Queen's debut album is about to get a ridiculous treatment

The remaining members of Queen are all in for the money grab now. Maybe Freddie Mercury would have been too, but we will never know. What we do know is that the band recently sold its back catalog to Sony Music for a reported one billion pounds and now they are about to go overboard with a reissue of the debut record.

In fact, because the reissue is so expansive, the band decided to change the name of the record from Queen to Queen I, which seems a bit silly. The I is unneeded. There aren't any other albums in the group's discography called "Queen" but there is a Queen II so we can assume the debut is, simply, Queen.

Still, if you loved the first album, you will really like the reissue. Instead of 10 songs, fans will get 63 songs including the track "Mad the Swine" which was left off the original 1973 release. The six-CD box set will include the remastered original tracks where, according to what Brian May writes in the liner notes, each instrument is revisited to bring out a more "live" feel.

Queen's debut album is getting the special treatment fans of the band will love

Speaking of live, there will be plenty of that as well. The last two discs of the box set will include BBC performances of the songs in 1973 and 1974, tracks from Queen's shows at the Rainbow in 1974, San Diego in 1976, and two songs from a concert in 1970.

Besides the original remastered songs and the live tracks, there will be the demos the band recorded before creating the actual album. There is an entire disc of unused masters, different recorded takes on the original songs, and a guide vocal.

Is this all too much? Of course. But Queen has been a hot commodity over the last many years so the band is taking all the financial advantage it can from the recent uptick in attention. Fans will love the way the first album was created. Too bad it wasn't Queen's finest record.

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