The Crown Jewels

Queen - The Crown Jewels

The Crown Jewels
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CD Details

Artist: Queen
Edition: Music CD
Format: Box set, Limited Edition
CD Release Date: 1998-11-24
Music Label: Hollywood Records
Product features:
  • 1998 eight cd boxed set with lyrics booklet
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
  1. Keep Yourself Alive
  2. Doing All Right
  3. Great King Rat
  4. My Fairy King
  5. Liar
  6. The Night Comes Down
  7. Modern Times Rock N' Roll
  8. Son And Daughter
  9. Jesus
  10. Seven Seas Of Rhye...
Music CD 2
  1. Procession
  2. Father to Son
  3. White Queen (As it Began)
  4. Some Day One Way
  5. The Loser In The End
  6. Ogre Battle
  7. The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke
  8. Nevermore
  9. The March of the Black Queen
  10. Funny How Love Is
  11. Seven Seas of Rhye
Music CD 3
  1. Brighton Rock
  2. Killer Queen
  3. Tenement Funster
  4. Flick Of The Wrist
  5. Lily Of The Valley
  6. Now I'm Here
  7. In The Lap Of The Gods
  8. Stone Cold Crazy
  9. Dear Friends
  10. Misfire
  11. Bring Back That Leroy Brown
  12. She Makes Me (Stormtrooper In Stilettoes)
  13. In The Lap Of The Gods...Revisted
Music CD 4
  1. Death On Two Legs (Dedicated to...)
  2. Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon
  3. I'm In Love With My Car
  4. You're My Best Friend
  5. '39
  6. Sweet Lady
  7. Seaside Rendezvous
  8. The Prophet's Song
  9. Love Of My Life
  10. Good Company
  11. Bohemian Rhapsody
  12. God Save The Queen
Music CD 5
  1. Tie Your Mother Down
  2. You Take My Breath Away
  3. Long Away
  4. The Millionaire's Waltz
  5. You And I
  6. Somebody To Love
  7. White Man
  8. Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy
  9. Drowse
  10. Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)
Music CD 6
  1. We Will Rock You
  2. We Are The Champions
  3. Sheer Heart Attack
  4. All Dead, All Dead
  5. Spread Your Wings
  6. Fight From The Inside
  7. Get Down, Make Love
  8. Sleeping On The Sidewalk
  9. Who Needs You
  10. It's Late
  11. My Melancholy Blues
Music CD 7
  1. Mustapha
  2. Fat Bottomed Girls
  3. Jealousy
  4. Bicycle Race
  5. If You Can't Beat Them
  6. Let Me Entertain You
  7. Dead On Time
  8. In Only Seven Days
  9. Dreamers Ball
  10. Fun It
  11. Leaving Home Ain't Easy
  12. Don't Stop Me Now
  13. More Of That Jazz
Music CD 8
  1. Play The Game
  2. Dragon Attack
  3. Another One Bites The Dust
  4. Need Your Loving Tonight
  5. Crazy Little Thing Called Love
  6. Rock It (Prime Jive)
  7. Don't Try Suicide
  8. Sail Away Sweet Sister
  9. Coming Soon
  10. Save Me

Music reviews of The Crown Jewels

Music Review: Jewels need polish.
Rating: 4 Stars

This box set of Queen did the band a couple huge favors. First, each album is presented in its original running order minus Hollywood Records moronic "Bonus Tracks." While the set is made up of the Elektra years studio albums, the dissapointing and and very unclassic Hot Space is left out, ending the series at The Game. Jazz includes the infamous Naked Bicycle Race poster (in minature). Each CD is in a cardboard case with a non-abrasive slip sleeve, all stored in a felt-covered box. There's also a good book insert, with lyrics, plenty of pics and a history.

Starting with the Queen debut, which contains a few of the elements that would eventually define the band, but is very much a generic early 70's Prog-rock/metal album. The pomp and grandiosity that would become Queen hallmarks are largely absent, however Freddy Mercury's distinct voice and Brian May's original guitar tones are in evidence throughout. The key tracks are "Keep Yourself Alive" and "Liar." The band has not quite gelled and the Queen everyone knows and loves emerged in full on the second album.

