Queen’s ‘Love Kills – The Ballad’ Surfaces Online
UPDATE: This video is no longer available.
Another of the three previously unreleased tracks from Queen's upcoming 'Queen Forever' compilation has made its way online, offering fans an early chance to hear the band's "scorching new stripped-down ballad version" of frontman Freddie Mercury's 1984 solo single 'Love Kills.'
The original version, co-produced and co-written by synth-loving '80s soundtrack king Georgio Moroder for his rejiggered version of the 1927 classic silent film 'Metropolis,' featured Mercury's bandmates Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon, but was released under Mercury's name and proved a fairly substantial departure from the Queen sound, albeit one that not everyone appreciated at the time. As Stereogum notes, it was nominated for Worst Original Song at that year's Razzies.
Still, it cracked the Top 10 on the U.K. singles chart, and it's currently part of Queen's live set, although the band performs it with far more of a rock edge.
The band's version, while new to fans, has deep roots in the Queen vaults; as you can hear above, they also recorded a more traditional take on 'Love Kills,' which they're now presenting (along with the Mercury/Michael Jackson duet 'There Must Be More to Life Than This' and one other previously unreleased track) as part of 'Queen Forever,' due to arrive in stores on Nov. 10. Check out the "ballad version" above, and compare it with the original 'Love Kills' single below.
Freddie Mercury, 'Love Kills'