Made in Heaven

Made in Heaven
Studio album by Queen
Publication (s)	November 6, 1995
Label (s)	Parlophone / EMI ; Hollywood (USA)
Format (s)	CD , LP , cassette
Genre (s)	skirt
Title (number)	12 (= 13 CD tracks)
running time	70:21 (CD)
occupation	Freddie Mercury : vocals , piano , keyboards . John Deacon : bass guitar , keyboards. Roger Taylor : drums , percussion , keyboards, vocals. Brian May : guitars , keyboards, vocals.
Studio (s)	Mountain Studios (Montreux) u. a.
chronology Innuendo (1991) Made in Heaven -

Made in Heaven is the fifteenth and last studio album by the British rock group Queen released in 1995 under the sole name "Queen" .

The album

Before the album Innuendo was released in February 1991, Queen had started again to record new songs in their studio in Montreux ; further recording sessions followed in the course of the year. Freddie Mercury , whose state of health was already badly affected by his AIDS illness, worked on the new pieces in small steps until shortly before his death on November 24, 1991.

In April of the following year the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert , organized by the remaining Queen members, took place. The last joint recordings with Mercury remained untouched for more than two years before Roger Taylor and John Deacon began to continue work on the Queen album, while Brian May was still busy with solo projects and only later participated in the recordings.

The album Made in Heaven was released on November 6, 1995 and contains in particular Freddie Mercury's last sung pieces. You Don't Fool Me is a disco-influenced pop song, A Winter's Tale describes a wintry idyll and Mother Love explicitly refers to Mercury's state of mind in the face of the close departure: “I'm a man of the world and they say that I'm strong / But my heart is heavy and my hope is gone. ”“ I long for peace before I die. ”Since Mercury couldn't finish Mother Love , Brian May sang the last verse.

Most of the other, older pieces had been re-recorded posthumously by the three remaining Queen members; Mercury's vocal recordings are from the 1980s. On the one hand, there were previously unreleased Queen recordings (such as Too Much Love Will Kill You ) - only My Life Has Been Saved had already appeared on a Queen single in a somewhat more sparingly arranged form. There were also some pieces that Freddie Mercury had sung for solo projects: the title track, I Was Born to Love You and the first single Heaven for Everyone . Quiet, slow tracks dominate on Made in Heaven more than on other Queen albums . The album concludes with an instrumental - atypical for Queen - ambient piece over 22 minutes long , which is not listed in the booklet. As has been customary since the album The Miracle , the names of the authors of the tracks published here for the first time are 'Queen'; only Mother Love mentions individual band members with Brian May and co-author Mercury. The album does not contain the song Lost Opportunity , sung by May , which, according to the official Queen fan club, was recorded like the three above-mentioned tracks in 1991 and was included on the single I'm Going Slightly Mad just a few weeks later .

Named is Made in Heaven after the same, re-recorded piece of Freddie Mercury in 1985 erschienenem first solo album Mr. Bad Guy , shall bear which originally also had this title. The three remaining Queen musicians dedicated the album to their late singer: Dedicated to the immortal spirit of Freddie Mercury .

The album cover shows a picture taken on a winter day after sunset, in which the view from Montreux is directed to Lake Geneva and the snow-covered mountains that lie behind it. In the foreground is a sculpture created by Irena Sedlecka , which shows Freddie Mercury in a typical, now often copied pose during a live performance, the larger version of which has been standing on the banks of the lake in Montreux since 1996. A variant of the image photographed during sunrise is shown on the CD imprint and on the cover of the LP edition. The concept for the cover design comes from Queen and Richard Gray, who is also responsible for the graphic implementation and photography.

Made in Heaven is one of Queen's most commercially successful studio albums. The album reached first place in the respective charts next to Great Britain a. a. in Germany , Italy , the Netherlands , Austria , Switzerland and Spain . In addition to these countries, the album achieved at least simple platinum status in numerous other countries , such as Argentina , Australia , Belgium , Denmark , France , Hong Kong , Japan , Canada , New Zealand , Portugal , South Africa , South Korea and the Czech Republic . In the USA, the relative sales figures, as with all of the band's studio albums in the previous decade, were comparatively lower, but sufficient to earn the gold award.