The difference between "Queen" and Queen II is really nothing short of amazing. While the first album was a pretty auspicious debut from a nervy prog-rock band, the second album comes off as a band thoroughly settled into its own personality and letting every idea flow free. Queen split the original album into a white and black half, with the white half dealing with the regal issues ("Procession" "White Queen As It Began") and the black being the harder rocking ("Ogre Battle" "March of The Black Queen"). You also get a clearer picture of the band's blueprint for extravagance (the really heavy vocal arrangements) along with Brian May's unique guitar sound. In my opinion - was the Queen album that had the best song-flow overall.

Queen rushed into the studio after "Queen II" when it became clear that Brian May (who had fallen ill) would be unable to tour for a spell. His sickness was our game, as Sheer Heart Attack was the album that gave Queen their first major American success with "Killer Queen," a flawless slice of trashy glam that featured Freddie Mercury's soaring falsetto and Brian May's wild guitar tones. "Sheer Heart Attack" contained a few other eye openers, one of which was Roger Taylor's first great Queen song, "Tenement Funster." "Stone Cold Crazy" is one of Queen's hardest rockers, yet right near that is the ragtime take on "Bring Back Leroy Brown."

"Sheer Heart Attack" previewed the crazy diversity that Queen would perfect on their next album, A Night at the Opera. This is the album that essentially defined Queen to an American Audience via the operatic "Bohemian Rhapsody," "A Night At The Opera" mixed all the grand elements of Queen's first three albums into one pastiche of glory. Each band member contributed songs and Roy Thomas Baker perfected his kitchen sink approach to production. From the simple Sci-Fi Ballad "39" to the Prog-rock excess of "The Prophet Song" to the snappy rock of "Death on Two Legs," "A Night At The Opera" had it all.There are stories that the vocals for "Bohemian Rhapsody" consisted of over 1,000 overdubbed Mercurys, Taylors and Mays to get it perfect, and yet the show-hall sounds of "Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon" couldn't be goofier. It was almost as if the band was trying to show up prog bands like Yes, only to squeak a rubber-duck in their faces at the coda.

It was once reported that the late, great Freddie Mercury wanted A Day At The Races and "A Night at the Opera" to have been a double album. It's too bad that they weren't, because leaving "Races" to follow the first five star classic Queen album makes it seem like a lesser vehicle. From the reverse color scheme to copping a Marx Brothers movie title, "A Day at The Races" came off sounding like a desperate attempt to copy the mad success of "Opera," selling "Races" short. While there was no stunner ala "Bohemian Rhapsody" here, there was the Top 20 "Somebody To Love," which utilized the now trademark multi-tracked vocal style to Gospel effect. The album opener, "Tie Your Mother Down," played it kinky while still mimicking "Death on Two Legs" as a big concert rocker. As always, there are nods to camp and vaudeville ("Millionaire Waltz" and the Ooh La La of "Good Old Fashioned Lover boy"). However, there's an unusually high number of filler songs (the dreadful "White Man" and the maudlin "Teo Torriatte" being the most flagrant).

"A Day At The Races" is more easily viewed as the bridge between "A Night At The Opera" and the second five-star Queen album, News of the World. Go to any sports match around the world, and eventually the boom-boom-clap of "We Will Rock You" will thunder through the stadium. Watch any final series recap and you'll likely hear "We Are The Champions." Over 30 years later, and they are the reason "News Of The World" remains an essential seventies album for Queen, even as the ferocity of punk was beginning to make its presence felt. Not that Queen didn't take notice; "Sheer Heart Attack" rates as one of Queen's hardest rockers next to "Stone Cold Crazy." As usual, Queen took as many musical detours on this album as they did on their previous discs. "Get Down Make Love" is a detached grinder, while "Sleeping On The Sidewalk" veers into Latin Rhythms and ends with Freddie Mercury's typical camp crooning on "My Melancholy Blues." It has been rare that any band could become so massively huge and yet be so willing to spin their styles all over the map. "News Of The World" is, in my opinion, the last brilliant Queen album.

