Queen fans should be pleased to hear their wildest dreams will be realized very shortly. The band, whose popularity in the United States happened after the passing of lead singer Freddie Mercury, is about to release new material featuring the singer’s voice.
Queen’s last go around with a posthumous album was in 1995 with the release of Made in Heaven , which featured vocals from Mercury’s previous recorded work. It’s just been announced that their sixteenth studio album Queen Forever will heavily feature Freddie’s dynamic voice and his contributions to the band.
The Hollywood Reporter reports that the songs featuring Mercury are previously unreleased. During a BBC interview , Queen guitarist Brian May, whose been the voice and image of the band since Mercury’s passing, said of the compilation of songs:
“It is quite emotional. It is the big, big ballads and the big, big epic sound. It wouldn’t have been if we hadn’t done this restoration job. We had to start from scratch because we only had scraps. But knowing how it would have happened if we had finished it, I can sit there and make it happen with modern technology.”
May revealed that the songs mostly came from recordings that happened in the 80s.
“We found a few more tracks with Freddie singing and all of us playing and they are quite beautiful. People will be hearing this work towards the end of the year.”
As far as what Queen is up to these days, the surviving members are currently touring with American Idol runner-up and recording artist Adam Lambert. Before kicking off the tour, Lambert had joined Queen on stage for numerous special performances. The tour is set to kick off on June 19 in Chicago.
As for future projects it seems like May really put most of his attention on the new Queen album, and not the long-awaited Freddie Mercury biopic. The biopic, which will chronicle Mercury’s rise with Queen, was set to star Sacha Baron Cohen for a number of years, but unfortunately May and Cohen couldn’t agree on a creative direction and parted ways. Since then actor Ben Whishaw is rumored to be the next actor up for the role, but so far there hasn’t been any movement in the production.
Musician Freddie Mercury died in 1991 after a long battle with AIDS. His most famous contribution to the music world was Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which was featured in the 1992 comedy Wayne’s World .
[Image via Bing]