Queen's debut album to get a complete sonic overall next month

Set for release on Oct. 25, 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.

A new track listing, alternative takes, demos and live tracks have now been added to create the most complete version. This is the very first time that a Queen album has ever received a new stereo mix.

The 6CD + 1 LP Queen I box set contains 63 tracks with 43 brand new mixes, comprising the original album with its intended running order restored, 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. A 108-page book containing handwritten lyrics and memorabilia accompanies the release.

“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.”

The 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.

CD2: De Lane Lea Demos – 2024 Mix explores Queen I’s pre-history, with new 2024 mixes of the demos the band recorded preceding their album. CD3: Queen I Sessions, and CD4: Queen I Backing Tracks, take the listener behind the scenes at both Trident and De Lane Lea studios. CD3: Sessions collates completely different and previously unreleased versions of the songs on the album. CD4: Queen I Backing Tracks offers mixes of the songs from the original Queen album without lead vocals.

CD5: 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.

CD6: Queen I Live distils the best performances of the first album’s songs from Queen’s 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 which 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.

Two concert songs, “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.

QUEEN I Collector’s Edition (6CD+LP)

CD1: 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...

CD2: De Lane Lea Demos - 2024 Mix
1 Keep Yourself Alive
2 The Night Comes Down
3 Great King Rat
4 Jesus
5 Liar

CD3: 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)

CD4: 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…

CD5: 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)

CD6: 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)