QUEEN II

Queen’s majestic second album, Queen II (1974), remixed, remastered and expanded in a lavish 5CD+2LP box Queen II Collector’s Edition

For Release March 27th

Also released as 2xCD Deluxe Edition, Vinyl LP, Vinyl Picture Disc LP, 1xCD and cassette formats, all featuring brand new 2026 mix

Pre-Order Queen II: https://Queen.lnk.to/QueenII2026Mix

 

“My God, we were such impatient boys” – Freddie Mercury

“Queen II was a vital step in the long journey to the explosion of marvellousness we eventually became” – Roger Taylor

“We had the desire to create something extraordinary. And we did” – Brian May

Over half a century after it set them on the path to superstardom, Queen’s regal second album, Queen II, has been remixed, remastered and expanded for a lavish new box set.

Arguably the heaviest Queen album, Queen II was originally released in 1974 and widely heralded as their first true masterpiece. With Brian May and Roger Taylor as executive producers, the album has been stunningly mixed by the team of Justin Shirley-Smith, Joshua J Macrae and Kris Fredriksson.

The 5CD+2LP Queen II Collector’s Edition box set features the 2026 mix of the album, plus intimate fly-on-the-wall audio of Queen in the recording studio, previously unheard outtakes and demos, live tracks and radio sessions.

The Queen II Collector’s Edition box set also comes with a 112-page book featuring previously unseen photographs, handwritten lyrics, diary entries, and special memorabilia, as well as memories of writing and recording the album from the band members.

“Queen II was the single biggest leap we ever made,” says Brian May. “That’s when we really started making music the way we wanted to, rather than the way we were being pushed into recording it.”

“With Queen II, I couldn’t believe how much work we put into it,” adds Roger Taylor. “I think we felt we were evolving our own sound. We were pioneering this sort of multitracking thing. It gave you a tremendous pallet, massive choral effects with just three of us singing.”

Queen II has been hailed as the band’s crowning glory by many fans over the years, among them legendary Guns N’ Roses singer Axl Rose, who said of the album: “With Queen, I have my favourite: Queen II. Whenever their newest record would come out and have all these other kinds of music on it, at first I’d only like this song or that song. But after a period of time listening to it, it would open my mind up to so many different styles. That’s something I’ve always wanted to be able to achieve.”

The task of remixing Queen II for this new edition was in the hands of the trusted team of Justin Shirley-Smith, Joshua J Macrae and Kris Fredriksson, who worked on the Queen I reissue as well as several other past releases from the band, with Brian May and Roger Taylor acting as executive producers.

“The idea was to reveal more of the clarity of the songs,” says Justin Shirley-Smith of their approach. “Rather than add anything, we wanted to reveal more of what was there and get that desired sound.”

“The lengths the band went to achieve what they achieved with the technology they had at the time was incredible,” says Joshua J Macrae. “Some of it is so ahead of its time. Working on this was like entering a room of fabulousness.”

Queen’s self-titled 1973 debut album had established the band as one of the boldest and most unique new voices in music. Even a troubled recording process, which resulted in a sound the band were unhappy with (subsequently rectified on the 2024 reissue), couldn’t mask the brilliance of the songs, nor the ambition of the band behind them.

For the follow-up, recorded once again at Soho’s Trident Studios with Queen I co-producer Roy Thomas Baker, Queen seized control of their own destiny. They were already incredibly well-drilled before they began, with Father To Son and Ogre Battle having featured in the live shows as far back as September 1973. The result was an album that didn’t so much tear up the blueprint as redraw it on a grand scale.

“I wanted to give it everything – to be self-indulgent,” said Freddie Mercury at the time. “But the whole band in particular, we don’t go in for half-measures and I’m pretty hard with myself. There are no compromises.”

Originally released in the UK on March 8, 1974, Queen II still sounds extraordinary today. Bold, brave and madly ambitious, it’s the work of a band whose self-belief, vision and ability were unmatched. Its songs range from the intricate and complex to the raw and heavy, with vocals stacked to near-operatic levels and Brian May’s fabled ‘guitar orchestra’ giving the band a sound like no other.

Like the iconic Mick Rock photo that stares out from the cover – revisited by the band themselves nearly two years later in the groundbreaking promo video for Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen II is an album of shadow and light.

