Queen Forever

Sold upon its November 2014 release as a compilation containing some unearthed, even "forgotten," material, Queen Forever doesn't contain much new in either its standard or deluxe versions. Just three songs, actually: a finished version of the Works outtake "Let Me in Your Heart Again," a reworked version of Freddie Mercury's solo "Love Kills" from the soundtrack to Giorgio Moroder's Metropolis, and a completed version of "There Must Be More to Life Than This," a Freddie duet with Michael Jackson from the early '80s…

By the release of 1986's A Kind of Magic, Queen's stature as a prominent rock band in the U.S. had slipped considerably, while in all other parts of the world (especially Europe), they remained superstar hitmakers…

A Kind of Magic is the twelfth studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 3 June 1986 by EMI Records in the UK and by Capitol Records in the US. It was their first studio album to be recorded digitally, and is based on the soundtrack to the film Highlander, the first in a series directed by Russell Mulcahy. A Kind of Magic was Queen's first album to be released since they had been acclaimed for their performance at the 1985 Live Aid concert. It was an immediate hit in the UK, going straight to number one and selling 100,000 copies in its first week. It remained in the UK charts for 63 weeks, selling about six million copies worldwide.

By the release of 1986's A Kind of Magic, Queen's stature as a prominent rock band in the U.S. had slipped considerably, while in all other parts of the world (especially Europe), they remained superstar hitmakers…

A Kind of Magic is the twelfth studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 3 June 1986 by EMI Records in the UK and by Capitol Records in the US. It was their first studio album to be recorded digitally, and is based on the soundtrack to the film Highlander, the first in a series directed by Russell Mulcahy. A Kind of Magic was Queen's first album to be released since they had been acclaimed for their performance at the 1985 Live Aid concert. It was an immediate hit in the UK, going straight to number one and selling 100,000 copies in its first week. It remained in the UK charts for 63 weeks, selling about six million copies worldwide (600,000 in the UK alone). The album spawned four hit singles: the album's title track "A Kind of Magic", "One Vision", "Friends Will Be Friends", and "Who Wants to Live Forever", which features an orchestra conducted by Michael Kamen, while the last track, "Princes of the Universe", is the theme song to Highlander.

The second volume of Queen’s Greatest Hits appeared a decade after the first; a decade after the group started its slow shift from international superstars toward ruling the world that existed outside of the United States. Apart from “Under Pressure” and “Radio Ga Ga,” all of the 17 singles here did not crack the American Top 40, but they’re well-known throughout the world, particularly the operatic anthems “A Kind of Magic,” “I Want It All,” “I Want to Break Free,” and “Who Wants to Live Forever.” Generally, the songs here favor melodrama to untrammeled rock & roll, which means while there’s nothing here that hits as hard as “Tie Your Mother Down”; there’s also nothing as light on its feet as “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” either. This is not necessarily a bad thing: nobody scaled the dramatic heights like Queen, and this captures their pomp & circumstance at its most polished.