Queen broke new ground in the visual implementation of her pieces. In collaboration with the British Film Institute (BFI), they enabled young directors to make short films based on pieces from Made in Heaven . These were first published in VHS (1996) and later in DVD format (2003) under the title Made in Heaven - The Films . Additional, conventional video clips come from Rudi Dolezal and Hannes Rossacher for the singles A Winter's Tale and Too Much Love Will Kill You and from David Mallet for the first single Heaven for Everyone . Mallet's video contains excerpts from three films by Georges Méliès : L'éclipse du soleil en pleine lune (1907), Le voyage à travers l'impossible (1904) and Le voyage dans la lune (1902). The short film shot by Mark Szaszy for the BFI project became the official video clip for the single You Don't Fool Me .

Track list

1. It's a Beautiful Day (Queen) - 2:32
2. Made in Heaven (Mercury) - 5:25
3. Let Me Live (Queen) - 4:45
4. Mother Love (May, Mercury) - 4:49
5. My Life Has Been Saved (Queen) - 3:15
6. I Was Born to Love You (Mercury) - 4:49
7. Heaven for Everyone (Taylor) - 5:36
8. Too Much Love Will Kill You (May, Frank Musker, Elizabeth Lamers) - 4:20
9. You Don't Fool Me (Queen) - 5:24
10. A Winter's Tale (Queen) - 3:49
11. It's a Beautiful Day (Reprise) (Queen) - 3:01
12. Yeah (Hidden Track) - 0:04
13. [Untitled Hidden Track] - 22:32

The so-called “Yeah” is de facto the a cappella ending of It's a Beautiful Day (recapitulation) , but forms its own title on CD. The last instrumental piece, generally referred to as “Track 13”, which is musically linked to the previous title, is also not listed in the album's booklet. "Track 13" is not included on LP and cassette .

The lead vocals in Let Me Live are shared by Mercury, May and Taylor; additional backing vocals are provided by Rebecca Leigh-White, Gary Martin, Catherine Porter and Miriam Stockley . The main vocals in Mother Love are from Mercury and May.

All pieces were arranged and produced by Queen; The album was co-produced and recorded by David Richards , Justin Shirley-Smith and Joshua J. Macrae . David Richards was responsible for the mix. Additional material (especially Mercury's vocals) was partially recorded by Mack in the 1980s.

Recording times of the lead vocals

Roger Taylor, John Deacon and Brian May completed the pieces that were written in the months before Freddie Mercury's death from around 1993 to 1995. Above all, however, they re-recorded the other pieces, some of which had already been published in different versions. Freddie Mercury's lead vocals are from the following years:

• 1991: Mother Love
• 1991: A Winter's Tale
• 1991: You Don't Fool Me

• 1988/89: My Life Has Been Saved ( The Miracle Sessions; Single Scandal , 1989)
• 1988/89: Too Much Love Will Kill You ( The Miracle Sessions; Demo)

• 1987: Heaven for Everyone (album Shove It by The Cross , a solo project by Roger Taylor, 1988)

• 1984: Made in Heaven
• 1984: I Was Born to Love You (both from Freddie Mercury's album Mr. Bad Guy , 1985)

• 1983: Let Me Live (demo from the sessions for the album The Works )

• 1980: It's a Beautiful Day (demo from the sessions for the album The Game )

Details on individual pieces

Made in Heaven

Made in Heaven was originally recorded for Freddie Mercury's solo album Mr. Bad Guy . After his death, the band re-recorded the song, putting Mercury's original vocals on top of the newly recorded music.

It's a Beautiful Day / Reprise

The supposedly last track on the album, It's a Beautiful Day (Reprise) , contains a. Samples from Seven Seas of Rhye , the closing song of the second Queen album , released in 1974 . A third version of It's a Beautiful Day was only released on some editions of the single Heaven for Everyone : It essentially combines the elements of the two album versions, but sets striking new accents in some details; The aforementioned samples are also missing in this hybrid version . The original version of this song was recorded in 1980 as part of the recording for the album The Game .

In 2005 Ross Robertson and DJ Koma released an unofficial remix of It's a Beautiful Day on the Internet, which the band discovered for themselves and used that same year as an intro at their concerts on the “ Queen + Paul Rodgers ” tour.