Rather than the traditional sides one and two, in characteristically flamboyant Queen fashion the album is divided into Side White and Side Black. The former is dominated by Brian May’s songs, including soaring rocker “Father To Son” and the ethereal, celestial “White Queen (As It Began)”, with Roger Taylor’s raucous but bittersweet “The Loser In The End” capping off the white side.

Side Black is given over to Mercury’s complex musical excursions, from the roaring “Ogre Battle” and the filigreed finery of “The Fairy Feller’s Masterstroke” (inspired by a 19th century painting by maverick artist Richard Dadd) to the quasi-mythical fanfare of “Seven Seas Of Rhye”, which gave the band their very first UK hit single. The centrepiece of Side Black was “The March Of The Black Queen”, a multi-part mini-epic that, like much of Queen II, pointed towards Queen’s glorious future.

“The March Of The Black Queen was definitely a forerunner of Bohemian Rhapsody,” says Brian May. “Freddie’s mind was just working on a different level, even at that point. Father To Son, The Fairy Feller’s Masterstroke – you can hear the seeds of what was to come in those songs.”

Even beyond the brand new 2026 mix, the Queen II Collector’s Edition reframes the album on a much bigger canvas.

CD2: Queen II – Sessions is a treasure trove for Queen fans, presenting a completely different and 100% previously unreleased version of every song from the album in the form of outtakes from the original Trident sessions, complete with false starts, guide vocals, the odd mistake, and some fabulous studio banter between the four band members.

Individually and taken together, the Sessions CD presents an alternative tracklisting that shows how this most grandiose of albums took shape. Some songs, such as Father To Sun and Some Day One Day, feature guide vocals and musical sections that are subtly different to the finished tracks, while others, such as The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke and The March Of The Black Queen, find the foursome striving to perfect the music they‘d written.

“Those outtakes show how dedicated the band were, and how precise they were,” says Joshua J Macrae, who, together with Justin Shirley-Smith and Kris Fredriksson, sifted through dozens of hours of recordings to find the right takes to include.

Most intriguingly, the Sessions CD also includes early versions of two songs: a solo Brian May version of “As It Began”, aka “White Queen”, dating from 1969, plus two solo demo versions of Roger Taylor’s “Loser In The End” which show the song’s evolution towards its final incarnation.

“The demos really show you what Brian and Roger were doing with the songs before the rest of the band got involved with them,” says Justin Shirley-Smith. “It’s a really fascinating insight into their creative processes.”

Not only do these revelatory tracks lift the lid on the band’s creative process at the time, but the snippets of conversation and studio banter at the beginning and end of these tracks adds a fascinating new dimension not just to Queen II but to the band themselves. “This pop star lark is too much for me,” mock-sighs Freddie Mercury at one point. “I should go back to doing blue movies.” It shows the real-life personal and artistic friendships at the heart of this legendary band.

“The fans loved the banter and interaction on the Queen I reissue, and I’d say it’s probably even better here,” says Kris Fredriksson. “You get to hear how they relate to each other, and it’s really fascinating to hear.”

The Sessions CD also features the lilting, evocative “Not For Sale (Polar Bear)”, a song the band worked on during the Queen II sessions but never completed. “We knew that song was there, and that there were different takes, but they had never decided on a master backing track that they would have built on,” says Kris Fredriksson. “We have technology now that we didn’t have even a few years ago that meant we could get the best out of what they played and what Freddie sang.”

CD3: Queen II – Backing Tracks complements both the album itself and the Sessions CD by offering mixes of the songs from the album without lead vocals, highlight the stellar musical performances of the band members.

“Their performances are absolutely stunning,” says Justin Shirley-Smith. “It’s the sound of a band in total command of everything they’re doing.”

CD4: Queen II – At The BBC brings together tracks from three separate sessions the band did for BBC Radio 1 DJs and early Queen supporters John Peel and Bob Harris in late 1973 and early 1974.

Two tracks, future b-side “See What A Fool I’ve Been” and a tantalising version of “Ogre Battle”, were recorded for Harris’ Sounds Of The Seventies programme and John Peel’s show respectively in September and December 1973, predating the release of Queen II by several months and showcasing the huge leap forward they’d made from their debut. Two more tracks, “Nevermore” and “White Queen (As It Began)”, were recorded for Harris in April 1974 and capture Queen in full flight for the BBC tapes.

