Queen Greatest Flix III 

Queen DVD / Video

Queen Greatest Flix 3 – Release Date: December 6th, 1999

This is basically Queen’s Greatest Video Hits 3, a collection of the videos from the Greatest Hits III (or Queen+) album.

There are some great videos on this DVD release. First off you can skip that version of Under Pressure because as far as I’m concerned it’s rubbish. The only good thing about that video was the mash up of Freddie and David Bowie singing live on stage. By skipping that song you get to the good stuff – These are the Days of our Lives was the last video which Freddie took part in, a nice vide, and it included the words ‘I still love you’, an apparent last message from Freddie to Queen fans. Next up we have Princes of the Universe, where Freddie swordfights with Christopher Lambert from the Highlander movie.

The 4th video on the Greatest Flix III package is Barcelona with Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballe going hammer and tongs on that belter of a song. It is followed by a favourite of mine and that is Too Much Love will Kill you and then into Somebody to Love , the live version with George Michael from the Freddie Mercury concert. George did a great version of Somebody to Love and did it his own way too, not an impression or immitation of the original version.

The Great Pretender is next, it includes Freddie dressed in a pink suit and Roger dressed in drag (if you can spot him). I remember seeing this video in the late 80s and Freddie did a great version of the classic Platters song.

The next video on the GH Flix 3 is from the Made in Heaven album and that is Heaven for Everyone which was the first release from the 1995 album, doing quite well in the charts as a result. After that we go back to the Hot Space album for Las Palabras De Amor (the words of Love) which has Freddie Dressed in a Tux – I believe that was their last performance on Top of the Pops (AFAIK).

We are then back to the Made in Heaven video for the Let me Live video which I always thought was a great song by Queen and the video is quite good too. Staying the 90s we also have the video for Living on my Own which was the 1993 Radio remix. Such a good song in fact that it reached Number 1 in the charts in the UK in August 1993. It also reached Number 1 in Ireland, France, Denmark, Greece, Iceland, Norwa, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. The videos for Living on My Own includes footage from Freddie Mercury’s 39th birthday celebration in Munich on 5 September 1985 and by October 2020, the YouTube video had more than 35 million views.

Next up the club style song You Don’t Fool Me, which for me is one which I always liked and the video is quite edgy, with it being from Made in Heaven, there is no point in having a band style video as Freddie was not around to be in it.

The track from Brian May’s solo album Back to the Light is up next, Driven by You, which also had a version recorded for the Ford Motor company (with different words). This is followed by the poignant song which was written by the 3 remaining members of Queen, No One but You (Only the Good Die Young) … cue the lump in the throat. The music video was filmed at Bray Studios on 29 November 1997 and shows Brian, Roger and John recording the song in the studio and is the very last recording to feature bassist John Deacon. John then retired from public life as he felt Queen wasn’t Queen without Freddie.

The penultimate track is the Elton John version of The Show Must Go on. … eh, skip that track (in my opinion) … He transposed the song 4 semitones down from the original and it changes the song too much. He just couldn’t reach the notes Freddie could. I like Elton John but the choice of song was wrong on that occasion. 

The last song on the Greatest Flix III is Thank God It’s Christmas. Since this DVD was released in December it is only fitting that they included a Queen Christmas song from the 80s.

Queen Greatest Flix III Conclusion

For me Tracks 2 to 14 are the strongest, I have personal favourites and they are all covered in those 13 tracks. The videos to these songs cover a wide date range from the mid 80s to 1997. You can probably find some of these videos online but if you want to own this collection then this DVD collection is for you. Not a bad one to own – minus a few skipsas discussed above.

 

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