Let me live

This is the only Queen song where all three of the band's singers - Mercury, Taylor and May - share lead vocals.

Another Piece of My Heart , the demo version of this piece, from which Mercury's vocals used on the album comes, was recorded in 1983 in Los Angeles by Queen together with Rod Stewart .

Heaven for Everyone

Around 1986 Queen had recorded a demo of Heaven for Everyone for the Highlander soundtrack (or A Kind of Magic ). A year later Freddie Mercury sang the title for the first album by Roger Taylor's band The Cross ( Shove It , 1988); On the single release at that time, however, the lead vocals come from Roger Taylor. Live interpretations of this song were only available from The Cross. In 1988 Virgin Rec. Released a 12-inch single from The Cross with both the vocal versions of Freddie Mercury and Roger Taylor's.

Too Much Love Will Kill You

A first Queen version of this piece (with Freddie Mercury's vocals to be heard on Made in Heaven ) was created in 1988/89 as part of the recording sessions for the album The Miracle ; the title was not completed or published at the time. Too Much Love Will Kill You was performed for the first time - sung by Brian May - at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992 (also released on VHS and DVD) . In the same year May released his own version of the piece as a pre-release single from his album Back to the Light . It was his most successful solo single at number 5 in the UK and number 1 in the Netherlands.

The Queen version contained on Made in Heaven and re-recorded by the remaining band members received the British Ivor Novello Award in 1997 in the category “Best Song Musically and Lyrically”.

Too Much Love Will Kill You was played live by Queen (May / Taylor) two more times: in 2003 in Modena with Luciano Pavarotti and in 2005 with Katie Melua at Nelson Mandela's 46664 AIDS benefit concert in Fancourt, South Africa (in the same year appeared on Melua's double DVD On the Road Again ).

Single releases

• Heaven for Everyone (1995, single version) - Charts: Great Britain # 2, Netherlands # 3, Austria # 4, Finland # 5, Switzerland # 9, Australia # 15, Germany # 15
• A Winter's Tale (1995) - Charts: Great Britain # 6, Austria # 23, Netherlands # 25, Switzerland # 28, Germany # 62
• Let Me Live (1996) - Charts: Great Britain # 9, Netherlands # 36, Germany # 67
• I Was Born to Love You (1996: only released in Japan) - Charts: Japan # 45
• Too Much Love Will Kill You (1996) - Charts: UK # 15
• You Don't Fool Me (1996, various single edits) - Charts: Great Britain # 17, Netherlands # 21, Austria # 23, Germany # 26, Switzerland # 27

Reception in the media

Entertainment Weekly (USA), November 10, 1995, by Jim Farber: “This last track, a 22-minute wash of celestial ahhs and twinkle, presents what could be rock's first-ever depiction of the afterlife , with heaven presented as some flouncy Hollywood epic. It's the perfect theatrical epitaph for a life dedicated to gorgeous artifice. "

New Musical Express (Great Britain), November 18, 1995, by Stuart Bailie: “'Made In Heaven' is vulgar, creepy, sickly and in dubious taste. Freddie would have loved it. "

Die Welt (Germany), November 18, 1995, by Andreas Odenwald: “[…] it is rather uncomfortable when […] with powerful cadences and melancholy lines of verse, knowledge of the once real tragedy is required. [...] If we have to sing about dying - then please only from those who do not have their own death in mind. "

Q (Great Britain), December 1995, by David Sinclair: “[…] Made In Heaven is probably a better album than Innuendo and a fitting swan song by one of the most incandescent groups in rock. Made In Heaven is also the last musical will and testament of a star who was never going to be turned into a saint, but whose grandstanding performances were, right to the very end, always marked by reckless enthusiasm and a rare generosity of spirit. "

Rolling Stone (USA), December 28, 1995: “The heavy elegy in the air there is suffocating, making much of this posthumous project […] a strange, often discomfiting listening experience. Made in Heaven is composed almost entirely of ballads and midtempo melodrama loaded with double meanings […] and implicit drama. [...] But as a memorial to the breadth and bang of what Mercury really delivered in his prime [...] Made in Heaven falls short, too fraught with its own poignancy. "

