Most people buy the records, either on vinyl, CD, cassette or as digital releases (iTunes, chiefly) and they then proceed to listen to them. Some do it once, some do it more often, some select the tracks they like and virtually overlook the rest and that's it. Then there are some anoraks who like to read the inner sleeve and memorise the credits, compare data and learn who the engineers were, where the different bits were recorded and who sang backing vocals and the like. As one of said nerds, I love going even further than that, and so this project was born, with the intention of gathering as much information as possible and putting it together in one place where it can easily be accessed, perused, expanded on and, of course, corrected.
For every album, there'll hopefully be the following lists:
- Documented Timeline: It's quite self-explanatory. Copying from the Wikipedia definition: a list of events in chronological order. Hopefully, rehearsals, recordings, release and awards/milestones will be included.
- Documented Recording Venues: The studios used for the album, including the name, address, city/town, region/province/county/state, postcode and country.
- Documented Personnel: The people involved, either as players, producers, engineers, technicians and anybody else who played a key role on the album (photographers, personal assistants, etc).
- Documented Instruments: Makes and models of the percussion, string and keyboard instruments used on the album, and occasionally brass as well (if applicable).
- Documented Studio Equipment: Tape-recorders, mixing consoles, microphones, etc. For some albums, there's a lot of detailed info which has been collected - for others, sadly, not so much, yet...
- Myths, Legends & Ongoing Debates: Fanon (fan canon) can sometimes be wrong, so here's a chance to set the record straight. Best case scenario: errors get corrected; worst case scenario: even more misinformation is spread. Worth the risk, anyway.
Disclaimers / Insistent Terminology
- Country Names: Political divisions of the time when the albums were recorded will be observed (for most of Queen's existence as an actively creative group, the USSR still existed, as did Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, and there were two Germanys). Wales, Scotland, England and Northern Ireland are considered separate countries (because they are).
- People's Names: As much as possible, the format has been standardised to First Name / Surname. That may include aliases (e.g. Elton John rather than Reginald Dwight). For the sake of consistency, I'll be using the long form of the first name rather than the short one: 'Brian' instead of 'Bri', 'John' instead of 'Jack', 'James' instead of 'Jimmy' and - yes, you've guessed it! - 'Frederick' instead of 'Freddie'. Some people hate that... well, that's too bad - I'm not doing it to annoy them.
- Spelling: Commonwealth spelling will be favoured ('colour' instead of 'color'), even on words which are nowadays mostly Americanised (e.g. 'synthesiser', which most people spell 'synthesizers', and that's absolutely fine).