“Queen I” Gets A Facelift

Digitally retouched drums and pitch-corrected vocals?!

“I have seen the future in pop music, and it is a band called Queen” - Jac Holzman, Elektra Records

The beginnings of Queen came from the remnants of guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor’s former group, Smile. The two bounded together and recruited vocalist Freddie Mercury, who pushed to rechristen the group Queen, and they added bassist John Deacon. The group gigged around England’s college circuit before cutting a demo at De Lane Lea Studios to test the studio’s acoustic treatments. The Sheffield brothers, who oversaw Trident Studios and Neptune Productions, took Queen under their wing and allowed the group to record their debut album during the studio’s downtime over 3 months in mid-1972. After shopping the finished album to every UK record company for nearly a year, Trident licensed the album to EMI Records. 

Released in July 1973, Queen’s self-titled debut album was a ballsy tour-de-force to reckon with at the time. Meat-and-potatoes hard rock comes in abundance with the frantic-paced “Modern Times Rock ‘n’ Roll” and the bluesy “Son and Daughter.” The group teeters into progressive rock territory on “Great King Rat” and “My Fairy King” with dynamic instrumental arrangements and Freddie Mercury’s fantasy-based lyrics. “Doing All Right” is a little piece of pre-Queen history, a track initially part of Smile’s repertoire. Tracks like “Keep Yourself Alive” and “Liar” became staples in the group’s early live set, the latter becoming Queen’s first single. The album closer, a 75-second instrumental teaser of “Seven Seas of Rhye,” hinted at what was to come. Queen’s debut received a muted response from critics who often compared the group to Led Zeppelin, but it stands as a starting point for how the group’s sound would evolve throughout the decade.

(I cut the national radio spot for Queen's American debut on Elektra records. The label sent me a British pressing with this cover art that was changed for America_ed.)

From the album’s sessions to the finished product, the production value of Queen’s debut became a bone of contention among band members. Brian May clashed with producer Roy Thomas Baker over the balance of the band’s authentic sound and studio perfection. A debate over Roger Taylor’s drum sound left the track “Mad The Swine” off the final album. Whether it is a means to celebrate the album’s belated 50th anniversary or an opportunity to right some wrongs, a new stereo mix now gives Queen’s self-titled debut album some new life.

To distinguish the old from the new, the new stereo mix of Queen’s self-titled debut gets rechristened with a new title: Queen I. Brian May revisited the album cover via a digital recreation that eliminates some of the grainy qualities of the original; the gold foil inlays for the album’s title is a deluxe touch reminiscent of the original 1973 US Elektra pressing. Queen’s longtime art designer, Richard Gray, lovingly recreated the back cover’s photo collage from the original pictures to look as vibrant as it ever will look. Consumers can get the best of both worlds by receiving a poly-lined sleeve to house the vinyl and a printed inner sleeve of lyrics and credits. Instead of using EMI’s stock label from the timeframe of the album’s original release, a custom center label utilizing the album artwork graces the heavyweight 180-gram vinyl.

The mix of Queen I has divided fans and critics alike. The obvious differentiator is the sound of the drums. Instead of playing his drum kit with its trademark sound, Roger Taylor was playing Trident Studios’ in-house kit, described as “plastic, all covered in tape.” Despite the difference in preferred sound, certain trademarks of the album’s original mix give it its character. On Queen I, each drum hit got digitally retouched, producing a more artificial sound that loses some of the subtleties in Taylor’s playing. Some online music analysts mentioned that Freddie Mercury’s vocals were also pitch-corrected. It takes a trained ear to pick out this discrepancy, but the thought of trying to perfect what many regard to be one of rock’s greatest vocalists is artistic treason. These gripes almost contradict the sentiment Queen sang about on the track “Machines (or Back to Humans)” from The Works album in 1984: “When the machines take over, it ain't no place for rock 'n' roll.”

Brian May’s phased guitar licks on the opening of “Keep Yourself Alive” are spread widely across the stereo spectrum, creating a wide soundstage. His lead guitar solo is more upfront, whereas the harmonized parts take a back seat. Freddie Mercury’s airy vocals in the soothing bridge of “Doing All Right” are contradicted by the intensity of May’s power chords and Roger Taylor’s thunderous floor toms in the solo break. On “Great King Rat,” Mercury’s vocals sound more apparent, and Taylor’s huge drum roll playfully bounces back and forth between the speakers during the song's outro. The aforementioned “Mad The Swine” is woven back into the album’s initially intended running order. The song’s original mix was done in 1991 as a bonus track on the Hollywood Records CD remaster of the debut, and it had more dynamics and air than sounding squashed on this remix. “My Fairy King,” one of the album’s dynamic tracks, is plagued by inner groove distortion. 

The hand-claps on the opening of “Liar” lose that slap-back echo quality, sounding more like a digital sample. The nature of the mix’s drum sound doesn’t allow for them to have the same impact as the original. Mercury’s vocals have an ADT quality that isn’t present in the original mix but is a welcome inclusion. The auxiliary percussion in the song’s middle break is more pronounced. May’s acoustic guitar sounds more transparent on “The Night Comes Down,” and Mercury’s lead vocal takes precedence over the harmonized vocals in the chorus. The new “Son and Daughter” mix draws back the song’s heavy muscle, as Mercury’s vocals don’t have the aggressive bite heard on the original mix but allow the intricacies of May’s guitar work to shine. The religiously-influenced “Jesus” has some new flair between the backward echo in the beginning and the phased acapella outro, but inner groove distortion ruins the song’s busy moments.

Brian May and Roger Taylor had good intentions with Queen I, as it could’ve been a perfect facelift for one of the best debut albums of the 1970s—ill-suited EQ choices and striving for over-perfectionism ended up with an odd result. If this reinvention is to be the first in a series going forward, one can hope future remixes get approached differently.