The last of Queen's "No Synthesizers" albums, Jazz, was an mixed bag. From the opening oddity of "Mustapha" to the final pastiche of "More of The Jazz," "Jazz" found Queen running amok through their stylistic grab bag without the coherency that marked their best albums. Despite the inconsistency, "Jazz" includes two of the band's goofiest singles, the classic "Fat Bottom Girls" and "Bicycle Race." "Jazz," like "News of the World" before it, continued Queen's indulgence of excess. How else does one explain the gloriously over-the-top "Mustapha," one of the oddest album kickoffs for a major label rock band, ever? There's even the parade of glorifications in "Let Me Entertain You." The band was so self-assured at this stage that there was nothing too far-out to try and little too weird to record. There was heavy ("Dead On Time"), music hall lite ("Dreamer's Ball") and a great Beatlesque Brian May ballad ("Leaving Home Ain't Easy"). To foreshadow the next album, Roger Taylor drops the mechanical funk of "Fun It." Queen was at the top and they darn well knew it. They wanted to be bigger than The Beatles and would spare neither expense nor excess. "Jazz" was the last album before slickness and the times overtook them on The Game.

That was the album that opened Queen 2.0. For the first time, the band declared they would use synthesizers on record, after being almost militant about not using them. So how best to state the obvious? Make a huge descending set of synth sweeps the first sounds on "The Game." Those sounds, and the ensuing album, found Queen sand-blasting their style. Gone where the 1,000 voice overdubbed choirs, muliti-tracked to oblivion guitars, and epic theatrics. Instead, the band crafted an arena ready parcel of big popo-rockers (like the terific "Dragon Attack") with an eye towards new wave bands entering the scene. For example, there's the chiming guitar in "Don't Try Suicide" that cops directly from The Police's "Walking On The Moon" and the The Stray Cats faux rockabilly of "Crazy Little Thing Called Love." After being the Kings of Excess for so many years, it was as if Freddie Mercury and company opted to prove that they could do it without the pomp. Nowhere is this more evident than the monster hit "Another One Bites The Dust." Blatantly lifting from Chic's "Le Freak" (Chic successfully sued), it was Queen's most successful foray into funk and highlights the underrated bassist John Deacon's playing and songwriting. It also emphasized that Queen, even if they weren't layering it on musically, was still willing to step outside expectations and make an extraordinary song outside their usual realm. Same for "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," a song so classic that Dwight Yoakam eventually covered it without any irony involved whatsoever.

Thing is, "The Game" the first album where Queen seemed less interested in strutting their stuff than blatantly pleading for your attention. "The Game" is hyper eager to please (right down to Freddie's new haircut) and straight-ahead poppy while still among their most consistent albums, but there's nothing particularly regal here. Given that the band would completely loose focus on the follow-up, "Hot Space," "The Game's" new direction and stunning commercial success seems almost accidental, and close the classic years.

Onc quibble with the box, one of the hinges came loose shortly after the purchase. Not the best construction for a high ticket item. But given that buying all the discs seperate would cost more, this is a solid buy for Queen fans.
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Description of The Crown Jewels

All products are BRAND NEW and factory sealed. Fast shipping and 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed.
Queen's crown jewels shine brightly, and they're a bargain in this inspiring eight-CD collection. Commemorating the operatic British band's 25th anniversary, The Crown Jewels boxes Queen's first eight albums, remastered and boasting bonus artwork, liner notes, and a reproduction of the infamous "Fat Bottomed Girls" bicycle poster. Since the death of Freddie Mercury in 1991, there's been a spate of Queen reissues and repackages, but this 90-song collection, spanning 1973's Queen to 1980's The Game, represents the crux of Queen's power and range of talent. What's best is being reminded of such great hits as the pure bombastic operatic style of "Killer Queen," the neo-rockabilly "A Crazy Little Thing Called Love," the boastful anthem "We Are the Champions," and the pop glam of "Tenement Funster." It's a colorful, engrossing trip, and the time is right for The Crown Jewels: with movies like Velvet Goldmine reminding us again of the glorious musical (and otherwise) excess of the '70s, everything old sounds new again. --Katherine Turman

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