Customer Reviews

Queen - Greatest Video Hits 1

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3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Before 2002, the only source for Queen music videos in the states were the VHS counterparts to the red and blue Hollywood Records collections, and the only video in the Greatest Flix series to be released in the US was Greatest Flix III. That said, videos for so many songs were unavailable to stateside fans, such as "Spread Your Wings," "Scandal," "Flash," and a host of others.

In 2002, Queen released their first DVD (excluding the concert video "We Will Rock You"), entitled Greatest Video Hits 1. The package both looked and sounded promising. The tracklist on Disc 1 is essentially what was included on the original Greatest Flix in Europe. That being said, there is plenty to enjoy here. The disc kicks off with "Bohemian Rhapsody," which has since become regarded as the first music video. Included for the first time in the US is the video for Spread Your Wings, a great song from Queen which never made it onto the greatest hits. A real bonus here is a completely new video for "Bicycle Race," using newly-found footage of the band performing the song, and also includes more clear views of the nude females ("I would have liked to have gone to the bicycle race," says Roger Taylor during the audio commentary). Every Queen video from the seventies until 1981 is included here, nothing is left out.

On Disc 2, there are a few more videos previously unavailable on Greatest Flix. A real treat here is "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy," performed live on a BBC show. The version of "Now I'm Here" performed live at the Rainbow Theatre quite stunning as well. Also included are "Keep Yourself Alive," "Liar," and the Live Killers versions of "Love Of My Life" and the fast "We Will Rock You."

Also on the second disc, there is an entire section dedicated to Bohemian Rhapsody. When watching this, it is recommended that all Queen fans have a napkin handy in order to catch the drool. First, we have all new exclusive interviews with Brian May and Roger Taylor discussing the creation and birth of the timeless song, providing a lot of insight to this amazing song. And if that weren't enough, there is an entire half-hour where Brian May plays bits from the original Bohemian Rhapsody master tape, including the individual harmonies in the operatic section, and goes into even more depth about the creation of this masterpiece. Be warned, the drool factor here is extremely high. Also included is an insight to the making of the video, and Brian and Roger being honored for Bohemian Rhapsody being the Song Of The Millenium by the Guiness Book of Records.

Lastly, you will notice things about a "hidden bonus." All you have to do to access it is enter Title 10, Chapter 1 on your DVD remote to access it. I'm not going to tell you what it is, buy it and find out for yourself.

This DVD is a must-own for all Queen fans everywhere. It is truly worth its weight in gold, and set a high standard for subsequent DVD releases from the band (all of which maintain the same high standard). Stateside fans (like myself) should be thankful that Hollywood Records have been nice enough to release this for our enjoyment as well. A grand time is guaranteed for all who watch this DVD.

5/5

Finally the band that many credit as the pioneers of the promotional video get their work released on DVD for the world to see. With pretty much the same track listing as their multi-million selling Greatest Hits album, the most loved and memorable songs from the early career of Queen's Freddie Mercury, Brian May, roger taylor, and John Deacon are showcased in wonderful fashion. Here's what you get:

Disc1:

01. Bohemian Rhapsody
02. Another One Bites The Dust
03. Killer Queen
04. Fat Bottomed Girls
05. Bicycle Race
06. You're My Best Friend
07. Don't Stop Me Now
08. Save Me
09. Crazy Little Thing Called Love
10. Somebody To Love
11. Spread Your Wings
12. Play The Game
13. Flash
14. Tie Your Mother Down
15. We Will Rock You
16. We Are The Champions

Disc 2:

01. Now I'm Here
02. Good Old Fashioned Loverboy
03. Keep Yourself Alive
04. Liar
05. Love Of My Life
06. We Will Rock You (Fast Live Version)
Bonus hidden video: Bohemian Rhapsody (alternative edit)

Plus a Bohemian Rhapsody Documentary telling all about the recording or Bohemian rhapsody in the studio, and the making of the video for it later.

And you get Brian May and Roger Taylor Commentary, a Picture Gallery, and Queen-online homepage links.

All Disc 1 tracks re colour graded and pan and scanned for 16:9, 5.1 Audio mix , PCM Stereo mix.

