Originally released nearly a decade ago and now being reissued by Eagle Rock, Greatest Video Hits contains nearly all the promotional videos from legendary British rock band Queen that were filmed throughout their career. I say nearly all because surprisingly the few that they released in support of Innuendo, the last album from the band before Freddie Mercury's passing, are not included here for some reason. I would think with almost ten years to prepare this reissue that Eagle Rock could have included those somehow and made this a truly comprehensive set, but that's an argument for another day.
For most loyal fans of Queen, you've probably already had these videos on one compilation set or another through the years, either on VHS or DVD, but now Eagle Rock has combined into one 2 disc set, restored and remixed in 5.1 surround sound. From an audio standpoint, much of what you'll find here sounds great, and if you have a solid home theater system you'll love the work that was done on these videos to get them to the highest level sonically. Picture wise, many of the original source materials are obviously quite dated, so there's not much you can do with video quality on some, especially some of the older pieces. That being said, classic promotional videos for "Fat Bottomed Girls", "Killer Queen", the wild "Bicycle Race", "Save Me", "Somebody to Love", "Don't Stop Me Now", and of course the overplayed but still impressive "Bohemian Rhapsody" are still fun to watch. "Tie Your Mother Down" continues to kicks ass, and "Spread Your Wings" shows a band at the height of their powers before the '80s kicked in and took them to even greater success. Many of the clips are standard performance pieces with the band lip synching on stage, but still have that impact that you expect from a classic group. On some of the '80s videos, Queen took to creating more theatrical and themed storylines for their songs (which was all the rage on MTV), so you have the more gradiose (and sometimes controversial) "I Want to Break Free" (complete with the band in drag), "Radio Gaga", "Body Language" ( a big missfire), "Flash", and "Under Pressure", among others. Brian May and Roger Taylor provide a commentary track on the DVDs so you can hear their take on the videos while watching.
If you are a Queen completist, you'll certainly want to have all these videos in one nice, neat little collection, and with improved sound, why not? However, not including the clips from Innuendo is a missed opportunity in my opinion. For the casual fan, while there's a charming quality about many of these videos (especially the older ones), there's also a cheesy & goofy nature to some, which was indicative of the style of the '80s MTV era in general, so it's hard to really fault the band. I'd easily recommend any of their live concert DVD releases over this video set first if you want to see what Queen were all about, but eventually you'll want to come back to this and add it to your collection, as there are plenty of fun videos here to enjoy.
Track Listing
Disc 1
1.
Bohemian Rhapsody
2.
Another One Bites The Dust
3.
Killer Queen
4.
Fat Bottomed Girls
5.
Bicycle Race
6.
You're My Best Friend
7.
Don't Stop Me Now
8.
Save Me
9.
Crazy Little Thing Called Love
10.
Spread Your Wings
11.
Play The Game
12.
Flash
13.
Tie Your Mother Down
14.
We Will Rock You
15.
We Are The Champions
Disc 2
1.
It's A Hard Life
2.
Friends Will Be Friends
3.
Who Wants To Live Forever
4.
Las Palabras De Amor
5.
I Want It All
6.
The Miracle
7.
I Want To Break Free
8.
Under Pressure
9.
Body Language
10.
The Invisible Man
11.
Hammer To Fall
12.
Princes Of The Universe
13.
A Kind Of Magic
14.
Scandal
15.
Radio Ga Ga
16.
Breakthru
17.
One Vision
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