Called Love,” most of the tunes are unfamiliar to everyone who is not a diehard Queen fan. The collection lacks Queen’s harder songs, instead sounding like an extended soundtrack for a romantic comedy. The 17 tracks give the unfamiliar listener a good idea of what Queen’s softer songs consist of: beautiful vocal harmonies, quality guitar and drum work, and superior engineering and production. They may be slow love songs, but they’re still Queen.

 

The three new tracks, “Let Me In Your Heart Again,” “Love Kills,” and “There Must Be More to Life Than This” fit in this collection as solid, well-written, and well-produced songs. In the tradition of Billy Joel and Elton John, “Let Me Into Your Heart Again” is a rather timeless tune that relies heavily on harmonies, piano, and rousing vocals with a catchy chorus. Mercury is definitely in full-throated glory as he channels a bit of Rod Stewart throughout the song.

 

A title fitting the zombie theme, “Love Kills” starts off slow, featuring an acoustic guitar and light cymbal work as Mercury draws us into the song, which rises and falls with intensity. Of course, it’s a Queen tune, so halfway through, they abandon the acoustic stylings of the first half of the song and get loud towards the end, complete with a guitar solo and a few digital touches. It’s a strong radio-worthy tune, and it’s definitely something that would be played in a jukebox at a bar. It’s a song for mourning past relationships, though the lyrics say “mourn” while the music says “celebrate.”

 

The third new track, “There Must Be More To Life Than This,” includes the vocals of another great, deceased musician, Michael Jackson. Jackson’s additions were recorded by Mercury prior to their passing. The song itself is a standard soft rock tune played with appropriate intensity by the five performers. The lyrics don’t rise to more than the title and a few other musings, but for almost three and a half minutes, this inoffensive tune maintains the listener’s interest, partly due to the complementary tones Jackson and Mercury croon.

 

The single disc version of Forever is 20 of Queen’s least offensive tunes, sounding more like a rom-com soundtrack than anything else. Queen successfully proves why their music lasts, as these songs are timeless, unlike the songs on a Duran Duran album, for example. The addition of the three new songs make Forever a must-have for the dedicated Queen fan, and the duet with Jackson makes this a must-have for avid lovers of the King of Pop. While this album is solid and enjoyable, it doesn’t make the casual listener want to spend money on a download or physical copy. In all honesty, I probably would have made a similar observation about an album of deep tracks from most long-careered performers. With that being said, this isn’t a condemnation as much as it is a gimlet-eyed view of the playlist: solid, but not strong; hot dog, but not sausage; and minivan, but not Miata.