Album reviews: Queen's greatest hits released again; David Kitt marks 20 years
Queen Greatest Hits, and David Kitt.
Ask Alan Partridge to name his favourite Queen album and he would inevitably reply, “Queen’s Greatest Hits”. First unleashed in 1981, with a portrait of the band by Lord Snowdon, this original of the ‘best of’ species is now set to top the charts again in the form of a 40th anniversary reissue.
The re-release comes with many bells and whistles, including Gen Z-friendly limited edition cassettes in five colours, and a collector’s CD signed by Brian May and Roger Taylor.
The music itself is almost impossible to listen to objectively. Either you regard Queen as one of the greatest rock bands of all time, or you agree with the 1980s British music press that they were pompous, bloated sell-outs (“quite repulsive, unbelievably crass,” began the NME review of the original edition of the compilation).
But whether you love or loathe Queen, you’ll know the lyrics to many of the smashes assembled here by heart. Bohemian Rhapsody, We Will Rock You. Don’t Stop Me Now aren’t songs so much as part of our shared pop culture hive-mind. And 40 years on, there is little arguing with the material’s sheer anthemic force.
David Kitt had the misfortune to come along just as the cult of the shaggy Irish troubadour was achieving critical mass. There was little shaggy or troubadour-esque about Kitt, whose background was chill-out music and club culture. He nonetheless found himself lumped in with earnest twangers such as Damien Rice and Declan O’Rourke.
Warner Records still holds the rights to his full-length debut The Big Romance. In a just world, its 20th anniversary would be marked with a luxury vinyl re-issue from the label, but here Kitt has taken on the task himself with this warm and nostalgia-infused revisiting of many of his best loved moments.
Recorded in Paris, Dublin and Kerry over the course of the lockdown, disc one features stripped down interpretations of It’s Yours, Song of Two Birds among others. Disc two meanwhile focuses on The Big Romance, where “hits” such as You Know What I Want You To Know and Song From Hope St feel as fresh and cleared eyed as they did two decades ago.
