"To tie in with the release of Milton Keynes the Queenonline website will make available for download the band's TOP 100 bootlegs at the rate of one or two a month over a two year period at a fraction of their current market price! Digital artwork will be available also."
This is news that has bypassed my cynicism. If it comes off it will be fantastic.
And given that most bootlegs are either Knebworth, Mannheim or Hammermsith anyway, it should be a pretty impressive selection.
My cynicism just returned....IF they go through with it, and don't give up after 3 months, and keep the costs reasonable.
It would be helpful if you could let us know where this latest piece of wind-uppery comes from PG, so we know where to accurately direct our sneering, disgust and general disbelievingness.
It's not the fan-club mag is it?
I've done a bit of checking...
Queencollector.com will try and sell you 139 different concerts, and Mr Scully lists 254 that he has (the last time he updated that bit.
So 100 would be a significant proportion of that. Wouldn't it be good if the artwork was relevant to the specific show too - Brian must have a decent collection of posters, tickets etc.
Having said that, I'm not going to complain at generic artwork...
What do we think would be a likely price for these? I have my own ideas about QOL's pricing policies as some will know, but I'm curious for the views of others.
Or, if you like, we can have five threads about which series of Big Brother Freddie would have preferred....
Again, where's this news from? Or has Jacky sworn you all to secrecy until such a time as everyone's received their magazine.
If the info is even slightly credible, it's definitely worth getting more excited about than the boxsets.
The maths is a bit out though; if 100 bootlegs are to be released over a 2 year period, the rate of release will need to be 4 albums a month. For some reason I can't see QP releasing a live album a week, for 2 solid years.
Has there been any other band that released a slate of live shows for less then $20 a show?
Again, assuming that one of the 100 bootlegs that PG is referring to is not the BBC Hot Space sessions. I tread carefully around the Guru.
What is the "current market price" of a bootleg? And what about quality? A bootleg is per definition an unofficial recording, so what are the top 100 illegal Queen live recordings? I am looking forward to more information.
But then, I am still waiting for the next DVD Audio....
I wonder if they actually mean that they're going to sell bootlegs that are already on the market.... Or if they're going to sell stuff from the live-archives, which is deemed to be not commercial enough to be properly released on cd.
Metallica is selling soundboard live recordings for $10 (MP3 format). Queenonline must go below this price otherwise it makes no sense. Especially when we're speaking about bootlegs - mostly amateur recordings.
I still don't believe this whole story and I'm not interested anyway. BUT IF they did the same thing like Metallica and released (even in MP3 format) 100 concerts in soudboard quality, now THAT would be something...
(I have to add that the Metallica soundboard gigs without any remastering sound unfortunately quite awful).
Pearl Jam & The Grateful Dead have done something similar haven't they?
And I wouldn't be surprised if Marillion hadn't done something too, given how innovative they appear to be in actually funding themselves via their fan club.