Killer Queen

Hi folks. Today I am going to talk about the 1992 Greatest Hits compilation, which came out in the US and Canada, in September 1992. I was reading my post on Classic Queen and I had remembered about this package, originally being called Killer Queen. I think that this package should have been called as such, only so it wouldn’t confuse those who are looking for the Greatest Hits album. After all, there is the 1981 hits package and the track listings obviously differ, but because of some oddities with the selection it shouldn’t have been given a Greatest Hits name.

Media outlets were calling this package a rerelease of the Greatest Hits album and clearly, it wasn’t despite having most of the tracks from the first hits album on both sides of the Atlantic.

The other thing is that this package included Body Language and I Want To Break Free, both of which had come out after the original hits album in 1981. Besides, having released this package as it was only confuses things for some and for those new Queen fans who don’t know better, you would think that this was correct in calling this a reissue of the Greatest Hits album.

The tracks included We Will Rock You, We Are the Champions, Another One Bites The Dust, Killer Queen, Somebody To Love, Fat Bottomed Girls (Album Version), Bicycle Race, You’re My Best Friend, Crazy Little Thing Called Love and Play The Game. All of which had appeared on the original 1981 package, except that it would be the single version of Fat Bottomed Girls on the original. By the way, the 1992 package didn’t even have the single version of Flash.

The tracks which didn’t appear on the original and on the 1992 version are: Save Me, Now I’m Here, Don’t Stop Me Now, Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy, Seven Seas of Rhye, Body Language and I Want To Break Free (Single Version). You see how this package kinda messes with time in calling it Greatest Hits instead of Killer Queen? I actually like the other name better as it would have gone together easier and not confused people, namely fans who know the 1981 GH package.

Why did they call it Greatest Hits? Well, to cash in on Queen’s new found popularity in North America and to kinda stitch together some kind of hits album, to replace the 1981 version. Obviously, years later we would get the British version domestically, both individually and in boxed sets. The 2004 release kinda straightened things out when it came to time and I wonder if the 1992 hits package is even available anymore, on CD. I think I found it on Spotify in 2020, but that’s the last time I checked.

I actually thought that including the album version of Fat Bottomed Girls was kinda cool, as I like it better than the single version, even if I think it is wrong. Yes, I know that I am contradictory on this, but that’s how I feel. Besides, it seemed to have encouraged rock radio stations to play the album version of FBG anyway. I prefer that to the single version of Hammer to Fall on a active or mainstream rock stations any time.

The other upside was the booklet, once again with information on each song, when it was released as a single and where it was released as a single. See? The two packages were not all bad in themselves as I would learn more about Queen through the booklet and my mom reading it to me. The trouble is it wasn’t a straightforward history on the band, but knowing where each song came from with album releases I could piece together in my mind part of the history of queen, until years later, with Wikipedia.

This wasn’t a bad album, but it did have that rushed feel to it taking the 1991 remasters and putting them on here,warts and all. My hope is an always has been, that someday every single queen related album, compilation and hits package that was ever released will be brought back in some form, whether it is a boxed set or something and this includes both packages from 1992. After all, they are now important parts of Queen history and on the upside, this hits package further increase the sales of Greatest Hits throughout the world so, in a way this decision to call it a such made business and marketing sense. At least, that is how I see it. I do hope that everything will somehow come back and new Queen fans will get a chance to experience this album as it was, without someone creating a playlist with the running order.