Queen 40th Anniversary Limited Edition Collector’s Box Set Vol. 3 Review

Queen returns with the third installment of their Limited Edition Collector’s box set to celebrate their 40th Anniversary which is this year. This impressive box set is the closing piece to a year long event that has spawned reissues of the entire studio catalog of Queen. All albums were remastered by Bob Ludwig from the original material. But will Queen rock us with this edition like they used to?

The Contents

This Volume 3 of the Queen 40th Anniversary Limited Edition Box Set contains the albums The Works, A Kind of Magic, The Miracle, Innuendo and Made in Heaven. All albums have been given a double CD release where CD1 contains the remastered album and CD2 contains a ton of extras and rareties which is nice because that way the bonus material won’t distract from the actual albums. CD2 contains rare stuff like alternative takes, b-sides etc. I liked these a lot and couldn’t help but wonder if this all there is, or if there might be more stuff floating out there. Aside from the five remastered albums and bonus materials which make 10 CD’s in total you also get a cool storage box and a great 24 panel poster. That’s not bad for around $75 bucks but only if the sound is significantly better than the original albums. So what do they sound like?

Sound Quality

I was naturally worried that the remastered editions would suffer from what people nowadays call the Loudness War that has plagued so many other re-issues of legendary eighties and nineties music. This is what we call the insane compression that record companies apply to modern albums to make them sound as loud as possible. Bad examples of this include Metallica where the original sound waves seem to have been squashed into one giant stream of noise without any dynamics whatsoever. But.. we are glad to report that this is not the case at all. Yes the result is more “hot” than the original releases as is logical with the application of more modern mastering techniques but fortunately all of the punch and dynamics are still present. Moreover the albums sound cleaner and more alive than ever before. The veil that was present on some of the originals and resulted in a rather dull sound seems to have been lifted and Freddy Mercury’s voice really and I mean really shines in these recordings. In fact it would not surprise me if fans will regard this final installment in the trilogy as the best reissue to date.

Value for Money

So is it worth buying? Well most Queen fans seem to favor the earlier works of Queen more than those that are present in these album series but I have to disagree. There are many awesome songs in this box and in my opinion this simply is a must have for any true fan of Queen. In fact I just persuaded my wife to ask santa to get me the entire trilogy as an xmas present.

The Verdict

- Awesome sound
- A ton of cool extras
- nice poster to complete the collection
- A must have for any true Queen fan
- Might appeal a little less to fans that only appreciate the earlier works