos – 2024 Mix, explores Queen I’s fascinating pre-history, with new 2024 mixes of the demos the band recorded preceding their album. In the summer of 1969, Brian and Roger’s pre-Queen group, Smile, had recorded at De Lane Lea Studios in London’s Kingsway. Two years later, the company opened a new complex in Wembley and needed a band to help them test the mixing desks and the sound quality of the different rooms.

Brian and Roger volunteered Queen, and the band spent time at the studio between November 1971 and January 1972 – “a massive thrill,” Brian recalls. They were repaid with a five-song demo, overseen by De Lane Lea’s chief engineer Louie Austin, and containing “Keep Yourself Alive,” “The Night Comes Down,” “Jesus,” “Liar,” and “Great King Rat.”

Although these demos were intended to be hawked around to procure a recording contract, the band says Brian, always felt the performances had more spontaneity and sparkle, as well as the benefit of more natural sounds compared with the final album versions. As, the only surviving copies of the mixes of the demos are on scratched acetates, here for the first time, these self-produced recordings have been restored and remixed from the original multi-tracks.

CD three, Queen I Sessions, and CD four, Queen I Backing Tracks, take the listener behind the scenes at both Trident and De Lane Lea studios.

Sessions collate completely different and 100% previously unreleased versions of the songs on the album. Newly created using out-takes from De Lane Lea and Trident. They feature some false starts, guide vocals, backing tracks and alternative takes, including spoken-word segments in which the members of Queen can be heard chatting and joking (“It was you Bulsara!”) and occasionally expressing their frustration. Many of the takes are built around acoustic guitar, the electric would have been added later, which gives a different feel to these versions.

Queen I Backing Tracks offers mixes of the songs from the original Queen album without lead vocals.

Queen pitched the De Lane Lea demos to several record companies but didn’t sign with any, hence their deal with Trident. The album was pretty much completed in 1972. But Queen and their producers were still arguing about the mix right up until the last day, so much so that the band chose a mix of “Keep Yourself Alive”, created with Trident’s assistant engineer Mike Stone, rather than one of the earlier versions. Mike would go on to engineer the next five Queen albums.

CD five, Queen I At The BBC, begins with “My Fairy King,” in a slightly different version recorded for DJ and early Queen champion John Peel’s BBC Radio 1 show Sounds Of The Seventies in February 1973, five months before the LP’s release. As no one had heard their album yet, the band took in backing tracks and added new vocals and other overdubs for this first session. This was the first time Queen’s music had been broadcast anywhere in the world. Three further BBC sessions are preserved here, with new versions of all of Queen I’s songs broadcast by the BBC between February 1973 and April 1974.

CD six, Queen I Live, distills the best performances of the first album’s songs from Queen’s triumphant March 1974 headline date at London’s Rainbow Theatre, plus several previously unreleased tracks added. These include the first official release of “Hangman”, a Free-inspired Mercury/May/Taylor/Deacon composition that was a mainstay of Queen’s early live shows, but was never recorded in the studio. This performance of “Hangman” comes from a show at the San Diego Sports Arena on the last night of the band’s US tour in March 1976.

The final songs on Queen I Live revisit the historic moment Queen became Queen. Among the 108-page enclosed book’s many never-before-seen artifacts is Roger’s handwritten invitation to Queen’s first-ever performance in London.

Two songs from this historic show, “Jesus” and a cover of the Spencer Davis Group’s 1967 hit “I’m A Man,” have been retrieved from cassettes in the archive, and are the earliest Queen recordings in existence, even pre-dating John Deacon’s arrival in the band.

The final track on the original Queen album is the urgent-sounding one-and-a-quarter-minute instrumental snippet of “Seven Seas Of Rhye.” The finished song wouldn’t appear until Queen II, and became a UK Top 10 hit. In a sense though, this abbreviated version’s frantic rhythms, hammering piano and orchestral-sounding guitar capture the spirit of Queen’s debut: it’s the sound of a restless, determined young band eager to take the next step.

Queen I will also be available as a single CD, 2 CD deluxe edition with Sessions, LP and cassette. A picture disc will also be available exclusive to Queen’s online store.

A physical seven-inch single for release on October 4th featuring “The Night Comes Down (2024 Mix – Single Version)” as the A-side and “The Night Comes Down (Backing Track)” as the B-side.

CD 1: Queen I – 2024 Mix

  1. Keep Yourself Alive
  2. Doing All Right
  3. Great King Rat
  4. Mad The Swine
  5. My Fairy King
  6. Liar
  7. The Night Comes Down
  8. Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll
  9. Son And Daughter
  10. Jesus
  11. Seven Seas Of Rhye…

CD 2: De Lane Lea Demos – 2024 Mix

  1. Keep Yourself Alive
  2. The Night Comes Down
  3. Great King Rat
  4. Jesus
  5. Liar

CD 3: Queen I Sessions

  1. Keep Yourself Alive (Trident Take 13 – Unused Master)
  2. Doing All Right (Trident Take 1 – with Guide Vocal)
  3. Great King Rat (De Lane Lea Take 1 – with Guide Vocal)
  4. Mad The Swine (Trident Take 3 – with Guide Vocal)
  5. My Fairy King (Trident Backing Track In Development)
  6. Liar (Trident Take 1 – Unused Master)
  7. The Night Comes Down (De Lane Lea Takes 1 & 2 – with Guide Vocal)
  8. Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll (Trident Takes 8 & 9)
  9. Son And Daughter (Trident Takes 1 & 2 – with Guide Vocal)
  10. Jesus (De Lane Lea Take 2 – with Guide Vocal)
  11. Seven Seas Of Rhye… (Trident Take 3)
  12. See What A Fool I’ve Been (De Lane Lea Test Session)

CD 4: Queen I Backing Tracks

  1. Keep Yourself Alive
  2. Doing All Right
  3. Great King Rat
  4. Mad The Swine
  5. My Fairy King
  6. Liar
  7. The Night Comes Down
  8. Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll
  9. Son And Daughter
  10. Jesus
  11. Seven Seas Of Rhye…

CD 5: Queen I At The BBC

  1. My Fairy King (BBC Session 1, February 1973)
  2. Keep Yourself Alive (BBC Session 1, February 1973)
  3. Doing All Right (BBC Session 1, February 1973)
  4. Liar (BBC Session 1, February 1973)
  5. Keep Yourself Alive (BBC Session 2, July 1973)
  6. Liar (BBC Session 2, July 1973)
  7. Son And Daughter (BBC Session 2, July 1973)
  8. Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll (BBC Session 3, December 1973)
  9. Great King Rat (BBC Session 3, December 1973
  10. Son And Daughter (BBC Session 3, December 1973
  11. Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll (BBC Session 4, April 1974)

CD 6: Queen I Live

  1. Son And Daughter (Live at the Rainbow – March 1974)
  2. Guitar Solo (Live at the Rainbow – March 1974)
  3. Son And Daughter (Reprise) (Live at the Rainbow – March 1974)
  4. Great King Rat (Live at the Rainbow – March 1974)
  5. Keep Yourself Alive (Live at the Rainbow – March 1974)
  6. Drum Solo (Live at the Rainbow – March 1974)
  7. Keep Yourself Alive (Reprise) (Live at the Rainbow – March 1974)
  8. Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll (Live at the Rainbow – March 1974)
  9. Liar (Live at the Rainbow – March 1974)
  10. Hangman (Live in San Diego – March 1976)
  11. Doing All Right (Live in San Diego – March 1976)
  12. Jesus (Live at Imperial College – August 1970)
  13. I’m A Man (Live at Imperial College – August 1970)

Buddy Iahn
Buddy Iahn