As a record buyer it is very easy to succumb to “remaster fatigue”. I don’t know how many times, like a slavish dog, I’ve dribbled to buy the latest edition of my favourite record. In this case, there was very little stopping me buying this album. The reason was that this remaster featured two discs: one a standard remastered CD and a second DVD-Audio version of the classic album remixed in 5.1 surround sound.
Queen was the first band I ever got into. I think it was because throughout my childhood my breakfast times were marked by listening to Radio 1 and it seemed like every morning I heard “Seven Seas of Rhye”, “Killer Queen”, “Bohemian Rhapsody”, “Don’t Stop Me Now”, “Bicycle Race”, etc. And so I was almost preprogrammed to like the band. Probably the greatest rock compilation “Queen – Greatest Hits” is technically my first album (if you discount John Williams’ score to “Close Encounters/Star Wars/ET” that I purchased on the Music for Pleasure label or the “Russ Abbott Madhouse” cassette that my nan bought me for Xmas). When I was dying of pneumonia at 13 years old (it was Christmas 1984 – I remember it well as the news was full of Rick Allen losing an arm and a few years later I bought the abysmal Def Leppard album “Hysteria” out of misplaced solidarity), I had two albums with me to get me through the experience of having my lungs drained and being put on the cancer ward to watch geriatric men die in their sleep. The two records were “Queen – Greatest Hits” and “The Works”, which I played in rotation on my old mono tape recorder. It wasn’t until the following Christmas that I received “A Night at the Opera” and “A Day at the Races” as my Xmas present. I must have worn those cassettes out. Anyway, I digress…
Now I am not the biggest fan of surround sound albums. I think that rock music is probably best heard in stereo and many surround sound mixes that I’ve heard have been very busy, concentrating on guitars or sound FX whizzing past your ears and generally being as distracting as an errant wasp trying to land in your pint of cider. Not so with this album. A Night at the Opera is probably the pinnacle of Queen’s studio experiments and the producers of this DVD-A have done a very tasteful job of using the 5.1 speakers. The wall of overdubbed vocals that are synonymous with Queen are put behind you and allow the listener to concentrate on the instruments. For me, this worked really well as it was like listening to a new album.
OK – sometimes guitars do fly all over the place, but if you are familiar with the record, tracks like “Death on Two Legs”, “The Prophet Song” and “Good Company” lend themselves to audio trickery greatly. The DVD itself doesn’t just rely on clever audio, as each song is accompanied by a visual presentation made up of band performances, photos taken from the time and old black and white Pathe footage. It works really well and it is like watching a video album, even though it has been constructed around the music at a later date. I greatly enjoyed the visuals and allowed for repeated viewings/listenings.
The DVD-Audio disc also features interviews with the band about the making of the album. It’s a bit like the extras on a movie DVD and the band provide a commentary to each track. Again, this is extra value added to an old album and you learn a lot about the record too.
The packaging has been expanded from the original album and my only complaint is the awful plastic slipcase that surrounds the digipak. It fits so tightly that it can be difficult to slide on or off (insert suitable double entendre here) and if you have no fingernails like me, it can be a frustrating time just getting the set out of its packaging.
For the £10.99 I paid for this, I think for once, it was money well spent and I recommend it to any Queen fan wishing to revisit the past – it’ll also make a nice stocking filler for the Queen fan in your life.

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