Queen Album: “Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 [EMI]”

This second volume of Queen's Greatest Hits covers the years 1981 to 1991. During this time period, Queen's popularity in the US dropped drastically. In fact, only two songs from this CD, "Under Pressure" and "Radio Ga Ga", were legitimate hits in America. In the UK, however, Queen remained as popular as ever. Every song here was a hit in the UK, with nine of them reaching the Top Ten. This CD should prove to Americans what the British knew all along; that Queen was still producing good music after they dropped off of the US charts. Highly recommended.

Queen rocked to stardom in the 1970s, with Freddie Mercury's (1946-91) silky voice leading. They produced many excellent songs, and were popular worldwide, right up until Freddie Mercury's death from AIDS in 1991. Throughout my youth, I loved Queen's sound, and their many wonderful songs - and now I have them again!

This fantastic album makes a great companion to the Greatest Hits V.1 album. It has some of the well-known Queen hits, like Under Pressure and Radio Ga Ga, but it also has some songs that I was not so familiar with. I must say, some of those songs are now among my most favorite, including Who Wants To Live Forever, A Kind Of Magic and The Miracle.

Overall, I found this to be a great album, and a great addition to my music library. If you are a Queen fan, or just like good rock `n' roll, then you will love this album - just like me!

This greatest hits album from the U.K. is the perfect compilation of Queen's latter day career. On this 1991 release finds songs from "The Works" through "Innuendo" with a throwback from the 1981 release of "Hot Space" with the song "Under Pressure". As with many of the super-groups of the 70's and 80's there is definitely an evolution that takes place as time goes on. Many of these bands became more refined, better lyricists, better players, and immensely more popular. Queen is no exception ending with the masterpiece, "Innuendo".

As it turns out, I was pretty unfortunate in acquiring this CD. The only domestic CD that competed against it at the time was "Classic Queen", but it had a different song listing. A few years later, Hollywood finally released this album stateside in conjunction with Greatest Hits I making a double album. I felt burned, but I couldn't wait to get the album.

Without doubt, Queen is one of the best groups ever to play in an arena. Freddie Mercury had one of the best male voices ever to sing, and a stage personality that could get any audience involved. Mixed with the great playing and hit songwriting from guitarist Brian May, bassist John Deacon, and Roger Taylor on skins they reached the status of legends. With Queen's ultra-successful career it would take you quite a bit of money to collect everything they've done. This album is a good place to start to get some of their greatest songs of the late 80's and early 90's. Mixed with "Greatest Hits I", you'll have a very solid start all for the same price I paid to have mine come from the U.K.

Just as good as Greatest Hits I but different. I prefer Greatest Hits I but it's still brilliant and probably one of the only groups who could do two Greatest Hits of this high standard. Even if you don't know the names of the songs, you will know them when you listen to it and if you still don't reconise them you will be humming, singing, jumping around or tapping your feet along, because they are all brilliant songs. I must have in any collection (but I would get it in the Platinum collection with Greatest Hits I and III if you havn't got Greatest Hits I already)

Looking back at the 1970s, sometimes many forget how big the band Queen was. Even as Queen moved into the 1980s, while their popularity did slightly decline in the United States, it continued to be very high in Europe. Their performance at Live Aid is widely considered one of the greatest of all-time and their subsequent "Magic" tour is considered one of the all-time greatest concert tours. If it weren't for Freddie Mercury's death in 1991, we might still be talking about Queen being as big a band as the Beatles. Numerous compilation albums are available containing much of Queen's music. The period from 1974-1980 is considered the period where Queen achieved its most popularity - especially in the United States. Following 1980, Queen's popularity continued, but this was mostly in Europe. However, there was a lot of good music still done by Queen, thus continuing their legacy. In 1981, Queen released an album "Greatest Hits" covering that 1974-1980 period. Ten years later, Queen would release a second greatest hits collection - "Greatest Hits Volume II", that would cover the post 1980 period until Mercury's death in 1991.

