Review Summary: There are enough classics here to keep any casual ‘Queen’ fan satisfied. From famous hits such as “Under Pressure,” “Radio Ga Ga,” and “A Kind of Magic,” to underrated hits such as “Innuendo,” “Breakthru,” and “The Miracle.”
“Greatest Hits II” was released barely weeks before the death of ‘Queen’ lead singer ‘Freddie Mercury.’ The album itself covers all of their hits from 1981-1991, and although perhaps not in the same league as “Greatest Hits One” as far as quality goes, for pure essentiality it perhaps equals it.
Although their albums from 1982-1991 ("Under Pressure," also on this album, is from 1982's "Hot Space" release, but was out as a single in '1981') were hardly anything to shout about, they still produced enough great songs to merit a best of collection and “Greatest Hits Two” showcases that to the best of its ability.
Whilst other hit packages since have tried to merge their hits together (A great example being the US ‘Classic Queen’ package) ‘Queen’ in truth did enough great hit songs to merit two separate collections, both of which represent different periods of their musical career.
And, admittingly, a lot of ‘Queen’s’ better work is on ‘Greatest Hits One,’ but still their best eighties to early nineties stuff is here and in specific and excellent detail. Also the fact that it introduces 17 new hits and does not repeat any songs from the previous package (Like a ‘Classic Queen’ does) makes it an essential release anyway. In otherwords, if you loved ‘Greatest Hits One,’ you’ll love ‘Greatest Hits Two.’
The album mainly covers their biggest hits from the 80’s, although some have been left out, “Las Palabras de Amor,” and “Body Language” perhaps most surprising, whilst “These are days of our lives” wasn’t quite released on time as a single to be warranted release on this package. (It would turn up on Greatest Hits III though).
Still, there are enough classics here to keep any casual ‘Queen’ fan satisfied. From famous hits such as “Under Pressure,” “Radio Ga Ga,” and “A Kind of Magic,” to underrated hits such as “Innuendo,” “Breakthru,” and “The Miracle.” There’s also an added bonus of having the single edit of “I want to break free,” instead of the short cut version we got for “The Works” album.
It does have some problems though. First including the pitiful releases “Headlong,” and “Friends will be Friends.” Also songs such as “Who wants to live forever,” and “One Vision” have been cut in length from their superior album versions.
There are some average filler to such as ‘techno hit’ “The Invisible Man,” and "Play the Game II" song “It’s a hard Life.” The rest though is excellent and is an accurate description of the best of ‘Queen’ from 1981-1991.
I highly recommend this to people who like me can’t stomach the below par albums but just want to listen to this band at their best, and whilst it doesn’t quite from beginning to end like ‘Greatest Hits One” did, “Greatest Hits Two” represents the best package of those ‘other Queen hits’ after 1980.
