Germany seems to have had a special relationship with Queen. In September I talked about a 3″ CD-single set which was released for the German market in 1988 or 1989. German fans got another CD collection called Queen Mania which is covered in today’s feature. The set Queen Mania is a beautiful and, these days,…

In my previous collection feature, I talked about The Cross their second album called Mad: Bad: And Dangerous To Know. The article ended with two rare acetates for an unreleased single and this prompted me to dive into the world of acetates! What is an acetate disc? In order to produce a vinyl record, a…

Queen’s drummer Roger Taylor founded a new band called The Cross during mid 1987 while Queen were on a break after their Magic Tour ended in August 1986. Unlike in Queen, Roger featured on lead vocals and rhythm guitar in the band. The other members, recruited through anonymous adverts, were Clayton Moss on guitar, Spike…

Despite The Police short-lived career, which lasted from 1977 to 1986, not counting the 2007 reunion and numerous Greatest Hits releases, the band still managed to create a collector’s heaven for those who are passionate enough to dive deep into their discography. Reggatta de Blanc In October 1979, the band released their second album called…

Queen were arguably on an all-time high in 1980 after their album The Game and single Another One Bites The Dust topped the charts globally for many weeks. Especially in the US is was a huge chart topper, where it has sold four million copies to date. The success of John Deacon’s Bites The Dust…

Queen dabbled their toes into the world of CD’s as early as 1983, but released their full album discography on CD in 1986. About two years later, in 1988, they decided to release some of their past singles on the 3″ CD-single format. Possibly because it was a new exiting format for singles by other…

Peter Hammil is an English musician who is mainly known for his work through the progressive rock band Van der Graaf Generator for which I made a feature back in June. His solo career more or less started simultaneously with the band in 1968. Once the band broke up in 1977 (but reunited in the…

Here we have a nice collaboration: in early 2003 Phil Collins teamed up with Swatch to produce this lovely box set. I don’t know how this came to be, but Phil released a song called Wake Up Call as a single in March 2003 which was taken from his 2002 album Testify. Maybe that song…

In March 2015 I listened to the band Van der Graaf Generator for the first time. UK magazine Record Collector had an article about them which sparked an interest and so I decided to give them a try. Nine years later and I am now fully hooked, including the singer’s solo output. I never intended…