So hurry up and get yours today, so that they will see that U.S. fans do still love this band and their music, to gurantee that they will release a Greatest Hits II DVD!

The first of 2 Greatest Video Hits DVDs released by Queen features seemingly all of their biggest hits captured through their 70s and very early 80s music videos, as well as video by video commentary from the crew and a look inside the making of their most famous and epic song, Bohemian Rhapsody.

This is a wonderful purchase for any die hard Queen fan as it captures their early work very nicely and is highlighted by the superb sound quality of the DVD. However, the picture quality is weak in a few of the tracks, despite each of them being digitally remastered.
The reason to avoid this DVD would be that you would be getting hit songs that you may already have on a CD, shown through a TV screen with far from perfect picture quality. The reason to buy it would be the interesting commentary of the crew, the inside look on Bohemian Rhapsody, the live versions of the songs We Will Rock You(Fast Version), Now I'm Here, and Love of My Life, and some impressive music videos that you've most likely never seen before. Therefore, I'll let you decide. I quite enjoy this DVD, and all the commentary from Queen, particularly Brian May and Roger Taylor is effective.

Music Video Highlights include: Bohemian Rhapsody, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, Flash, and Save Me.

Worst Video: Fat Bottomed Girls. A very pathetic video probably kept this song from being an even bigger hit then it could have been. Brian May and Roger Taylor both commentate on how weak a music video it is. It's still nice to hear the great song though.

Overall, I'll leave it up to you, the reader, to decide whether or not it's worth purchasing this 2 Disc DVD collection from Queen. If you're interested in a Live DVD, your best choice would probably be Queen On Fire Live at the Bowl. Live at Wembley Stadium is most likely a good selection from what I've heard, but I don't own it myself.

The 5.1 audio remasters are wonderful. However, for some insane reason the videos have been matted to create a false widescreen presentation for 16:9 TVs. (In other words, they took the original videos created for normal TVs and covered up the tops and bottoms with black bars to make them look widescreen.) By doing this, they have cut off the tops of heads and feet throughout the videos!

The videos in this collection were all created for normal TV broadcasts before widescreen TV even existed. Butchering these classic videos so badly just so they can fill the screen of a new TV format is unforgivable.

If you wanted this collection because you loved these videos when they originally aired years ago, I recommend renting it first to see if you can tolerate the matting. Buyer beware!

Just bought this DVD, and the quality is outstanding. Of course one would expect this from a DVD. But the remix of the classic Queen sound makes it all the more valuable.

The videos are great, too: including an all-new "Bicycle Race" video, using rarely-seen performance footage of the band. Also included: never-before-seen performance of "Liar", a rare "Top of the Pops" performance of "Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy", and "Now I'm Here" at the legendary Rainbow Theatre from Queen's first British headline tour.

A wonderful "extra" for anyone who enjoys "Bohemian Rhapsody" is a step-by-step documentary hosted by Brian May. Brian takes each "piece" of this opus, and shows us how the band put it together. Though he is just sitting at a sound board, May explains in detail how the music "bed" was laid for the song, the overdubs and guitars added, and he even tells us where to listen for some technical "oops" moments that made it into the final cut!

Greatest Hits Volume 1 is fantastic--Queen has a tough fence to hurtle for Volume 2! Fans can hardly wait!

