Is a new Queen album on the way? According to guitarist Brian May, the far-fetched idea could very well be on its way to becoming a reality, as surviving members are in the process of seeing what can be salvaged from unused vocal recordings by late frontman Freddie Mercury.
In a recent interview with iHeart Radio, May revealed the band may pull another posthumous-patchwork project together in the vein of the 1995 Queen album Made In Heaven, which was pieced together after Mercury’s death in 1991.
“We thought we’d exhausted everything that was around and could be worked on, but since then a number of things have come to light from various sources that we’d just plain forgotten about, including the stuff with Freddie and Michael Jackson,” said May. “Just a couple of weeks ago, we thought: Maybe we shouldn’t be just working on bits and pieces? Maybe we should be heading towards an album? It just might be.”
Among the recordings discussed for use were a number of duets recorded by Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson that never saw the light of day. Three tracks Mercury and Jackson recorded in 1983 will reportedly be made available to fans. May said there will be “something for folks to hear” in the next two months.
A fine early Christmas present that would be, and a measure of consolation now that the planned Freddie Mercury biopic has been shelved, due to actor Sacha Baron Cohen recently pulling out of the lead role.