The At The BBC CD is rounded out by the band’s set at the Golders Green Hippodrome on September 13, 1973, a full six months before Queen II was released. Once again, its eight tracks present a band who are ready on to seize the future.

The Collector’s Edition is completed by CD 5: Queen II Live, a showcase of the album’s songs from concerts at North London’s fabled Rainbow Theatre on March 31, 1974 and Hammersmith Odeon December 1975. Highlights include a blistering “Father To Son”, the furiously fantastical “The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke“ and the epic yin-yang of “White Queen (As It Began)” and “The March Of The Black Queen”, which show off every facet of the band’s distinctive personality.

“Our whole set is frantic, we come on, let rip, move around a lot then we’re off, leaving the crowds stunned and wondering what hit them,” said Brian May in 1974.

The incredible story of Queen II is further fleshed out by the 112 page book which is included in the Collector’s Edition. Shining a new light on both the album and the band that made it, it includes a host of previously unseen photographs of the band, including outtakes from Mick Rock’s legendary photo session for the Queen II cover. Queen devotees will be amazed to see Freddie Mercury, Brian May and Roger Taylor’s handwritten lyrics and musical notation for the songs on the album, as well as journal entries, letters to friends and supporters and a trove of memorabilia, including images of vintage adverts and gig posters, turning the Queen II Collector’s Edition into a multi-dimensional experience.

Fifty-two years after it was originally released, Queen II remains the first great of many great pinnacles of the band’s career, sending out a message to the world: “This is who we are, and this is what we can do.”

“We were charging down the road of voices and orchestrating and all of that was a dream come true,” says Brian May. “It had been in our heads for so long, and finally we were able to make it happen.”

“I don’t think the album sounds like anyone else,” says Roger Taylor. “We gained a mental identity, a group identity and we were just doing what we did.”

QUEEN II: Collector’s Edition 2026 Mix (5CD+2LP)

CD1: Queen II – 2026 Mix

1 Procession

2 Father To Son

3 White Queen (As It Began)

4 Some Day One Day

5 The Loser in the End

6 Ogre Battle

7 The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke

8 Nevermore

9 The March of the Black Queen

10 Funny How Love Is

11 Seven Seas Of Rhye

CD2: Queen II – Sessions

1 Procession (Stage Intro Tape – April 1973)

2 Father To Son (Takes 4 & 9 – with Guide Vocal)

3 As It Began (Brian’s Studio Demo – October 1969)

4 Some Day One Day (Take 1 – with Guide Vocals)

5 The Loser In The End (Roger’s First Demo)

6 The Loser In The End (Roger’s Second Demo)

7 Ogre Battle (Takes 2 & 6 – with Guide Vocal)

8 The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke (Takes 4 & 9)

9 Nevermore (Take 6)

10 The March Of The Black Queen (First Section Takes 3 & 5)

11 The March Of The Black Queen (Second Section Take 1)

12 Funny How Love Is (Take 4)

13 Seven Seas Of Rhye (Takes 4, 5 & 6)

14 I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside (Take 4)

15 See What A Fool I’ve Been (B-side Version 2026 Mix)

16 Not For Sale (Polar Bear)

CD3: Queen II – Backing Tracks

1 Procession

2 Father To Son

3 White Queen (As It Began)

4 Some Day One Day

5 The Loser in the End

6 Ogre Battle

7 The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke

8 Nevermore

9 The March of the Black Queen

10 Funny How Love Is

11 Seven Seas Of Rhye

CD4: Queen II – At The BBC

1 See What a Fool I’ve Been (BBC Session 2, July 1973 – 2011 Mix)

2 Ogre Battle (BBC Session 3, December 1973)

3 Nevermore (BBC Session 4, April 1974)

4 White Queen (As It Began) (BBC Session 4, April 1974)

5 Procession – Intro Tape (Live at Golders Green Hippodrome, 13th September 1973)

6 Father To Son (Live at Golders Green Hippodrome, 13th September 1973)

7 Son And Daughter (Live at Golders Green Hippodrome, 13th September 1973)

8 Guitar Solo (Live at Golders Green Hippodrome, 13th September 1973)

9 Son And Daughter – Reprise (Live at Golders Green Hippodrome, 13th September 1973)

10 Ogre Battle (Live at Golders Green Hippodrome, 13th September 1973)

11 Liar (Live at Golders Green Hippodrome, 13th September 1973)

12 Jailhouse Rock (Live at Golders Green Hippodrome, 13th September 1973)

 

