From Queenpedia.com
In the early 1990s, when the CD box set craze hit the music world and every legendary band was privy to a career retrospective of familiar and rare material, Queen Productions instead issued the more sensible and lucrative compilations of the band's biggest hits. In 1995, though, The Beatles released their hugely successful Anthology series, rounding up the best outtakes from the Fab Four's career, and showing them in a completely different light: unpolished, lighthearted, and relaxed. It was a good, if slightly fabricated, account of what the band were like in the studios; couple that with an exhaustive 10-hour film project and a fascinating book equivalent, and a standard had been set for all bands to hope to live up to. Queen had always been wary of their discarded material, preferring to have their studio work looked upon with the highest quality; inferior material was rejected outright, and the band's patience in the studio often limited their own progress on a song if they just felt it wasn't working. Plus, the official response for years was that no unreleased material existed in the archives; pretty soon, that changed to some unreleased material existed in the archives; nowadays, the consensus is that a whole lot of unreleased material exists in the archives. (Remember, Queen Productions adamantly and categorically stated that no studio recording of Silver Salmon existed.) In 1996, word circulated that a Freddie Mercury box set was being considered, with both of his studio albums and extraneous material bundled into a neat little package. John Deacon even reportedly worked on a remix of There Must Be More To Life Than This, though this has never been released. What emerged in 2000, however, was The Solo Collection, a gargantuan round-up of virtually everything that Freddie recorded between 1983 and 1988. Fans salivated at the prospect of a Queen equivalent someday emerging, and as early as 2001, reports circulated in Record Collector and from Queen's archivist Greg Brooks that work was progressing steadily on a Queen anthology. At fan club conventions, Brooks regularly played selections from the archives, which only caused these songs to leak out onto bootlegs and the Internet. As a result, voiceovers were placed over subsequent airings in an attempt to curb bootleggers, though this didn't do all that much. Various dates of release were given: first it was the end of 2002, then 2004, then 2005 ... and so on. Different presentations were also thrown about: at first, a three package deal, with 10 CDs each, was planned; then it became a CD of outtakes per album; then, it was whittled down to a more consumer-friendly 3-installment, 2 CD sets. It seemed that no definitive date or form of presentation was ever reached, and while Brooks has asserted that work on the project is completed, it's up to Queen Productions (Jim Beach, Brian May, Roger Taylor, and John Deacon, as well as Freddie's estate) to decide when to release it. The official word on the delay is that Queen are viewing this as a bookend project; so that once Brian and Roger are no longer capable of making music, then these sets will be released as the very last new release. However, other musicians, like Bob Dylan, have embraced their archives while continuing to make excellent new music. Genesis, too, have released three box sets of their discography with crystal clear sound and an array of DVDs, and they've recently gone out on tour and will probably continue to do so; so Queen's hesitation is only costing them potential sales, as fans lose interest in the constant delays and focus their wallets on other bands. It is hoped that they will come to their senses and such a release will be seen in the next few years. Fan Club ConventionsBelow is a list of what was played at Fan Club conventions by Greg Brooks. These could give a fair indication as to what may or may not be included on the anthologies: 2001:
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