Freddie Mercury - The Great Pretender

A musicians review of the album

Freddie is the man.. he was arguably the best vocalist in music, period.. and one of the best songwriters as well infusing humor, camp, drama, melody, passion.. you name it, he did it!

But, having said that... This particular album (released after his passing) is a collection of Freddie's solo tracks that he'd released throughout the 80's, taking the originals and reworking/reproducing them giving them a more modern 90's treatment. Half the tracks are infused with techno-dance themed beats, and the other half were given a more full-band rock treatment with thick heavy guitars and prominent drums (removing the drum machines). The majority of the tracks themselves originally were very synth laden, outdated 80's dance pop tracks that if you happen to have a copy of (which are all out of print), you would agree with me they not only haven't aged well, but aren't quite up to what freddie had done in the past or afterwards. The prime examples of this is the reworking of songs "The Great Pretender", "Love Kills", and "My Love Is Dangerous" which isn't replacing the latter versions, just giving them a new hard rock treatment from their original sythn-pop ways. On the complete opposite end, we have songs that were given new dance/techno treatments like "Your Kind Of Lover", "Foolin' Around", and to a successful extent "Living On My Own"..

The downside to this album is that having two styles of music (Rock and Dance/Techno) being melded together (in separate songs) can definitely shy away the casual fan... The two completely different styles of music could be hard to swallow unless you are a die-hard "I have to have everything" fan..

The positive thing about this album is that it helped make the songs more susseptible and gave them the ability to age better with more updated production and a bit more bit then the previous 'underproduced' versions of the songs... So as a collection, the new remixes don't gell together as a whole, but on their own the songs have new life and character that Freddie I'm sure would have enjoyed.

So My advice?!? buy queen!! AS MUCH as you can!! THEN when you've been awestruck by this man, start investing.. ;o)

All The Best,
The AndyMan! April 24, 2008

It's Freddie, but....

Released in the wave of quickie re-issues following Freddie's death in 1991, "The Great Pretender" sops up six remixed tracks from Freddie's lone solo album (Mr. Bad Guy), singles from the musical "Time," a couple soundtrack numbers and a B-Side. It also makes a strong argument for band chemistry and leaving well enough alone. Most of the songs here are remixed, and not to an improvement. Not like that many people really heard many of these songs beforehand; "Mr Bad Guy" was something of a flop and didn't even break the top 100 on original release.

What you get here is an noncohesive set of songs that don't hold together in the way the Queen's albums (even lesser efforts) did. While Freddie was the focal point of the band, every great Queen album had contributions from all four members, and it tempered the tone of the albums. Did you really care when the band toured with Paul Rodgers...or for that matter, release an album with that lineup?

Mercury alone (and in the later years) tended towards danceclub music, which sometimes worked ("Love Kills") and sometimes didn't ("Your Kind Of Lover"). Since Queen was all about the excess, it comes as no surprise that their frontman was the leader in that department. "Exercices in Free Love" sounds like it came from Mercury's collaboration with opera singer Montserrat Caballé, but then someone should have cut out this wailing mess and taken advantage of the campy class of "Barcelona."

When listening to the better tracks, like "Mr Bad Guy," "In My Defense" and "My Love is Dangerous" (rocked up here from its original album take), you may wonder just what might have happened if Brian, Roger and John had been involved. It's a little telling that a couple other of "Mr Bad Guy's" songs got tweaked by the band for the posthumous Made in Heaven album, and are stronger than just about everything here. Freddie Mercury was one of the foremost man-divas in rock, unfortunately, "The Great Pretender" is not the showcase it should be. Better to get Queen's Greatest Hits or maybe someone should eventually reissue "Mr Bad Guy." November 29, 2007

An interesting sampling of Mercury's solo work

Another compilation of Freddie Mercury's solo work , including his magnifficent reworking of The Platters hit The Great Pretender , the offbeat Foolin' Around and Living On My Own , the funky Your Kind Of Lover and Let's Turn It On , the bold Living On My Own and my personal favourite among Mercury solo Hits , Love Kills.
An interesting sampling of Mercury's solo work. November 19, 2006

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Have they no shame? The mixing engineers absolutely desecrated Freddy's music. This album is not for true Freddy fans. Casual fans and fans of Queen (only) may enjoy this, but anyone who is interested in hearing Freddy's true solo art the way he intended it should stay the #^#@ away from this (as well as "The Freddy Mercury Album" which is the same as "The Great Pretender", different packaging).

Allow me to provide an analogy:
If you're a Freddy Mercury/Queen fan, I assume you're old enough to have seen the original Star Wars when it came out in '76. It was great wasn't it? Sure, the cantina scene was cheezy as hell, and some of the special effects were--by today's standards--lackluster. BUT WE LOVED IT. Then in the late 90s, Lucasfilm decided to re-do Star Wars, chopping up the cantina scene and adding in stupid modern CGI effects. I was sickened, and I'm hoping most of you were as well.

"The Great Pretender" is the equivalent of the Star Wars 90s re-release. A travesty. We don't want stupid CGI effects on the Millenium Falcon, nor do we want stupid "arena rock" reverb on Freddy's drums. We don't want the annoying distorted guitars mixed in after Freddy's death. And we certainly don't want the inane Fine-Young-Cannibals-ripoff drumbeat overtop the original grooves.

Go find yourself a copy of the original MR. BAD GUY album. It may sound cheezy at first with its dated drum machine and flamboyant piano playing, but c'mon folks, that's what Freddy was all about. Let's remember him that way, not through some post-production sound engineer's drunken nightmare of a remix.

I give Freddy's voice 5 stars, and I give the mixing engineer -3 stars. Averages out to a 2. Avoid it. Read my review of "The Freddy Mercury Album" for more. September 3, 2006

Hmmmmmm

I would like to say I enjoy this album immensely, I am a big fan of Freddie Mercury but this album overlooks many of his solo songs of sheer briliance and focusses largly on lame covers and Freddies synth led dance/disco material. Foolin Around and Your Kind Of Lover sound like outtakes from the highly overrated Dance Floor/Acid Jazz Queen travesty Hot Space. Still theres some great stuff with Excercises In Free Love, Mr. Bad Guy, My Love Is Dangerous and Love Kills. These show Freddies songwriting at its best and elevate the album from the dreck and theres no deneing through even the worst parts of this album the former member of Wreckage is in fine form vocally and his piano although very minimal is also great. August 24, 2004

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