Queen is an example of the sum of the parts actually being greater than the whole. However, if you take each of the four members of Queen, they easily stand on their own as a top musician in their profession. Freddie Mercury is easily known to be the emotional and flamboyant lead vocalist of Queen who indeed has a legendary voice. Brian May is the legendary lead guitarist and probably the second most popular member of the band. Roger Taylor and John Deacon go extremely underrated. Listen to Taylor's thundering drumming in the studio or live and one can easily understand why he was asked to participate in an All Star Drum Jam (The S.O.S. All-Stars) at the Live Earth concert. As for John Deacon, he might be one of music's all-time underrated bass players. Many of his bass lines have proven to be the foundation for Queen's musical sound. In addition to being top musicians, all four members play integral roles in the songwriting.

The first "Greatest Hits" was released in 1981. While Queen released nine albums from 1973 through 1980, they considerably slowed the pace in the 1980s. Much of this was due to solo efforts by the band (such as Freddie Mercury's "Mr Bad Guy") and then due to Freddie's illness in the late 1980s. "Greatest Hits Volume II" covers the five albums from 1981 to 1991. These albums include: "Hot Space" ("Under Pressure); "The Works" ("Radio Ga Ga", "I Want to Break Free", "It's a Hard Life", "Hammer to Fall"); "A Kind of Magic" ("A Kind of Magic", "Who Wants to Live Forever", "Friends Will be Friends", "One Vision"); "The Miracle" ("I Want it All", "Breakthru", "The Miracle", "The Invisible Man"); "Innuendo" ("Innuendo", "Headlong", "I'm Going Slightly Mad", "The Show Must Go On")

One thing that disappoints me about this collection is that the songs are not ordered in chronological order. One reason why I like greatest hits collections to be chronologically ordered is because it often shows how a band has progressed over time. Queen originally started as a good mix of progressive rock and early heavy metal. Queen would eventually move away from their progressive roots and incorporate a variety of other types of musical genres including a more theatrical type of element, a pop element, rockabilly, and even Dance/Disco (as demonstrated on the "Hot Space" album) The shuffling of the order of these sounds really takes away from seeing how Queen evolved and progressed their sound in the 1980s.

Quality-wise, one cannot complain about the content of the music in this collection. This contains some of Queen's most popular songs and shows them at their musical apex (I personally think Queen really peaked in the early 1980s). However there are other greatest hits versions to consider.

- "Greatest Hits Volume I": As mentioned this covers the period from 1974 through 1980 - "Queen II" through "Flash Gordon".

- Greatest Hits Volume III": This covers latter material on the band. It focuses on collaborations with other artists (such as Elton John and George Michael) as well as solo material and unreleased material by the band.

There are several other compilations available. "Greatest Hits Volume I and II" is a mix between the UK version of "Greatest Hits" and "Greatest Hits Volume II". "The Platinum Collection" includes all three volumes of the greatest hits collection. "The Crown Jewels" is a boxed set that includes all Queen's first eight albums in their entirety (but doesn't include anything from "Volume II or III". There are also many other Queen compilations out there that contain a variety of different permutations of their hits.

The important thing is while "Greatest Hits Volume II" contains a lot of good music, a fan would much be better served getting either the "Volume I and II" compilation or "The Platinum Collection". Both of these compilations will contain much more bang for your buck. The "Volume I and II" and "Platinum Collection" compilations will also provide you with some of the outstanding earlier and rare material. The only way I'd recommend picking up Queen's "Greatest Hits Volume II" is if you have a niche to get a sampling of Queen's music post 1981.

On a side note, I was disappointed that more music from "Hot Space" wasn't included. While many didn't like Queen's Dance/Disco direction, it still showed that Queen wasn't afraid to explore different genres. Overall, the music is good, but as mentioned, I'd recommend the more complete collections.