Made In Heaven

£3.30

1. It s A Beautiful Day
2. Made In Heaven
3. Let Me Live
4. Mother Love
5. My Life Has Been Saved
6. I Was Born To Love You
7. Heaven For Everyone
8. Too Much Love Will Kill You
9. You Don t Fool Me
10. Winter s Tale

Heaven Sent - It is no secret the significance of Made In Heaven for Queen fans. The poignancy of the title, artwork and music of this album creates a powerful peice of work for the Queen fans. And undoubtedly without these circumstances the album would not have been as significant. But at the same time, the amount talked about an album from beyond the grave , occasionally detracts from an album that features several of Queen s finest peices of music. For those who enjoyed glamrock see earlier Queen work (1970 s) for Queen as rockers (1980 s), but while this album isn t necessarily classic Queen, it was yet another different style, in fitting with the release period.Too Much Love Will Kill You is a ballad that sits with the best love songs of all time. Making the most of the power and range of Freddie s vocals, it is very much a 90 s love song. Heaven For Everyone and Let Me Live feature great harmonies, and there are some quite emotive and scenic music in A Winter s Tale and Its A Beautiful Day. For a Queen fan I would suggest buying it. While it is a different sound for a different period, it still maintains Freddies amazing vocals, great guitar riffs and great drum work.For everyone else it is a good album, with four or five very nice tracks. But if you own the Platinum Trilogy then you probably have those tracks on Greatest Hits III.

The last word - Following the completion of the final Queen album `Innuendo the band almost immediately set about recording a follow-up but sadly Freddie Mercury died with very little material completed, leaving the band with the unenviable position of piecing together `Made in Heaven from whatever bits and pieces they could find. As such `Made in Heaven is inevitably a bit of an uneven collection, and though worth it for the Queen completists this album is nowhere near the quality of `Innuendo .Probably the most questionable aspect of this release was the bands decision to revisit previously released material with fully half of the album consisting of new versions of old songs, and one s enjoyment of this album will undoubtedly be coloured by how familiar one is with these tracks - if you come to this album with no previous knowledge of these songs then you can instantly add another star to the rating. Of the reworked songs two are from Freddie s solo album `Mr Bad Guy (`Made in Heaven and `I Was Born to Love You ) and are essentially an exercise in karaoke in reverse, with the band playing along with Freddie s old vocals, and slightly altering the arrangements - this results in more rock orientated versions, but they re not really improvements on the originals, just slightly different versions. `Too Much Love Will Kill You was previously a solo hit for Brian May, but here we have an older version with Freddie on lead vocals, but while it s undoubtedly poignant to hear him sing this song in truth it s probably better suited to Brian s voice. `Heaven For Everyone has been lifted off of Roger Taylor s side-project album from `The Cross but has so little altered it feels like a slightly pointless exercise while `My Life Has Been Saved had previously been released in different form as a B-Side on the single `Scandal . Again, none of these tracks are bad, but if you are already familiar with them then inevitably they will be slightly disappointing to hear instead of new tracks.Two tracks have been rescued from unreleased obscurity in the Queen archives, but though `It s A Beautiful Day is a pleasant enough tune doubling it up to bookend the album can t help but disguise the fact that it is a tiny snapshot of a piece Freddie was working on rather than a complete song. Much better, and probably the highlight of the album is the fantastic `Let Me Live , a gospel song with Roger and Brian contributing additional lead vocals to complete the song.The only 3 songs here that actually originate from after `Innuendo are `You Don t Fool Me , `A Winter s Tale and `Mother Love . `You Don t Fool Me is a catchy repetitious funk/dance track, though it does feel a little out of place in the tone of the album, feeling more in the vein of the bands `Hot Space -period style. `A Winter s Tale is a pleasant song with some interesting music and a great guitar solo, though the Xmas single style lyrics may be a little too saccharine for some. Finally `Mother Love is a very moody piece which seems to see Freddie facing head on his imminent death (indeed he died before he could record the final verse for the track), a very bleak but moving track. There s also an unexpected bonus with the 20-minute untitled ambient piece at the end of the album which works surprisingly well. With the death of Freddie this record turned from being a Queen album into a Freddie Mercury tribute album, which is entirely understandable, but personally I could have done with a little less of the reworked material and heavy handed production tricks (Freddie s trip back through time to end as a baby at the end of `Mother Love for example) for some new tracks with vocals by Brian and Roger, but obviously this was a difficult endeavour for all involved. Ultimately a slightly uneven collection of old and new material, `Made in Heaven is nevertheless a worthwhile coda to a great bands career.

Amazing: the will to live and say goobye........ - Made in Heaven is the last collection of songs recorded by a very ill Freddie Mercury. It is his musical testament and the result of his will to sing out for his fans and life.It is certain that it is not as good as INNUENDO, but one has to consider how he was determined to carry on and finish this album only months before his dead. For me the best songs are: Mother Love, Heaven for Everyone and Too much love will kill you..... This cd mix two feelings: the will to live and the acceptance of our mortality and a promise of a new life (you can feel this with the inclusion of the bonus track.....).

Amazing - If you know how the album came about and the history then this album has a much deeper impact than others. Freddie Mercury recorded many parts of these songs whilst dying of AIDs, putting his body to much strain. This makes me appreciate this album even more. Even so, it is a truly wonderful album, filled with amazing songs. A must buy.

An excellent posthumous release - Made In Heaven (1995.) Queen s fifteenth album. Following the release of Queen s 1991 Innuendo album, tragedy struck the classic rock powerhouse. Freddue Mercury died of AIDS on November 24 of that year. It was a shame that such a talented musician was forced into the premature death that befalls many a rock and roll legend. Although Mercury was gone, his spirit (along with many long-lost recordings) certainly was not. There were a number of recordings Freddie worked on that never made it onto albums - but John Deacon, Brian May, and Roger Taylor decided to release a posthumous album using the material in question. What surfaced was Made In Heaven. Read on for my review of this album. Although this wasn t released until over three years after the death of Freddie Mercury, and although it takes recordings from various eras, it remains an excellent album. Admittingly, it probably isn t quite as good as Innuendo (since that was a true album), but it s still a solid release. Some of these tracks are reworkings of previously-existing recordings, including some old Queen B-Sides and old Freddie Mercury solo tunes. Some are reworkings of existing recordings, some are new recordings altogether. But the good majority of the songs on this album are songs that hadn t been released prior. It really is fascinating that these songs didn t surface until after Mercury s death, because they are all great (it makes you wonder whether or not there are still Freddie Mercury recordings this good just waiting to see the light of day.) In the end the album stands strong. No Queen fan should be without it. Queen s albums were remastered and rereleased. The remastered versions feature improved sound quality, lyrics, rare band/discography photos, and even some bonus tracks. Of course, in most cases, the bonus tracks on these reissues are just lame remixes that DO NOT differ substantially from the classic versions of the songs. Still, the remasters are better than the older CD versions of the albums, but if you ve got the older versions, you re not missing out on much. Made In Heaven was an excellent posthumous release from Queen. Often, posthumous releases from an artist are disasters, but in the case of Queen, theirs was VERY GOOD. If you re a fan of the group, this album is well worth purchasing. I wouldn t recommend that a new fan start with this recording, but any tried and true fan would be doing themself a real favor picking this up.

• Innuendo
• The Miracle
• The Works
• A Kind of Magic
• Hot Space