Brian May shares press release for the new Queen Japanese only Greatest Hits album

From the official Brian May Queen news press release.

As part of their massively-successful global tour, titled “Rhapsody Tour”, Queen + Adam Lambert return to Japan in January 2020. To mark the much-anticipated tour of the Land of the Rising Sun, “Greatest Hits in Japan”, a special compilation album featuring Top 12 classic Queen songs voted by Japanese fans, is set to be released on 15th January in 2020.

The voting took place through an online form via a special section on Queen Official Site in Japan https://www.universal-music.co.jp/queen from Wednesday 6th to Monday 25th November 2019, where, as a general rule, fans residing in the country were invited to cast their votes for their favourite song by Queen off their 15 original studio albums under the one-person-one-vote principle. All participants were required to make a hard decision to choose only one song to vote for from the great list of 172 tracks in total. The response was overwhelming, and we would like to thank all the 11,988 voters who helped to compile the special album. The top-voted 12 songs will now comprise the final tracklisting for the album, which can truly be called “the definitive collection of Queen as selected by Japanese fans”.

After tallying all the votes, the top 40 fan-voted tracks are as follows:

1. Somebody To Love: 1290 votes 2. Don’t Stop Me Now: 791 votes
3. Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together): 484 votes
4. Spread Your Wings: 474 votes
5. Killer Queen: 469 votes
6. The Show Must Go On: 429 votes
6. Bohemian Rhapsody: 429 votes
8. ’39: 420 votes
9. The March of the Black Queen: 360 votes
10. Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy: 326 votes
11. Keep Yourself Alive. 300 votes
12. Radio Ga Ga: 291 votes
13. Love Of My Life: 281 votes
14. I Was Born to Love You: 251 votes
15. These Are The Days Of Our Lives: 231 votes
16. Seven Seas of Rhye: 188 votes
17. Another One Bites The Dust: 183 votes
18. Save Me: 176 votes
19. We Are The Champion: 170 votes
20. Let Me Live: 160 votes
21. Under Pressure: 149 votes
22. Friends Will Be Friends: 142 votes
23. Brighton Rock: 123 votes
24. Too Much Love Will Kill You: 121 votes
24. Liar: 121 votes
24. In The Lap Of The Gods Revisited: 121 votes
27. I Want It All: 117 votes
28. You’re My Best Friend: 114 votes
29. Hammer to Fall: 103 votes
30. It’s A Hard Life: 102 votes
31. Ogre Battle: 101 votes
32. Innuendo: 97 votes
33. One Vision: 95 votes
33. I Want to Break Free: 95 votes
35. My Melancholy Blues: 94 votes
36. The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke: 87 votes
37. Nevermore: 83 votes
38. Stone Cold Crazy: 80 votes
39. The Millionaire Waltz: 80 votes
40. You and I: 79 votes

The top 12 fan-voted tracks make their way onto the final cut of the album. The physical CD release of the album will be exclusive to Japan, with the digital available worldwide. The limited edition CD will contain a DVD including music videos from the top 12 songs.

Having celebrated their magnificent 48th anniversary, Queen phenomenally keep on astonishing the world from East to West, while the special bond that the band and Japan have built since the early years is globally well known. The story began in the days when the band made the first visit to Japan as early as 1975, where the quartet received a truly passionate and hearty welcome. The song “Teo Torriatte (Let Us Cling Together)”, which the band wrote during their stay in the country, with choruses sung in Japanese, is a beautiful token of the precious relationship. Having been placed at number 3 in the voting, the song is naturally to be featured on the upcoming greatest hits album.

The Queen film “Bohemian Rhapsody”, the biggest-grossing music biopic of all time, was also a super smash hit in Japan becoming the biggest film release of the year. Overall sales (digital and physical) of the band’s whole catalogue together with the acclaimed soundtrack album have amounted to over 1.6 million units/copies in Japan alone so far this year.

The participants of the vote covered a wide range of generations, from youngsters whose first encounters with the band were through the phenomenal biopic to long time dedicated fans from the ‘70s. While the fact that not a few of the earlier classics made the top 12 reminds how much tremendous love and support the band has received from their loyal Japanese fans since the dawn of their career, the tracks from the albums released in the ‘80s and ’90s are impressively placed high in the rankings as well, which exemplifies the band’s magnificent popularity, coupled with their universal appeal, and enduring influence in Japan over four decades.

To reflect the concept of “the compilation as selected by Japanese fans”, the artwork for the album, simply called “Greatest Hits in Japan”, will feature splendid traditional Japanese designs and patterns. The CD booklet also includes some photographs of Freddie’s beautiful Japanese garden.

And from the fans who participated in the voting, around 700 names will be credited to the booklet by lottery.

In addition, a draw among the voters has been made to decide on the five lucky winners to receive personal autographs by Brian May and Roger Taylor. The winners will receive the prize without any prior announcement.

Brian May:
“To our Japanese fans, we always appreciate your passionate support. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. After seeing the poll results and the final track list, I realised again how much you have loved us since early times. I guess this is a unique amazing selection that probably only Japanese fans could make. Very much looking forward to seeing you soon at our shows in January! Wishing you a Happy New Year!!

Roger Taylor:
“To all Japanese Queen followers, we can never thank you enough for your undying support through all these years. We have grown up and older together, and I think the final tracklisting for the fan-vote album is the proof of our long-standing bond, Some of your choices of our songs were a bit of a pleasant surprise, and made me grin as well, for this seems to be a very Japanese selection you can find nowhere else, which I love! Look forward to seeing you all at the concerts and having a great time together! Wishing you a Wonderful 2020!”

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QUEEN + ADAM LAMBERT THE RHAPSODY TOUR 2020 in JAPAN
The dates are below:

January 25th, 2020 (Sat) – Saitama Super Arena, Tokyo SOLD OUT
January 26th, 2020 (Sun) – Saitama Super Arena, Tokyo SOLD OUT
January 28th, 2020 (Tue) – Kyocera Dome, Osaka SOLD OUT
January 30th, 2020 (Thu) – Nagoya Dome, Nagoya SOLD OUT

For further information: http://www.creativeman.co.jp

Furthermore, to commemorate the forthcoming Japan tour and celebrate the glorious history of Queen, “QUEEN EXHIBITION JAPAN: Bohemian Rhapsody – Supported by Shueisha”, goes on display, with the cooperation and supervision of QUEEN PRODUCTIONS LIMITED, at Nihonbashi Takashimaya in Tokyo January 15, 2020, also coming to Yokohama and Osaka.

QUEEN EXHIBITION JAPAN: Bohemian Rhapsody – Supported by Shueisha

Nihonbashi Takashimaya Department Store, Tokyo, January 15, 2020 (Wed)-January 27, 2020 (Mon)
Opening Hours: 10:30-19:30 (last admission is 30 min. before closing time) *Closes at 18:00 on the final day, January 27

Asobuild, Yokohama, January 30, 2020 (Thu)-March 22, 2020 (Sun)
Opening Hours: 10:00-21:00 (last admission is 30 min. before closing time) *Closes at 18:00 on the final day, March 22

Osaka Takashimaya Department Store, Osaka, March 25, 2020 (Wed)-April 6, 2020 (Mon)
Opening Hours: 10:00-20:00 (last admission is 30 min. before closing time) *Closes at 17:00 on the final day, April 6

QUEEN EXHIBITION JAPAN Official Site: https://www.queen-exhibition.jp/

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