Queen - Greatest Video Hits 1

Starring:Queen, Freddie Mercury
Studio: Hollywood Records
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com
You haven't heard Queen's greatest hits until you've experienced them in surround sound on Greatest Video Hits 1. Disc 1 includes 16 of Queen's most popular singles, restored and remixed in 5.1-channel Dolby Digital and DTS, and the results are nothing less than spectacular. Reformatted for widescreen TVs, Queen's early videos are visually basic (typically combining lip-synched band footage with concert performance clips), but they effectively chronicle the group's musical and stylistic evolution, and "Bicycle Race" includes previously unseen footage of an all-nude female bicycle race! (Optional commentary is provided for all videos by guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor, with archival quotes from the late Freddie Mercury and bassist John Deacon.)

Amazon.com

You haven't heard Queen's greatest hits until you've experienced them in surround sound on Greatest Video Hits 1. Disc 1 includes 16 of Queen's most popular singles, restored and remixed in 5.1-channel Dolby Digital and DTS, and the results are nothing less than spectacular. Reformatted for widescreen TVs, Queen's early videos are visually basic (typically combining lip-synched band footage with concert performance clips), but they effectively chronicle the group's musical and stylistic evolution, and "Bicycle Race" includes previously unseen footage of an all-nude female bicycle race! (Optional commentary is provided for all videos by guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor, with archival quotes from the late Freddie Mercury and bassist John Deacon.)

Disc 2, while not remixed, features six excellent videos (including the previously unseen "Liar"), and a hidden, alternate-edit video of "Bohemian Rhapsody" originally seen on Britain's Top of the Pops (and accessible by entering "Title 10, Chapter 1" on your DVD remote). "Bohemian Rhapsody" is the obvious highlight of both discs, and its history (both audio and video) is thoroughly explored, including May's fascinating deconstruction of the song's original studio recording tracks. Mandatory viewing for Queen fans, Video Hits 1 will leave you begging for Video Hits 2. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews:

a stellar compilation of 70's Queen classics.......2006-08-17

This is a very thorough collection of Queen promo videos from the first eight Queen albums. The bonus live footage and previously unseen gallery of photographs are especially worth the price of admission. The 5.1 surround sound mix doesn't hurt either!

Great product, but poor videos.......2005-12-30

As other people have said, the audio quality is really excellent, but the videos themselves are just in so many cases horrible. It makes a big deal about how they've been painstakingly restored, but some of them look worse than those old videos they show in junior high science classes. That doesn't mean that they're not entertaining, though. It is cool to watch the progression of the band from their hair days to the mustache days, but a lot of the videos just look bad or aren't very impressive to begin with. Sometimes lip-synching just doesn't work out the way you plan it! The video for "Spread Your Wings" is really fun to watch, though. It was shot in freezing weather, and you can tell from the faces that Roger and John make that they just want to wrap it up and get inside. On the second disc there are extra videos, along with a featurette about the making of "Bohemian Rhapsody." It's quite fascinating to listen to Brian talk and talk about all the different overdubs they did in the song! All in all, it's definitely worth buying, but make no mistake: if you have GVH 2 already and are expecting the same, don't. The video quality is just so much poorer, but if you can get past that then it's a treasure trove of Queen!

Great Version of the VHS Tape, and Extra Material.......2005-10-12

This Double DVD set is a superb version of the VHS tape I played to death. The Picture IS better, as well as the Audio. The HUGE difference is that the full Music Video plays, and the savage edits done by the "Torpedo Twins" are not used; this makes for a great set of QUEEN music videos... complete in all respects.
Disc two has some live extras that have previously only been available on the VHS tape called RARE LIVE, dating from 1973 onwards.
Add this together with the commentary, and the superbly detailed documentary of the Making of BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY and all things related, and it is a brilliant set. Hopefully many of the other commercially available VHS tapes will be brought to DVD, and this will allow a set of awesome QUEEN concert footage, and with any luck the 1976 HYDE PARK concert should be on DVD, if the BBC will release the tapes.

The early videos dont really help the music.......2005-09-15

Queen's music is much stronger than their early videos. Most were poorly produced, or they used technology that severely dated the material. Most of the videos here have not been cleaned up and, quite frankly, look awful on modern televisions. And, since the videos are not groundbreaking or relevant to their music, they don't really matter much.

With that said, it is still an interesting look into how the band changed over the years, and its a chance to hear some great songs that never get airplay (such as Spread Your Wings). The commentary is good at times, but at others it is simply boring. In addition, it appears Roger and Brian did the commentary, while old interview clips from John are just dropped in... as if he were sitting there commenting too.

Perhaps the most distracting thing about this DVD is the main menu and the painful way you have to scroll through each song before you get to the one you want.

Queen - Greatest Video Hits 1.......2005-08-18

Back in October 2002, I first bought this dvd. I was in awe when I watched it. To me it was pretty rare. At that time I had been a Queen fan for about a almost 2 years. I thought this was really excellent. But then I went on the internet and there are so much more rare videos. Like the early videos from the actually good albums.
I've only seen a few pictures of the videos, but they are pretty good. What the creators of this dvd should do is make a dvd with all the complete videos. That's a 5 disc collection, that would rock. They should also officaly release the Queen concerts. Instead of all these bootlegs and everything. Well all in all I'll give this 4/5 stars. They have the main videos, but not a lot of the early ones. Long live Queen.

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