| Mr.QueenFan 19.09.2014 16:02 |
I just posted this on Queenonline, but i'm posting it here as well, because i think it's important that every fan who isn't happy with the new mix of TMBMTLTT to use Facebook and twitter, and let them know that, in a repectful way. Maybe there's time for them to fix it for the release. Here's my post at Queenonline. It's also valid for Queenzone: ------------------------------------ "OK, so i've been listening to this new duet with Michael Jackson, and the more i listen to it, the more i'm starting to dislike this new version of this song. I'm opening this thread so we can all, in a respectful manner, realy say what we think about this William Orbit mix. It's obvious now - after the excitement of listening to a new Queen with Freddie song - that something is not right with the mix presented on the radio show. It sounds like a demo tape and as many people are starting to point out, Freddie's voice and Michael's voice are not balanced, and in this case Freddie's voice is really low in the mix. Acording to some posters here, many people are already starting to complain on William Orbit FB page, and i'm sure on other social media (I don't tweet or use FB). I think there's a reason why they showed the fans the three songs (smart move), and they really want to hear what the fans REALLY think about the songs. Before i give my opinion about this mix, let me point out a few things that other's here also noticed during the radio show. Both Brian and Roger weren't happy about this mix neither. Here's what they've said: Chris Evans asked Roger what he was listening for, and Roger answered: "I was listening for the balance between Freddie's vocal and Michael's vocal and I'd've had them a bit louder" And when he asked Brian the same thing, he answered: "I was listening for similar things and that slightly bothered me as well", pointing it out that this was the first time he'd listening to the song outside the studio. Simply put, they cannot release this version of this song. They will regret it in the future. My opinion about this song is: It has many problems from a musical point of view, and this is just my view of this mix: - The piano is turned down in the mix. Why? William orbit says in the press release that the piano carries most of the song's DNA, but in this case that is not true. We almost can't hear it. I don't understand this, since this is primarly a piano based song, and the piano is the instrument strongly associated with Queen. It's such a gift to listen to Freddie singing while playing the piano, that i don't understand why would someone turn down the volume on such beautiful instrument; - The drums don't sound good. This isn't the Roger Taylor big sound; - Freddie's vocals are turned down in the mix throught the song, but it really get serious after the guitar solo. The first time i've listened to this song this morning i haven't even noticed that BOTH Freddie and Micheal were singing at the same time after Brian's solo. We can only hear Micheal Jackson. This is simply ridiculous! - When Micheal Jackson starts to sing on this song, he's late! It's a thing of miliseconds but he is late! Of course Michael Jackson has nothing to do with it, because as Brian stated this was all put together from various sources. And thruth be said, the King of Rythm would never miss a beat in the studio - or allowed such thing to be heard by the fans; - There's a big, wonderful, wall of sound building up when Freddie is singing, reaching it's peak when Freddie start's to sing "Why is this world so full of hate" until "we just go on saying cest la vie". Then, it stops! It's like a new song starts when MJ starts to sing. Only the acoustic guitar and strings are audible in the mix. In fact for the first lines of MJ singing there's only an acoustic guitar and strings. The piano starts some beats later and the electric guitar is non-existent. This doesn't make much sense, because when MJ is singing you can hardly tell that is Queen backing him up. There's no trademarks of Brian or Roger over his voice. This is a bad decision because MJ's voice CAN handle an electric guitar, specially if it's clean like in the begining of the song backing Freddie's vocals. There's no need to strip down the song completely; The reason i'm writing all this is because i really believe that if they release this as it is, it will be the biggest mistake they'll ever make, and they will regret it. It's obvious that they are more happy with their own mix of the song, so i think we should push that version to be released. Or at least, let the fans year both mixes, and let the fans decide. Before the song went on air this morning, Roger said about their mix: ""we're not gonna hear it, saddly", Brian says "not at the moment". Clearly, they're not happy with william orbit mix. So why are they releasing it? Some people are starting to question whether MJ estate has something to do with it, if they'd only aproved of this mix. They don't know anything about music - considering the first posthumus MJ album - and they shouldn't be allowed to make such decisions on a Queen record. If that is the case, it's really disrespecting to Queen's legacy. This is not about Michael Jackson, or Freddie Mercury or Queen, It's about music and doing what is right for the song. And clearly, this isn't it! We, as fans have to speak loud what we think about this, because if MJ estate don't want to reconsider, and as sad as it would made me feel, just leave MJ out of the equation. Guive the Queen fans the Freddie only vocals version. It's sad, but i'll take that over a bad version of an extraordinary duet that was meant to be thirty years ago. I don't know who William Orbit is, and i don't get impressed if he is the producer of the stars, because nowadays, most so called stars produce shit music anyways. And i'm not impressed - quite the contrary - with is work on a Queen track. Queen fans around the world spotted everything i've said above after the first listening. Fans who listen to Queen with Freddie almost everyday. That is passion, and those fans - me included - are not willing to accept that the new Queen sound will be made to acomodate the tastes of the masses who were dumbed down over the years, and for whom facebook and twitter is more important than their artists music. Leave Freddie Mercury and Queen legacy out of that silly game. We're talking about real musicians here. Musicians with passion. So, instead of people bitching only on the Queenonline forum, this is an oportunity to let Queen management and Brian May, and even William Orbit, know what we really think about this mix. It has to be fixed! Be respectful, but show that you are not pleased with this - if that is your opinion! I think that, if there's time, they will reconsider this. And to the moderators of this forum: Maybe you can link someone of QP to this post - or make them knowing what many people think about this subject. Thanks for reading this long post." |
