Entire QUEEN Studio Album Catalog To Be Reissued On Vinyl

Hollywood Records and QUEEN have announced an ambitious two-year effort to release (or re-release, as appropriate) the entire QUEEN studio album catalog on long-playing vinyl albums. The album packaging will include every detail of the original releases all in their gorgeous 12"-holding splendor. Bonus posters, extra pictures, and all the exquisite details found in the original releases — they will have it all. Nothing else has the heft and artistic weight of vinyl LPs and, for the first time ever, all of QUEEN's original studio records will be available in this format.

"Oh sure, we make sure you can get QUEEN's music on whatever teeny-weeny micro iWhatever digital music device you insist on using," says Charlie D'Atri, director of marketing, synergy and special projects, "but fans have been crying out to hear this music on good old analog discs for some time now. We're thrilled to finally make them available."

The first group of releases, dubbed "The First Wave," consists of the classic QUEEN albums "A Night At The Opera", "A Day At the Races", "Sheer Heart Attack", "Queen II" AND the vinyl version of the QUEEN + PAUL RODGERS' new release "The Cosmos Rocks", and will be available starting on October 28.

"The Second Wave," which will consist of five additional albums, including an edition of the famed, rare gold foil stamped "Queen" album, "Flash Gordon", "News Of The World", "A Kind of Magic" and "Innuendo" will be released in spring 2009 with successive waves of releases approximately every six months.

In other QUEEN news, QUEEN + PAUL RODGERS played a marathon two-and-a-half-hour free concert in Kharkov, Ukraine's Freedom Square — the second largest public square in Europe — and it drew a record audience of over 350,000.

The magic of that extraordinary night in Freedom Square can be felt across the U.S. this November 6 when a special high-definition cinema version of the concert, "Queen + Paul Rodgers: Let the Cosmos Rock", will play in over 425 specially selected cinemas in a unique one-night-only presentation.

Tickets for this special event are available at presenting theatre box offices and at www.FathomEvents.com. For a complete list of theatre locations and prices, please visit the web site (theatres are subject to change).

Directed by award winning film-maker David Mallet, "Let the Cosmos Rock" captures in spectacular high definition and cinema Surround Sound that historic night, which the band's Brian May describes as "an unforgettable experience — one of those rare things in life which you know you will never forget. A meeting in music, but also a coming together to fight a common enemy."

That common enemy May refers to, is of course, HIV AIDS, which claimed QUEEN lead singer Freddie Mercury in 1991 and against which QUEEN has staged its own on-going fight through its Mercury Phoenix Trust charity, and externally working with Nelson Mandela's 46664 Aids campaign which it has supported with three concert performances, most recently Mandela's Hyde Park 90th birthday celebration.

"The big screen setting is an ideal medium in which to feel a sense of participation in the Kharkov event," says director David Mallet. "This was by far the biggest show of its kind ever staged. The equipment needed two Antonov 124 aircraft — the world's biggest cargo planes — to get it into the Ukraine, and it is almost impossible to imagine the scale of it once it was built. You would never get a sense of that on television or DVD, which is why it had to be made for the biggest of screens.You could never otherwise experience that feeling of being in there among that crowd; think of it — this was four or five times bigger than your normal Hyde Park concert audience."

"Queen + Paul Rodgers: Let the Cosmos Rock", which takes its name from the just released QUEEN + PAUL RODGERS' first studio album together, is the band "larger than live," with over 120 minutes of QUEEN and Paul Rodgers' own greatest hits, plus a couple of new songs from the new album, "The Comos Rocks".