Queen

Featuring 12 mini-CDs that feature three tracks each for the most part (one has four). Each mini-CD comes in an individual case. The 12 A-sides featured include early classics such as "Seven Seas of Rhye," "Killer Queen," and "Somebody to Love," as well as mid-career hits "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" and "Under Pressure," and latter-day favorites "Radio Ga Ga," "A Kind of Magic." Also included are the non-album B-sides "See What a Fool I've Been," "Soul Brother," "I Go Crazy," and "A Dozen Red Roses for My Darling" (others, such as "A Human Body," "Blurred Vision," and the single "Thank God It's Christmas," are not).

In one regard, Queen II does indeed provide more of the same thing as on the band's debut. Certainly, of all the other albums in Queen's catalog it bears the closest resemblance to its immediate predecessor, particularly in its lean, hard attack and in how it has only one song that is well-known to listeners outside of their hardcore cult: in this case, it's "Seven Seas of Rhye," which is itself more elliptical than "Keep Yourself Alive," the big song from the debut. But these similarities are superficial and Queen II is a very different beast than its predecessor, an album that is richer, darker, and weirder, an album that finds Queen growing as a band by leaps and bounds.

n one regard, Queen II does indeed provide more of the same thing as on the band's debut. Certainly, of all the other albums in Queen's catalog it bears the closest resemblance to its immediate predecessor, particularly in its lean, hard attack and in how it has only one song that is well-known to listeners outside of their hardcore cult: in this case, it's "Seven Seas of Rhye," which is itself more elliptical than "Keep Yourself Alive," the big song from the debut…