| bootLuca 19.09.2014 17:08 |
Great post! maybe you could write a mail to Brian from his website... |
| Penetration_Guru 19.09.2014 17:30 |
Oh dear God....the power of Facebook to enable people to go "Waaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh"....... Wars were fought to give you freedom of speech and this is the best use of it you can come up with? Don't like it? Don't buy it! Criticising the choices made I can understand, but expecting change as a result displays a level of naivete that should be at least illegal. |
| Penetration_Guru 19.09.2014 17:31 |
ps, I'll write something completely different, but equally disparaging, on QOL when I can be bothered to re-engage my contempt of you |
| musicland munich 19.09.2014 17:43 |
There was a quote / post by Mr. Orbit a few month ago...somewhat like that he's riding in his car and is listening to two great "voices" he's working on ...two options here...a) he was talking about a different project.... or b) that was before he put his hands on the stuff. |
| Supersonic_Man89 19.09.2014 18:07 |
It sounds like he uses Freddies take from the original sessions rather than his solo session, which is nice in a way, but Freddie delivered the song much better a couple of years later, with a lot more power, it was less soft and actually suited the song a lot better. |
| EDWOOD 19.09.2014 19:47 |
Good post Mrqueenfan I agree mainly with you. I didn't really like this mix much at all. The other two songs are great in my opinion but this mix has took all the good stuff out of the track and made it worse! At the moment I'm thinking Brian and Roger have made a mistake getting William Orbit involved in this because his 'world-class' production skills are lacking here. Either they decide to go with their own mix or we may get to hear the original mix sometime later on. I find it baffling that we only end up with the one MJ track when they mentioned there were 3 or even 4(!) at one point! I'm sure the MJ estate has been involved in this and hence the delay - this album has been in the planning stages since 2011 and it looks like they have probably seized the rights to release the other 2 or 3 tracks on ANOTHER MJ release probably in the next couple of years. How many posthumous releases have come out since 2009 and MJ's death?! At least with Queen i can respect them in that they did leave a decent amount of time between Freddie's passing and the release of MIH - 4 years. |
| Chief Mouse 20.09.2014 01:43 |
I agree with you, MrQueenFan. |
| Day dop 20.09.2014 02:05 |
Totally agree with everything Mr.QueenFan has wrote above. Complain here? William Orbits page > link |
| darcy-wright 20.09.2014 03:43 |
done and done. it wasnt even a fantastic song to begin with |
| MercurialFreddie 20.09.2014 04:16 |
Yes, it is good or great (for me), but if someone gave you a studio, all FM's vocal takes from this song (both the Works rec. sessions and Mr. Bad Guy rec. sessions) and the deadline three years ahead of the moment you start working on it, then you could show up with something fantastic, couldn't you ? One thing is clear for me - if there are TWO FINAL MIXES (Orbit's and Brian's) than something in this project and their cooperation went terribly wrong. |
| emrabt 20.09.2014 06:29 |
You know what, i don't think they had Freddie's Multitracks, I've had another listen and I'm convinced they had to filter the vocals from the official release, like a youtube mash up, that's why it's so quiet and processed. |
| brians wig 20.09.2014 07:22 |
Fully agree. Freddie's voice is too low in the mix on all three tracks in my opinion. I've done my own tinkering and brought it up and everyone who's heard them so far say they sound much better for it. |
| dave76 20.09.2014 08:20 |
Well said. I remember 3 years ago there was a complaint about the bonus content on the The Miracle 2011 deluxe edition bonus EP. Fans were not satisfied with what was on it and it started raining complaints. Shortly after that a Roger Taylor "Invisible Man" demo was added. Fans have the right to say what they want and most of the time they are right. It's something that Queen productions must not ignore. I must say that i love "Let Me In Your Heart Again". It's such a beautiful song. |
| emrabt 20.09.2014 08:37 |
[quote]I've done my own tinkering and brought it up and everyone who's heard them so far say they sound much better for it.[/quote] What did you do to it? I tried fiddling with the center channel but increasing it that way just showed how processed and low quality Freddies vocals are |
| Day dop 20.09.2014 08:58 |
If only Freddie's vocals was the only issue with the new TTBMTLTT mix. In fact, it's hard to think what's right about it! |
| emrabt 20.09.2014 09:05 |
[quote]it's hard to think what's right about it![/quote] They spelled Freddies name right on the packing! |
| LucasDiego 20.09.2014 09:25 |
Really sad for this version release, for the genious history of michael and freddie, this is a scandal for them legacy! |
| jamiedavis 20.09.2014 11:31 |
There must be more to life - I recall hearing the leaked version on you tube and whilst it was low quality, I'm sure it had MJ vocals from the beginning. like they had a take of him doing all of it. the song would have worked so much better with FM and MJ taking alternate lines or both of them at the same time on some lines. like er.... a duet? the Orbit mix is just Fred for the first bit and the MJ. can't even hear Fred on the section after the solo. I was SO Dissapointed with it. I've been looking forward to this track for years! |
| jrd1951 21.09.2014 01:55 |
Hello,,great post,nice to see a genuine archetypal fan on here! I didn't like it either,it just seems obviously thrown together.Freddie's original is much better.But I love the second track 'Let me in' ! |
| MrFunster 21.09.2014 13:15 |
link Please read the critics, brian and roger have to change this version. I dont listen to this song anymore. Not respectful to freddie and the balance is awful. |
| MercurialFreddie 23.09.2014 14:22 |
While the mix is bad (it is sth that can be fixed) I've listened to it on headphones (Flac file of whole Chris Evans show shared by Inu - thanks again !) and it grew up on me... But hey, it cannot beat the original 1985 Mr. Bad Guy version. |