Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Queen: Days of Our Lives Blu-ray Movie Review

They were the champions.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 4, 2012

The seventies are often thought of, rightly or wrongly, as being a cultural wasteland in terms of rock and pop music, especially after the halcyon days of the sixties, which saw an incredible variety of artists manage to claw and scratch their way into the mainstream. In fact the sheer volume of iconic acts which debuted in the sixties probably meant that any comparison with the following decade was almost sure to leave that decade suffering by comparison no matter how great its music might have been. But the fact is the seventies often seemed to be the era of mass product corporate rock, music manufactured by decree rather than inspiration, and by the time the disco craze hit mid-decade, some rock and pop music lovers were covering their ears and screaming in horror, even as others quietly resigned themselves to a life of “boogie oogie woogie.” But the seventies weren’t quite the netherworld that some might think (or in fact remember), and probably no finer example of just how creative some music actually was during that era can be found in the works of Queen. The band was born from the ashes of a late sixties group called Smile, an amalgamation that included future Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor, but it wasn’t until May and Taylor joined forces with Smile fan Freddie Mercury (whom the pair had known by his original name, Farrokh “Freddie” Bulsara) that Queen was born and rather quickly was able to achieve the success that had always just eluded Smile. Mercury’s volcanic stage presence, an approach which took the nascent Bowie androgyny and glam rock aesthetic to previously unimagined heights, was a near instant sensation and helped to give Queen an image that was perhaps even more important, at least in the early going, than the actual music the band was writing and playing. Queen’s influence grew throughout the seventies and actually increased well into the eighties, and this two part documentary called Queen: Days of Our Lives is both a straightforward chronicle of the band’s incredible rise to worldwide prominence as well as a more insightful investigation, hinted at by that title which alludes to a popular soap opera, of some of the internal drama that played out at least partially behind the scenes at the time.

Multi-track overdubbing had been a part of popular music ever since the legendary recordings of Les Paul and Mary Ford in the early 1950’s, but despite its increasing use over the intervening decades, no one had ever taken it quite to the level that Queen started doing with their earliest recordings. The group soon discovered that despite only three of them singing, they could produce humongous “choral” effects by repeated overdubbing, and in fact they recount in Part One of this documentary how their efforts became so convoluted that they literally stripped their source tape of its oxide, it had passed through the recording heads so many times. It was that huge choral ambience that gave Queen a lot of their initial flourish, especially for those who hadn’t yet caught the band live. (This was obviously before the days of the music video.)

What Queen: Days of Our Lives makes abundantly clear is what a long, hard slog it was for the band to become as huge as it ultimately did (in fact, they themselves posit their peak at around 1980, some 10 years after they started), and also how almost comically out of touch with the times they often seemed. The band came in the wake of the so-called “denim bands” like Uriah Heep and were obviously incredibly flamboyant and sexually ambivalent, something that worked both for and against them as they progressed up the rock ladder. While such long form songs as “Bohemian Rhapsody” seemed to come almost from opera rather than rock, the band also tried to “color within the lines,” so to speak, but often in unexpected ways, as in their biggest hit, a piece they ascribe to wanting to sound “black”, “Another One Bites the Dust”. They seem rather sheepish recounting their early appearance on Britain’s Top of the Pops show, where they lip synched and indeed finger synched as well. (Drummer Roger Taylor tells a disparaging anecdote about being given plastic drums that didn’t make any sound.) And the band continually seemed to be swimming upstream against societal and musical trends, perhaps highlighted by the fact that one of the main genres that actually seemed organic in the seventies—namely, punk—started taking hold just as Queen assumed a role of global domination.

Queen: Days of Our Lives wants to exploit a sort of VH1: Behind the Music ambience, but the fact is, there really wasn’t all that much drama to the band, aside from some occasional scuffles, all of which seem relatively minor now in hindsight. The documentary perhaps finds more real emotional footing in its descriptions of Freddie Mercury’s hedonistic lifestyle and the ultimate price it exacted on him (Mercury died from complications from AIDS in 1991). The band was perhaps aided by the fact that its members were all highly educated (though Mercury wasn’t part of the original group, the others met while in college together, and they all went on to earn degrees). That gave them perhaps a wider frame of reference than the typical rock star, even though as they readily admit, they lived the rock lifestyle to its fullest. In the process of doing so, they provided a fairly tame musical decade some of its most potent and distinctive music, and though the eighties saw them both achieve iconic status and declining influence, Days of Our Lives admirably proves just how consistently innovative and exciting the band was.

Queen: Days of Our Lives Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Queen: Days of Our Lives is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Eagle Vision Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080i transfer in 1.78:1. Because this documentary relies so heavily on archival footage, the video quality here is understandably less than spectacular a lot of the time. Some of this footage has never been previously seen, and it's obviously culled from old 16mm (and apparently even 8mm in a few instances) source elements. The results are ragged, grainy, extremely fuzzy and, in the color footage, full of bleeding hues. That doesn't mean these aren't extremely important historical pieces and should be appreciated for documenting the background of the band. The contemporary interview segments on the other hand are quite sharp looking, with good, stable color and contrast and appealing fine detail. With expectations set properly, and with an understanding that so much of this documentary consists of rare, historical footage, fans should overall be quite pleased with the results of this release.

Queen: Days of Our Lives Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Queen: Days of Our Lives features a lossless LPCM 2.0 audio track that suffices extremely well for both the musical elements as well as the spoken confessionals. The documentary itself is rather briskly edited, so no really full performance segments are included. There are tons of great little snippets of the band in concert and in some nascent music videos, but only the supplemental material (which also includes a lossless LPCM 2.0 audio track) provide unedited musical performances. Fidelity is excellent throughout the documentary and supplements, and the multilayered wonderment of Queen's over the top arrangements sounds spectacular. The spoken sequences are clear and precise. A surround track might have upped the ante in terms of some of the stadium performances shown here in dribs and drabs, but for all intents and purposes, the LPCM 2.0 track provides ample oomph and should easily please most audiophiles.

Queen: Days of Our Lives Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Additional Videos include:
  Seven Seas of Rhye (1080i; 2:28)
  Killer Queen (1080i; 2:45)
  Somebody to Love (1080i;4:56)
  We Are the Champions (1080i; 3:13)
  Crazy Little Thing Called Love (1080i; 2:45)
  Under Pressure (1080i; 3:43)
  Radio Ga Ga (1080i; 4:48)


• Additional Scenes (1080i; 59:08) contains a glut of extra material covering all different phases of the band. Archival and contemporary interviews, tour footage and some performances are included in this great selection of items.


• Bonus Interviews (1080i; 19:11) include chats with Brian May, Roger Taylor, and manager Jim Beach, as well as some archival footage featuring Taylor.

Queen: Days of Our Lives Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Queen: Days of Our Lives is a great time capsule assortment of archival video interspersed with contemporary interview segments. The band made the big time right at the cusp of the music video age and a lot of their nascent music videos, as well as some of their actual music videos, are included here, not to mention some fantastic and rare concert footage and archival interview footage. Dramatically, this piece isn't quite the revelation it wants to be, only because the band is (and was) obviously so well adjusted, for the most part. Yes, there were little tussles here and there, but really the only major tragedy was Mercury's untimely death. What this two part documentary makes so clear is how the band took the technology of multi-track overdubbing and pushed it to its logical (or perhaps illogical) extreme, creating some incredibly distinctive music along the way. Fans of the group should be overjoyed to see so much rare footage here, and even those who don't consider themselves fans might find a great deal to enjoy with this release. Recommended.