Queen: Greatest Video Hits 2

Queen: Greatest Video Hits 2Distributed by
EMI Universal

Cert:
Cat.no: 724349098398
Running time: 133 minutes
Year: Varies
Pressing: 2003
Region(s): 2, PAL
Chapters: 17 plus extras
Sound: DTS 5.1 (disc 1 only)
Languages: English
Subtitles: 5 languages (none English!)
Widescreen: 1.78:1; Fullscreen: 4:3
16:9-enhanced: Yes
Macrovision: No
Disc Format: 2 * DVD 9
Price: £19.99
Extras: Audio Commentary, Extra music videos and live performances,”Making Of” some of the videos, “We Will Rock You” ticket offer

Remastered for DVD by :

David Mallet

Producers :
Audio Producer :
Band:

I had some reservations about Vol.1, releasedlast year, namely the transition to zoom some of the videos in to 16:9 (or 14:9in some cases – or even a combination at times). I asked for them to leavethings alone when Queen Greatest Video Hits 2 came along, butthey haven’t listened.

At this point I’ll add that the one benefit from this release is the inclusionof DTS 5.1 sound, a remix that does work well to degree – until you realisethat the sound on this is occasionally ever so slightly out-of-sync. This ismore noticeable at some times than others. The picture is the other half ofthe content and so let’s start with video number one.

It’s A Kind of Magic, one of those songs that is too much of a Queen”standard” in terms of what gets played whenever their name is mentioned onthe radio so I’m a little tired of it, but watching it I see all they’ve doneis cropped the top and bottom a bit to somewhere between 14:9 and 15:9, andif that’s anamorphic then Freddie Mercury’s still alive(!)

Ah, things get better with the second one, I Want It All, the firstsingle released from “The Miracle” album back in 1989. This one looks okay.Then when it comes to Radio Ga Ga, it’s shown in a 4:3 window within the16:9 frame, although it’s been rejigged so that the bits which did includea pseudo-widescreen effect are spread out across the TV. I’m still wishingthings had been left the way they were though. The Invisible Man is 4:3stretched out to 16:9 – so I had to adjust the TV screen ratio as it was toldit was a 16:9 anamorphic image (this video includes a young Daniella Westbrookfor anyone who cares to wonder if she still has a career as well as a septum).Hammer To Fall has an extra 16:9 anamorphic squeeze on it, so if itcould be corrected it would resemble a 2.35:1 image. Christ almighty, whaton earth was David Mallet on when he compiled this?!

Many of the rest do look okay in 16:9 anamorphic, but I’d still rather theywere left alone in 4:3. Nowadays, of course, most promo videos are shot in16:9 or wider (the latter for effect), but that wasn’t the case with these.Those that do look okay include Under Pressure, which contains the fullchorus as always has been there in the video – but a tiny part was snipped outof the “Greatest Hits 2” CD so it would just fit on and the powerful but underratedScandal.

After checking out the listing below it makes me presume Vol.3 will come nextautumn since all the singles from the “Innuendo” album are conspicuous by theirabsence and there’s a few post-Freddie’s death releases to be catalogued.

The full track listing is as follows:

1. A Kind of Magic
2. I Want It All
3. Radio Ga Ga
4. I Want To Break Free
5. Breakthru
6. Under Pressure
7. Scandal
8. Who Wants To Live Forever9. The Miracle
10. It’s A Hard Life
11. The Invisible Man
12. Las Palabras De Amor
13. Friends Will Be Friends
14. Body Language
15. Hammer To Fall
16. Princes of the Universe
17. One Vision

Disc two is where the extras hang out and it’s divided up into four sections:

Hot Space (12 mins):Previously unreleased videos for Backchat (16:9anamorphic and a video which just screams “early 80s”, not that I’m sayingthat’s a bad thing), Calling All Girls (16:9 again) and Staying Power(4:3), the latter being a live one from Milton Keynes in 1982.

The quality of the video footage here of the first two leaves a lot to bedesired though as it’s way too jerky. What happened there?

The Works (44 mins):Two performances of Queen at the Montreux Pop Festival (16½ mins)in both 1984 (including Radio Ga Ga), although all of theseare mimed, something which I presume was forced upon them; “The Works Interviews” (12 mins)- all recorded at the time of the album’s release in 1984; and a separateinterview in 1984 for Freddie interviewed in Munich by Rudi Dolezal downstairsat the Musicland Studios. Running at 15½ mins, this is the first time thisinterview has been available uncut.

A Kind of Magic (54½ mins):More from Montreux in 1986 (17 mins) with tracks from this album including One Visionand Hammer To Fall, again mimed; further interviews with the band fromthe time of that album’s release (12 mins); “The Making of One Vision” documentary(19 mins) where the band are shown putting together the song and the video atthe same time – Freddie complains he “may as well be singing the fuckingAndrews sisters”; and then the extended version of that same song (6½ mins),which, sonically, makes for a nice remix, but visually this attempt wouldinduce epileptic fits in someone who’s never had one before.

This section makes me wonder why music videos are allowed to get away withprofanity without requiring a 12 or 15-certificate?

The Miracle (28½ mins):We start with more interviews recorded on the set of the Breakthrupromo (8½ mins), behind the scenes footage on all four of the promovideos from this album (15 mins) – all of which does make for engagingviewing; and, finally, the making of the album cover (5 mins), as described by theirgraphic designer Richard Gray and you see the delights of a 1989 Quantel paintbox.Ah, things looked so technical back then…

By the way, Gray’s colleague behaves like David Walliams in BBC3’s LittleBritain, despite having been filmed 14 years before that was broadcast.Makes you wonder if they saw the tapes first.

So, some interesting extras there, but definitely one for the completists.I wish the same could have been said for the actual music videos.

The menus are largely static, but contain music by Queen (obviously) anddisc one does have lyrics for the videos in five languages… but not a singleone of them is English! For reasons best known to themselves you get French,Italian, German, Spanish and Portuguese.

FILM CONTENT
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS

OVERALL

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Dom Robinson

Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.

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