Queen: Complete Works
by Georg Purvis

The best Queen website on paper? Possibly

If you suspect an ‘e’ has fallen off the author’s Christian name you’d be mistaken. Having read the book, however, a hefty 474-page resume of Queen’s career, you’d perhaps not be so sure. Since Purvis, “a leading historian of Queen”, came to the band in 1993, he is clearly in need of an older hand to hold his, or at least proofread (hence such obvious mis-spellings as “Carmen” Appice and “Judy” Tzuke). There’s also a number of ‘most likelys’ attached to suppositions about pre-Queen songs which undermines the work’s authority.

In truth this is a number of Queen books jammed together, as it ambitiously tackles the band’s history, albums, sessions, songs, tours, videos, movies and collaborations. Quite why the collaboration with Eddie Howell, The Man From Manhattan, makes it into the band’s songs instead is somewhat confusing. An index would have been handy to circumvent such anomalies.

R&H’s Complete David Bowie was something of a tour de force, but this attempt to duplicate it lacks the same depth of insight. With all the internet sources credited at the end, you realise Queen: Complete Works reads like a website on paper.

ISBN 9781905287338

Reviewed by Michael Heatley
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