What once seemed Queen's greatest liabilities--a preening flamboyance and pompous, overwrought theatricality--have ironically become their most enduring charms in a gray, postmodern pop-music landscape. While it eschews the glammy, pre-punk hard rock of live faves like "Stone Cold Crazy" and "Tie Your Mother Down" for the band's more quirky club-beat string of latter-day hits, this 51-track triple-CD anthology goes a long way toward documenting the true dimensions of … mehrthe band's music and fame. Some songs may not be instantly familiar to American fans because of yet another irony: just as their U.S. fortunes waned during the punk and new wave era, the band was exploding into true international superstars. Thus, there may be a sense of discovery here, whether of latter-day Queen material or solo work by Brian May and Freddie Mercury, whose duet on "Barcelona" with diva Montserrat Caballé transcends boundaries of both time and genre. A previously unreleased live performance of "The Show Must Go On" featuring Elton John on vocals is also included. --Jerry McCulley weniger

1 - Bohemian Rhapsody
2 - Another One Bites The Dust
3 - Killer Queen
4 - Fat Bottomed Girls
5 - Bicycle Race… mehr
6 - You're My Best Friend
7 - Don't Stop Me Now
8 - Save Me
9 - Crazy Little Thing Called Love
10 - Somebody To Love
11 - Now I'm Here
12 - Good Old-fashioned Lover Boy
13 - Play The Game
14 - Flash
15 - Seven Seas Of Rhye
16 - We Will Rock You
17 - We Are The Champions
1 - A Kind Of Magic
2 - Under Pressure
3 - Radio Ga Ga
4 - I Want It All
5 - I Want To Break Free
6 - Innuendo
7 - It's A Hard Life
8 - Breakthru
9 - Who Wants To Live Forever
10 - Headlong
11 - The Miracle
12 - I'm Going Slightly Mad
13 - The Invisible Man
14 - Hammer To Fall
15 - Friends Will Be Friends
16 - The Show Must Go On
17 - One Vison
1 - The Show Must Go On
3 - Barcelona
4 - Too Much Love Will Kill You
5 - Somebody To Love
6 - You Don't Fool Me
7 - Heaven For Everyone
8 - Las Palabras De Amor
9 - Driven By You
10 - Living On My Own
11 - Let Me Live
12 - The Great Pretender
13 - Princes Of The Universe
14 - Another One Bites The Dust
15 - No-One But You
16 - These Are The Days Of Our Lives
17 - Thank God It's Christmas weniger