QUEEN : MADE IN HEAVEN

  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. A Winter's Tale
  11. It's A Beautiful Day (Reprise)
  12. [Yeah]
  13. [Untitled]

Label : Virgin / EMI

Release Date : November 6, 1995

Length : 70:21

Review (AllMusic) : During the 1980s, Queen ceased to be a big record seller in the U.S., but maintained its superstar status at home. In the '90s, following the death of Freddie Mercury, there was a brief resurgence of interest in America triggered by the inclusion of "Bohemian Rhapsody" in the movie Wayne's World. But in 1995, when the surviving members got around to releasing the final recordings done with Mercury in the form of Made in Heaven, the status quo had returned. The album topped the charts in Western Europe, with its single, "Heaven for Everyone," reaching the Top Ten, while in the U.S. it was on and off the charts within weeks. Musically, Made in Heaven harked back to Queen's 1970s heyday with its strong melodies and hard rock guitar playing, topped by Mercury's bravura singing and some of the massed choir effects familiar from "Bohemian Rhapsody." Even if one did not know that these songs were sung in the shadow of death, that subject would be obvious. The lyrics were imbued with life-and-death issues, from the titles - "Let Me Live," "My Life Has Been Saved," and "Too Much Love Will Kill You" - to lines like "It's hopeless - so hopeless to even try" ("It's a Beautiful Day"), "Waiting for possibilities/Don't see too many around" ("Made in Heaven"), and "I long for peace before I die" ("Mother Love"). The odd thing about this was that Mercury's over-the-top singing had always contained a hint of camp humor, and it continued to here, even when the sentiments clearly were as heartfelt as they were theatrically overstated. Maybe Mercury was determined to go out the same way he had come in, as a diva. If so, he succeeded.

Review (Wikipedia) : Made in Heaven is the fifteenth and final studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 6 November 1995 by Parlophone Records in the United Kingdom and by Hollywood Records in the United States. It was the band's first and only release after the death of lead singer Freddie Mercury in 1991. Following Mercury's death, guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor, and bass guitarist John Deacon worked with vocal and piano parts that Mercury recorded before his death, adding new instrumentation to the recordings. Both stages of recording, before and after Mercury's death, were completed at the band's studio in Montreux, Switzerland. The album debuted at number 1 in the UK, where it went quadruple platinum selling 1.2 million copies. 500,000 copies were shipped in the United States. Following the album's release, Queen released one single in 1997 and subsequently went inactive until 2004 when May and Taylor reunited and started touring with Bad Company frontman Paul Rodgers and later with Adam Lambert; Deacon retired from music in 1997 and has not taken part in any Queen activity since then. The cover for the album has two different photos: the CD cover photo was shot at dusk, depicting Irena Sedlecká's Mercury sculpture located at Lake Geneva in Montreux, Switzerland, on the front, with May, Taylor and Deacon gazing at the Alps on the rear cover; meanwhile, the LP cover photo was shot in the same spot at dawn, depicting the same statue on the front but with May, Taylor and Deacon gazing at the sunrise on the rear cover. The album was recorded in a much different way from Queen's other studio albums. In early 1991, having completed work on Innuendo, and some months before his death, Freddie Mercury recorded as many vocals as he could, with the instruction to the rest of the band (Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon) to complete the songs later. Put to tape during this time were primarily "A Winter's Tale", "Mother Love" and what would eventually become "You Don't Fool Me". In the documentary Champions of the World, May described these sessions with Mercury as such: By the time we were recording these other tracks after Innuendo, we had had the discussions and we knew that we were totally on borrowed time because Freddie had been told that he would not make it to that point. I think our plan was to go in there whenever Freddie felt well enough, just to make as much use of him as possible, we basically lived in the studio for a while and when he would call and say, 'I can come in for a few hours', our plan was to just make as much use of him as we could, you know he told us, 'Get me to sing anything, write me anything and I will sing it and I will leave you as much as I possibly can.' Producer David Richards also added: The thing that was really unusual about these last songs they recorded was that Freddie insisted on doing final vocals. Normally he had always wanted to wait until all the music was completed before he would put his final vocal on. There must have been a reason for this, I think he felt there wasn’t enough time to have it completed in time. Which also means that he definitely wanted these things to be released, there’s simply no other reason why he would have done that. After Mercury's death, the band returned to the studio in 1993 to begin work finishing the tracks. May has described in interviews that Taylor and Deacon had begun some work in 1992, while May was on tour promoting his Back to the Light album. Upon his return in 1993, May felt they were not on the right path with the music and they more or less started from scratch with the three of them working together with producer David Richards. With less than an album's worth to work with, the band decided to revisit previously recorded material. The band did not discuss whether Mercury had any input before his death regarding which songs might be considered. The idea was to take existing songs on which Mercury sang and rework them as Queen songs. In 2013, Brian May said about the album "Made in Heaven" was possibly the best Queen album we ever made. It has so much beauty in it. It was a long, long process, painstakingly put together. A real labour of love."

Note (Discogs) : Track 12 and 13 are hidden tracks and are not mentioned on the release. Some sources list track 12 title as 'Yeah'. Track 13 is an ambient track. Dedicated to the immortal spirit of Freddie Mercury.