CD5: Queen II – Live

1 Procession – Intro Tape (Live at the Rainbow, March 1974)

2 Father To Son (Live at the Rainbow, March 1974)

3 Ogre Battle (Live at the Rainbow, March 1974)

4 White Queen (As It Began) (Live at the Hammersmith Odeon, December 1975)

5 The March Of The Black Queen (Live at the Rainbow, March 1974)

6 The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke (Live at the Rainbow, March 1974)

7 Seven Seas Of Rhye (Live at the Rainbow, March 1974)

8 See What A Fool I’ve Been (Live at the Rainbow, March 1974)

LP1: Queen II – 2026 Mix (Side White)

1 Procession

2 Father To Son

3 White Queen (As It Began)

4 Some Day One Day

5 The Loser in the End

 

LP2: Queen II – 2026 Mix (Side Black)

1 Ogre Battle

2 The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke

3 Nevermore

4 The March of the Black Queen

5 Funny How Love Is

6 Seven Seas Of Rhye

Additional Formats:

2x CD: Queen II: Deluxe Edition

CD1: Queen II – 2026 Mix

CD2: Queen II – Sessions

1x CD: Queen II – 2026 Mix CD

1x LP Queen II – 2026 Mix

1x LP Queen II: Picture Disc – 2026 Mix

Queen Online Exclusive

1x Cassette: Queen II – 2026 Mix

Queen Online Exclusive

Also available in Download / Streaming / Atmos

Pre order here

original Q U E E N I I album credits

FREDDIE MERCURY – VOCALS, PIANO/HARPSICHORD BRIAN MAY – GUITARS, PIANO, VOCALS, BELLS JOHN DEACON – BASS GUITAR, ACOUSTIC GUITAR ROGER TAYLOR – PERCUSSION, VOCALS

PRODUCED BY ROY THOMAS BAKER AND QUEEN ADDITIONAL PRODUCTION BY ROBIN GEOFFREY CABLE AND QUEEN ENGINEERED BY MIKE STONE AT TRIDENT STUDIOS, LONDON PHOTOGRAPHY AND ART DIRECTION BY MICK ROCK
SLEEVE CONCEPT BY MICK ROCK AND QUEEN TYPOGRAPHY BY RIDGEWAY WATT
MANAGEMENT BY JACK NELSON

Virtuoso castanets by Roy Thomas Baker… and nobody played synthesizer…again

QUEEN II 2026 Collector’s Edition Credits

EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: BRIAN MAY AND ROGER TAYLOR

QUEEN MANAGEMENT: JIM BEACH AND MATILDA BEACH

CONTENT SUPERVISED BY –
KRIS FREDRIKSSON, JUSTIN SHIRLEY-SMITH AND GREG BROOKS

PROJECT MANAGED BY: EMMA DONOGHUE

 

 

QUEEN II

Brian May and Roger Taylor Talk Queen II

“This new stereo mix is quite adventurous — and, rendering the impossible complexity of these tracks, the new clarity is astounding. Because of the work of our sound team, this ancient work from when we were still just learning how to reach for the stars, opens up a new world to many who care about these arcane dreams as much as we do.

– Brian May.

“We all had our various influences, many of which are the same, and with our four personalities that’s what came out. Freddie was fairly dominant in his writing at this point. He was the one writing the very complicated stuff. It’s just the way his brain worked. He was on fire, really” – Roger Taylor.

