VIA PRESS RELEASE | Released for the first time on vinyl, Queen’s compilation The Platinum Collection, featuring all three of their Greatest Hits albums, shows their unrivalled track record of chart-topping, award-winning, record-breaking rock and pop classics. With four songwriters in the band—Freddie Mercury, Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon—Queen created a glorious legacy of all-time anthems that still ring out across the ages. For past and future fans alike, they will rock you!
Living up to its name, The Platinum Collection is certified 5x Multi-Platinum in the US and was recently certified by the UK music industry organization the BPI as having gone 8 x Platinum, representing sales of 2.4 million achieved since its June 2011 re-release as part of Queen’s 40th anniversary celebrations. June 17 will see the limited edition 6LP color vinyl set released in a slipcase with brand new artwork. Each piece of vinyl will be a different color and come in its own individually designed sleeve. The set also comes with an exclusive 24-page 12″ photo booklet.
Queen Greatest Hits, first released in 1981, is certified 9x Platinum in the US and is the best-selling album of all time in the UK, having sold over 6.8 million copies, with global sales in excess of 25 million. Spanning Queen’s triumphant first act, from 1974 to 1980, Greatest Hits includes some of the world’s most beloved rock standards, including the stadium-sized symphonic chart-topper “Bohemian Rhapsody,” recently inducted into the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress as a culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant song worthy of preservation for all time, and the roof-raising “We Are The Champions,” which was named the most catchy song of all time by a team of scientists in 2011.
But this album also dazzles with its stylistically promiscuous range, from the crowd rousing “We Will Rock You,” the tongue in cheek “Fat Bottom Girls,” the stomp-stomp-stomp late ’70s disco inspired “Another One Bites the Dust,” to the finger-snapping jukebox retro-rock homage “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and the soaring, impassioned, gospel-fired Aretha-isms of “Somebody To Love.”
Queen Greatest Hits II, originally released shortly before Freddie Mercury’s death in 1991, has sold over 19 million copies worldwide. It spans 1981 to 1991, the period which followed Queen having dropped their famous no synthesizers rule elevating them to new heights of creativity. Opening up their guitar-heavy sound to embrace funk, disco, and electronics resulted in rich rewards, transforming these former Seventies glam rockers into a glossy, streamlined, emphatically contemporary super-group. Rebooted and rewired, Queen produced some of their most immortal hits during this imperial Eighties phase.
Built around an improvised studio jam, their infectious David Bowie collaboration “Under Pressure” became a global chart-topping smash. The retro-futurist epic “Radio Gaga” and the humorously romantic “I Want To Break Free” stand as testaments to their early mastery of synthesizers, while the muscular ripcord riffs of “Hammer To Fall” and octave-vaulting grand-piano acrobatics of “It’s a Hard Life” are vintage Queen both sonically and lyrically. Officially the tenth best-selling album of all time in the UK, Greatest Hits II also features the tender sentiments of “Friends Will Be Friends,” the planet-sized synth-rock fanfares of “One Vision,” and the heroically defiant swan song “The Show Must Go On,” featuring Freddie in his last days still playing shamelessly to the gallery.
Queen Greatest Hits II, rarely available on vinyl, features their latter-day songs, the band members’ solo hits, and the band’s collaborations with other artists including Elton John, Montserrat Caballé, George Michael, and Wyclef Jean.
Undimmed by time or fashion, The Platinum Collection is a reminder that Queen were always colorful, always dynamic, always ablaze with passion and pride.