Rock Hard (Germany), January 1996, by Frank Trojan: “Queen at their best […]. 'Made In Heaven' is undoubtedly one of the absolute highlights of the band's career as this album represents the diverse strengths of Queen. [...] 'Made In Heaven' pulls out all the stops of timeless pop music. "

Vox (Great Britain), January 1996, by Ian Fortnam: “This, without doubt, is Queen at their very best. […] Queen have surpassed all expectations with 'Made In Heaven'. This album will break your heart, shake your soul and, at the right volume, undermine the foundations of your house. "

Alternative song versions

Original version:

• My Life Has Been Saved (1989, Scandal single b-side )

Single versions:

• Heaven for Everyone (1995; included on the 1999 album Greatest Hits III )
• It's a Beautiful Day - A kind of hybrid version of the two album versions was included on some issues of the single Heaven for Everyone in 1995 .
• Too Much Love Will Kill You (1996, Promo-Edit)
• You Don't Fool Me (1996, various edits)

Remixes:

• You Don't Fool Me - More than a dozen official remixes were released in 1996, including a. by David Richards , co-producer of the album, and Jam & Spoon .
• It's a Beautiful Day - An originally unofficial remix by Ross Robertson and DJ Koma (2005) was used as the intro at the Queen + Paul Rodgers concerts along with Eminem's song Lose Yourself .

'Queen' live interpretations of Too Much Love Will Kill You (see above ) and I Was Born to Love You (Japan concerts by 'Queen + Paul Rodgers', 2005).

There are various solo versions of Made in Heaven , I Was Born to Love You ( Freddie Mercury ), Heaven for Everyone ( The Cross ) and Too Much Love Will Kill You ( Brian May ).

Chart placements

The album Made in Heaven achieved the following positions in the charts :

• # 1 - Denmark (2 × platinum ) , Germany (2 × platinum) , Finland (platinum) , Great Britain (4 × platinum) , Italy (6 × platinum) , Netherlands (2 × platinum) , Poland ( gold ) , Portugal ( 3 × platinum) , Austria (2 × platinum) , Sweden, Switzerland (3 × platinum) , Spain (2 × platinum) .
• # 2 - France (2 × platinum) , Norway (gold) .
• # 10 - Japan (platinum) .
• # 58 - USA (gold) .
• #? - Argentina (platinum) , Australia (platinum) , Belgium (platinum) , Hong Kong (platinum) , Canada (platinum) , New Zealand (3 × platinum) , Singapore (gold) , South Africa (platinum) , South Korea (platinum) , Czech Republic ( 2 × platinum) .

See also

• List of the best-selling music albums certified by BVMI in Germany

literature

• Uwe Böhm, Gerd Buschmann: Pop music - religion - teaching. Models and materials for didactics of popular culture . (Symbol - Myth - Media Vol. 5). Münster 2002, pp. 233-237.

Web links

• Floss FM: It's a Beautiful Day - Remix by Ross Robertson and DJ Koma (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Also Mark Blake: Cash for Questions - Brian May. Answered in Brian's living room, Windlesham, Surrey on April 29, 98 . In: Q , July 1998. (See brianmay.com )
2. ↑ John S Stuart: Ultimate Collection: 1995 ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The  archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , September 9, 2005, in: Queenzone.com.
3. ↑ Jim Farber: Last Dance. Freddie Mercury's final album with Queen. In: Entertainment Weekly , November 10, 1995.
4. ↑ Stuart Bailie: Aaarrgh! Freddie's Back! In: New Musical Express , November 18, 1995, p. 49.
5. ↑ Andreas Odenwald: Desperate cry for life. Freddie Mercury died four years ago - now a new album is out. In: Die Welt , November 18, 1995.
6. ^ David Sinclair: Optimistic. Sometimes sickly, sometimes dark: Queen from beyond the grave. In: Q , December 1995, pp. 144f.
7. ^ Rolling Stone (USA), December 28, 1995, p. 116.
8. ↑ Frank Trojan: Almost exactly four years to the day after the death of lead singer Freddie Mercury, Queen released their definitive farewell album. In: Rock Hard , January 1996, p. 95.
9. ↑ Ian Fortnam: Heaven's great! In: Vox , January 1996, p. 122.