April 2025 marked the 40th anniversary of the release of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury’s only solo studio album, Mr. Bad Guy. Now, two special vinyl editions of the record will be released on December 5 to celebrate the milestone.
Videos by American Songwriter
One release is an LP pressed on 180-gram, translucent-green vinyl. The second is a picture disc feature the Mr. Bad Guy cover photo of Mercury wearing dark sunglasses and a white tank top. Both special 40th anniversary Mr. Bad Guy LPs are available at Mercury’s online store, and can be pre-ordered now.
[RELATED: On This Day in 1985, Freddie Mercury Released His Only Solo Studio Album Mr. Bad Guy]
The green-vinyl reissue features a mix created by Queen’s longtime studio engineering team of Justin Shirley-Smith and Joshua J. Macrae. The mix first appeared on the 2019 Freddie Mercury box set Never Boring.
“We went back to the original multi-track tapes,” Shirley-Smith said of the mix. “It’s a great collection of songs and Freddie’s vocal performance is absolutely extraordinary. The idea wasn’t to try to make it sound like they would make it now, it was to make it sound like it would have then if they’d had better technology and more time. And of course, it’s a massive honor to work on anything Freddie did, and we always treat it with the utmost respect.”
In addition, a new line of Mr. Bad Guy merch can be purchased at FreddieMercury.com. Among the items are T-shirts, tank tops, a varsity jacket, and a zippered hoodie.
About the Mr. Bad Guy Album
Mr. Bad Guy is an 11-track collection that found the legendary singer exploring dance music and pop sounds. It was recorded between early 1983 and early 1985 at Musicland Studios in Munich, Germany. Freddie co-produced Mr. Bad Guy with Reinhold Mack, who collaborated with Queen on the band’s four previous studio albums.
Mercury wrote all of the songs, sang lead vocals, and played piano and synthesizer on the album. The record also included contributions from guitarist Paul Vincent, drummer Curt Cress, bassist Stephan Wissnet, and Queen touring keyboardist Fred Mandel.
Mr. Bad Guy peaked at No. 6 on the U.K. album chart. Four singles were released from the album—“I Was Born to Love You,” “Made in Heaven,” “Living on My Own,” and “Love Me Like There’s No Tomorrow.” Lead single “I Was Born to Love You” reached No. 11 on the U.K. singles tally. The other tunes peaked at No. 57, No. 50, and No. 76, respectively.
After Mercury’s death in 1991, Queen reworked “I Was Born to Love You” and “Made in Heaven” and included the songs on its 1995 Made in Heaven album.
Another song featured on Mr. Bad Guy, “There Must Be More to Life Than This,” originally was recorded by Queen as a duet with Michael Jackson in 1981 during the sessions for the band’s Hot Space album. The duet version of the tune finally was released in 2014 on the Queen Forever compilation.
Mercury’s Comments About Mr. Bad Guy
Regarding his decision to release a solo album, Mercury said about Mr. Bad Guy at the time, “I had a lot of ideas bursting to get out and there were a lot of musical territories I wanted to explore which I really couldn’t do within Queen.”
Reflecting on the project, Freddie noted, “I put my heart and soul into Mr. Bad Guy and I think it’s a very natural album. It had some very moving ballads—things to do with sadness and pain, but at the same time there were some very frivolous and tongue-in-cheek songs, because that is my nature. I think the songs on that album reflect the state of my life, a diverse selection of moods and a whole spectrum of what my life was.”
Mr. Bad Guy’s title track featured accompaniment by the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, something Mercury said he was particularly proud of.
“You can go through all the Queen albums and there isn’t one song that actually had a fully-fledged orchestra on it,” he maintained. “I thought, ‘I’ll be the first one to do it.’ It’s quite outrageous. I just said, ‘Play all the notes you haven’t played in your life before,’ so they went completely crazy. And that’s the outcome. Very bombastic, very pompous, very me.”
Mr. Bad Guy Vinyl LP Track List:
Side One
- “Let’s Turn It On”
- “Made in Heaven”
- “I Was Born to Love You”
- “Foolin’ Around”
- “Your Kind of Lover”
Side Two
- “Mr. Bad Guy”
- “Man Made Paradise”
- “There Must Be More to Life Than This”
- “Living on My Own”
- “My Love Is Dangerous”
- “Love Me Like There’s No Tomorrow
(Photo by Phil Dent/Redferns)
Leave a Reply
Only members can comment. Become a member. Already a member? Log in.