Queen where not only among the greatest musicians in the 20th century but also among history's greatest showmen.
I have the original version of this video released in 1981.
Freddie Mercury's stage antics, the sound lightning, stage management and special effects combine to form an extravaganza of the senses.
Much of what Queen did in the 1970's clearly influenced the performances of others in the 80's and 90's , such as Michael Jackson and Madonna.
The video is set in chronological order enabling us to trace the fascinating history of the band development.
All the videos are the original films of the song performances with the exception of the Killer Queen video, which is made especially for the compilation and present a collage of pictures and film of Queen from 1972 to 1981.
Bohemian Rhapsody (1975) shows us the camp majesty of Freddie Mercury and the skill of the rest of the band at the time when the band had taken the world by storm with this smash hit , followed by other mid-70's hits featuring Queen's golden era such the rock opera 'Somebody to Love' (1976) and the hard rock 'Tie Your Mother Down' (1976)
We get a live performance of 'We Are the Champions' in 1977, and of course that delightful video, 'Bicycle Race' (1978) which feature 50 lovely young ladies riding around a stadium in the buff.
On this compilation, panties are drawn on the girls and colour slides block out the nudity, allowing for a very mild titillation, but even the uncensored version is quite tasteful and has none of the crudity of so many of today's videos.
I just have to add that there is a few seconds' shot of a beautiful blonde young lady, giving us the most charming natural smile-in the place where Freddie sings 'smile' and I would love to know who this most exquisite creature is.
'Save Me' (1980) is also done incredibly well with the most brilliant and expressive artwork.
This video covers Queen's first and best ten years, though I would have also liked it to have included Queen's early hits such as 'Keep Yourself Alive' (1973) and 'Seven Seas of Rhye (1974).

After excitedly buying and watching this DVD, I had to remind myself, to keep from getting discouraged, that music videos in the 70's were not what they are today. I found the lip-synced material on this recording slightly disappointing in comparison to the We Will Rock You DVD (rumored to be nothing in comparison to more famed Queen performances). Nevertheless, this collection is worth having if only as a piece of history, a documentation of the band's first decade. Visually speaking, we can probably anticipate greater things to come with Volume II as technology improved as Queen's career progressed.

One note: If you are on the fence about whether or not you should by this, and you consider yourself a fan, do it--if only for the bonus material on disc two which features Brian May deconstructing, track by track, the many layers of Bohemian Rhapsody from the original tapes. If you ever wondered what Freddie's piano solos sound like by themselves, or if you are curious to hear the individual "Galileo" harmonies one by one and then combined, here's your chance!

The quality of this DVD is beyond a proper review. The video was restored as best it could be for such old, low budget, dated stock. The audio however is absolute reference. The DTS 96/24 audio is the most incredibly detailed recording I have heard. This is not the typical live sound, or video mix versions, these are the original album versions, completely remastered, and then properly synched to the video. Detail and spaciousness are stunning. Tracks like Another One Bites The Dust make excellent use of the surround channels for effects, most of the tracks have a very convincing 3D sound without being overbearing. Some 5.1 music sounds like the recording engineers were trying to set a new record for how much they could use the surround channels, not so here. I was simply blown away by the audio quality of this DVD, my recommendation is that if you are an audiophile, and any sort of Queen fan, buy this now!

This Double DVD set is a superb version of the VHS tape I played to death. The Picture IS better, as well as the Audio. The HUGE difference is that the full Music Video plays, and the savage edits done by the "Torpedo Twins" are not used; this makes for a great set of QUEEN music videos... complete in all respects.
Disc two has some live extras that have previously only been available on the VHS tape called RARE LIVE, dating from 1973 onwards.
Add this together with the commentary, and the superbly detailed documentary of the Making of BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY and all things related, and it is a brilliant set. Hopefully many of the other commercially available VHS tapes will be brought to DVD, and this will allow a set of awesome QUEEN concert footage, and with any luck the 1976 HYDE PARK concert should be on DVD, if the BBC will release the tapes.

Though it doesn't have quite the energy of live concert DVDs, this compilation still does grest justice to the magnificent Queen hits. It's nice to see videos of the band at all stages of their development, because Freddie's cooler without the moustache. I especially liked the audio commentary- it's funny to hear Brian and Roger whine about how much they hated the Top of the Pops show they appeared on and Brian complain about how he isn't shown on "Fat Bottomed Girls"(he's right, though). Or, Roger's only comment on the Bicycle Race video (in reference to that naked female bicycle race) "I would have liked to have gone to the bicycle race... it looked like a lot of fun." Anyway, "Bohemian Rhapsody" is a great video, as are "We Are the Champions" and "Tie your Mother Down". I like them all, really (except Flash-what a terrible movie). Oh, and you can see John wipe his nose during "Spread Your Wings" because it was filmed in sub-zero weather. You can seriously spend hours watching this stuff!!