Recently i was thinking about how Queen Rocks is a better successor to Greatest Hits II than Greatest Hits III when i realized something, Queen Rocks has 10 songs on it that aren’t on the UK versions of GHI or II whereas Greatest Hits III has 9 proper Queen songs, including No One But You (Only The Good Die Young) from the Queen Rocks compilation. That makes a total of 18 unrepeated proper Queen songs. Then i thought to myself, imagine if we combined these tracks together to make a superior Greatest Hits III since the one we have is total shit.

So my idea was to do this with little track moving, so i started by listing all of the tracks we need, with the repeats or “Queen+” songs labeled as no. Since Queen Rocks has 18 tracks whereas Greatest Hits III has 17, I placed the Queen Rocks tracks half a track above the Greatest Hits III tracks and got this.

Simply removing all of the no’s gives us this:

1. Tie Your Mother Down

2. Too Much Love Will Kill You

3. I Can’t Live With You (1997 Rocks Retake)

4. You Don’t Fool Me

5. Stone Cold Crazy

6. Heaven For Everyone

7. Las Palabras De Amor (The Words Of Love)

8. Keep Yourself Alive

9. Tear It Up

10. Let Me Live

11. Sheer Heart Attack

12. Princes Of The Universe

13. I’m In Love With My Car

14. Put Out The Fire

15. No One But You (Only The Good Die Young)

16. These Are The Days Of Our Lives

17. It’s Late

18. Thank God It’s Christmas

Not bad but we can improve it by moving I’m In Love With My Car and Stone Cold Crazy to the top, right after Tie Your Mother Down. I was thinking about opening with Stone Cold Crazy but since Greatest Hits II closes with One Vision i thought it’d be great to go from that to Tie Your Mother Down just like on the Magic Tour.

Also, since Greatest Hits I-III are 17 tracks long, i decided to make this one 17 tracks long as well by removing Sheer Heart Attack. While it’s not the worst, it’s certainly the least popular (not counting I Can’t Live With You since that was re-recorded just for Queen Rocks) and i wanted to keep tradition.

After those minor adjustments, here’s the finished product:

1. Tie Your Mother Down

2. I’m In Love With My Car

3. Stone Cold Crazy

4. Too Much Love Will Kill You

5. I Can’t Live With You (1997 Rocks Retake)

6. You Don’t Fool Me

7. Heaven For Everyone

8. Las Palabras De Amor (The Words Of Love)

9. Keep Yourself Alive

10. Tear It Up

11. Let Me Live

12. Princes Of The Universe

13. Put Out The Fire

14. No One But You (Only The Good Die Young)

15. These Are The Days Of Our Lives

16. It’s Late

17. Thank God It’s Christmas

This is certainly an improvement from that abomination from 1999 that dared to call itself Greatest Hits III and not just that but it also includes key tracks missing from the first 2 UK Greatest Hits albums like Keep Yourself Alive and Tie Your Mother Down.

Now i could stop there but let’s have some more fun. In my last blog post, i talked about Queen on 8-track and in that post i showed a few fantasy 8-track orders.

What if Queen’s Greatest Hits trilogy was released on 8-track, what would the sequencing look like?

Here goes nothing:

Greatest Hits (1981)

Program 1:

Bohemian Rhapsody

Another One Bites The Dust

Killer Queen

Flash

Program 2:

Fat Bottomed Girls

Bicycle Race

You’re My Best Friend

Don’t Stop Me Now

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

Program 3:

Somebody To Love

Now I’m Here

Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy

Play The Game

Program 4:

Save Me

Under Pressure

Seven Seas Of Rhye

We Will Rock You

We Are The Champions

Greatest Hits II (1991)

Program 1:

A Kind Of Magic

Radio Ga Ga

I Want It All

The Miracle

Program 2:

I Want To Break Free

Innuendo

It’s A Hard Life

Breakthru

Program 3:

Who Wants To Live Forever

Headlong

I’m Going Slightly Mad

One Vision (Classic Queen edit)

Program 4:

The Invisible Man

Hammer To Fall

Friends Will Be Friends

The Show Must Go On

Queen Rocks: Greatest Hits III (1997)

Program 1:

Tie Your Mother Down

I’m In Love With My Car

Stone Cold Crazy

Too Much Love Will Kill You

I Can’t Live With You (1997 Rocks Retake)

Program 2:

You Don’t Fool Me

Heaven For Everyone

Las Palabras De Amor (The Words Of Love)

Keep Yourself Alive (US single edit)

Program 3:

Tear It Up

Let Me Live

Princes Of The Universe

Put Out The Fire

No One But You (Only The Good Die Young) (finished in part 4)

Program 4:

These Are The Days Of Our Lives

It’s Late

Thank God It’s Christmas