Ever since a viral isolated vocal track of Diamond David Lee Roth singing "Runnin' with the Devil" made the rounds a few months back--embedded in the YouTube clip, above--I have been wondering if there were any real bootleg recordings of Queen Freddie Mercury's isolated vocal tracks.

Let me explain that qualifying "real" for bootlegs. There have been several fake Queen demo recordings sold over the years.. Queen has a few songs that have stereo-specific mixes, such that if you turn the balance to the right or left channel, you could get an vocal heavy mix. I have been suckered into buying a few of these at Generation Records in the West Village. This was the pre-Internet age, mind you, when one could be alerted to fake bootlegs in a matter of seconds (some details here; scroll down). I am sure Generation still sells them.

Well, it seems someone got a hold of the multitrack recordings of Queen recordings and are posting them on YouTube. God I love my life. Let's link a few here. Now, a caveat, dear Googler: I am certain these clips will be taken down or disabled, probably sooner rather than later, by Queen Productions or Queen's lawyers. But they're worth putting up here.

The first one I listened to is "Stone Cold Crazy" from Sheer Heart Attack. The embedding is disabled for that track, see it here.


Wow. This is "Brighton Rock," the guitar set piece for Brian May's mastery. But here's Freddie's double-tracked lead, along with some backing vocals on the chorus (starts around 0:43). His voice is almost too pure in those early years, but notice how Freddie swoops down from falsetto to baritone in the "magic in the air" passage. And by all means, if you don't know this song, do listen to it; the chunga-chunga-chunga template for all of punk/hardcore is laid down here, four years before punk broke.


Ah, 1973's "Killer Queen" the breakthrough hit from Sheer Heart Attack. And synced with the lip-sync appearance on TV. It's possible this is, as a commenter says, a center channel from Greatest Video Hits DVD's 5.1 mix. "Center is all vocals," he writes. I don't believe in 5.1 mixes--it's artificial, and you have to blast the volume to get the full effect, and I shouldn't have to blast my music at all times--but this might be one of them thar fake boots.


Here's "Love of My Life" from A Night At The Opera. You can tell this is a Freddie's vocal bootleg because of the reverb, along with the inclusion of just a few of the multitrack backing. Yes, there's more on the original.


"Get Down, Make Love," another Brian May set piece from News Of The World. This reminds me that the folks over at Queenzone.com, who first alerted me to all these isolated vocal track recordings, is that the person who has recordings is posting these up as a kind of advertisement. He wants to trade these recordings for other things. I don't know what his "wants" are, but I'd be curious to know.

Another random observation: Maybe this person is posting up Brian May set pieces because the vocal tracks aren't the plum ones he has. For example, there is a clip on YouTube that claims to be "Bohemian Rhapsody" a capella, but it's just a couple of shmucks singing.



Here's "Play The Game" from 1980's The Game. So I'm 12 years old and I am listening to those s-sounds--I had no name for what would become a lisp--and feel strange about what I was listening to.


A partial recording of "Calling All Girls," one of my fave tracks from 1982's vastly underrated Hot Space.

Labels: God Save My Queen, Queenspotting