“When Queen II came out a lot of people thought we’d forsaken rock music. They said ‘Why don’t you play things like Liar and Keep Yourself Alive?’ All we could say was, give it another listen, it’s there, but it’s all layered, it’s a new approach.
Nowadays people say, ‘Why don’t you play like Queen II?’
I like the album a lot. It’s not perfect, it has the imperfections and excesses of youth, but I think that was our biggest single step ever” – Brian May

“On Queen II, there’s a monumentally, long and complicated track called March of the Black Queen which involved a lot of rehearsal, a lot of singing, and it had so many different, little sections. It’s a lot more complicated in many ways than Bohemian Rhapsody. It had all the different ingredients that Bohemian Rhapsody had really. It’s a track I like to listen to because of the complexity of it. I can’t believe we learned it all. It was so bloody long and laborious and, but satisfying, you know” – Roger Taylor

“Yeah, I think Freddie’s March of the Black Queen is very much a precursor of Bohemian Rhapsody. Its complexity is enormous. Its breadth of imagination is giant and in the same way, you have little bits of drama, little bits of chorus, little bits of guitar, little bits of heaviness, little bits of tenderness. And it’s all there. It’s very similar, kind of palette that he’s painting from, that we’re painting from” – Brian May

“The Fairy Feller’s Masterstroke is incredibly complex, and ought to be just as shocking to people as Bohemian Rhapsody, because it’s unique. No one’s ever done anything like that, and all these little pieces that come in and go out and tings and contrapuntal things, and he’s doing something over here, I’m doing something over here. We just remixed it all, and it’s fascinating to make it all work” – Brian May

“It’s incredibly complicated. There are sort of swooping, counter six- part harmonies here, there. Coming like this and crossing. And it’s very bloody complicated that song, although it’s quite short and it’s rather wonderful in it’s eccentricity, I think. It’s a nice, interesting track. Didn’t come across as big as we thought it would, but, it’s an interesting exercise in eccentric over-elaboration” – Roger Taylor

“On Queen II, it was the first time we were allowed a certain amount of freedom in the studio. Whereas with the first album we weren’t. And so basically it sounds better and it sounded more like we wanted it to sound. I don’t think all of it is perfect by a long way, but, in general, it had more and we were sort of building our confidence, in the studio. Some would say overconfidence, but, you know” – Roger Taylor

“I’ve always been a big advocate of Queen II because I think that was a giant step. We’re going from a band that is hardly allowed in the studio, except for a few kind of hours in dead time, to a band that actually has studio time. We can indulge ourselves. We can experiment, and we do make a giant leap with painting pictures on the canvas of the tapes on Queen II. I love that album. Still. Queen II wasn’t that well-received in the rock fraternity in some places” – Brian May

“We were a tight little family. It’s the four of us, Mike Stone, the engineer, Roy Baker, our producer. And we’re all transitioning. We’re all learning how to use the studio as a sort of family unit. I don’t know why I say family, but it felt like that, we all had our particular roles to play and understood what we could do. Pushing things ever further.”

“Gotta say, it was quite exhilarating. Very much so with Freddie, because he was such a powerful creative force. But actually, for any song which we took on, no matter who amongst the four of us had brought it in, it was an exhilarating process. Challenging, sometimes difficult, sometimes argumentative. But really rewarding because what you got in the end was something so shiny and rounded, and

adventurous, dangerous.”

“But it had the seal of approval. Approval of all four of us and the input of all four of us. And it became Queen stuff, and Queen stuff was a million times greater than anything which any one of the four of us could come up on their own, and we had to get used to that” – Brian May

“Our sound is more based around the overdriven guitar, which is used on the main bulk of Father To Son. What I wanted to do was build up textures behind the main melody lines” – Brian May

On Queen II there is a lot of stuff which I like because that was the beginning of doing guitar orchestrations, which I always wanted to do. Father To Son starts off with an introduction and then, after it gets into the song and a few words are sung, it immediately goes into a six-part orchestral kind of thing. It was really a big thrill for me to be able to do that, because I had never been allowed to spend that amount of time in the studio to construct those things before then.

That was the fulfilment of an ambition for me, to get started on that road of using the guitar as kind of an orchestral instrument” – Brian May

“Queen II really represented all the stuff that was bubbling in our brain at the time, and it was a much better presentation of the way we wanted to sound. It threw some people. I remember when the reviews came out they said, these guys have forgotten rock n roll, but it was just a different format we were trying to get into, something more complex, more layered than anyone else had been able to do. I felt very proud on Queen II when we first put it out” – Brian May

 

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