r/popculturechat • u/Hammer_Price • 1d ago
Books & Literature 📚 Over 30 items related to Freddie Mercury including notebooks, lyrics & notes were top sellers at Propstore on Oct. 1. The Mercury items were offered individually. Of the top 25 items in this auction 19 were by him at prices ranging from £9,000 to £288,200. Reported by Rare Book Hub.
The highest price paid was for a 1983-85 notebook in Mercury’s hand (lot 264) shown in photo. It brought £288,200 ($382,086), extravagantly exceeding the presale high estimate of £30,000.
Excerpts from Catalog notes:
Lot 264: A notebook containing lyrics and notes handwritten by Freddie Mercury during the 1983-85 recording sessions for his solo album Mr. Bad Guy.
This lot comes from the personal collection of German record producer and engineer Reinhold Mack. Following the success of Queen’s recordings at Musicland Studios, Mercury returned to Munich to collaborate with Mack on his first and only solo project.
While remaining a member of Queen, Mercury used Mr. Bad Guy as an opportunity to explore musical styles beyond the band's established sound, including dance and disco influences. "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," Mercury told journalist David Wigg in 1985.
Providing a rare insight into Mercury’s creative process, the notebook contains working drafts, lyric fragments, chord progressions and handwritten notes relating to the development of his solo material.
Mercury has written on 45 pages within the book, in blue ink, black ink and pencil.The handwritten lyrics include the songs "Mr. Bad Guy", "Love Me Like There’s No Tomorrow", "Man Made Paradise", "She Blows Hot and Cold", "Living On My Own", "There Must Be More to Life Than This", "Your Kind of Lover", "Let’s Turn It On", "Love Making Love", "My Love Is Dangerous", "Stop All the Fighting" and "I Was Born to Love You".
Several of these songs were ultimately omitted from the finished album. There are revisions and crossings-out, demonstrating Mercury’s working methods during the album's creation. The lot retains a slight cigarette-smoke odour, with minor discolouration around the paper edges. Some pages within the book are loose.
Dimensions: 30 cm x 23 cm x 0.75 cm (11.75" x 9" x 0.25")
Reinhold Mack (often credited simply as Mack) is a record producer and audio engineer who helped create some of the most celebrated recordings of the 1970s and 1980s. His career is closely tied to Munich's Musicland Studios, where he played a pivotal role in transforming a modest basement facility beneath the Arabella-Hochhaus High-Rise building into one of Europe's premier recording destinations.
Born in Germany, Mack developed a passion for music from an early age, studying piano, acoustic guitar, and clarinet before discovering the electric guitar as a teenager. After beginning his engineering career at Munich's Union Studios, he was recruited by Musicland founder Giorgio Moroder. Musicland Studios became a pioneering recording hub that attracted many of the world's leading artists.
Mack is perhaps best known for his enduring partnership with Queen. Beginning with The Game in 1980, he helped guide the band's transition toward a more contemporary sound, embracing new electronic influences. His work on The Game, Flash Gordon, Hot Space, and The Works contributed to some of Queen's most iconic recordings, including "Another One Bites the Dust," "Crazy Little Thing Called Love," and "Radio Ga Ga".
The band even immortalised his name by including it in the lyrics to the song "Dragon Attack". Beyond the studio, Mack developed a close friendship with Freddie Mercury. Mercury was a frequent guest at the Mack family home and later became godfather to Mack's son, John Frederick Mack, whom he helped name.
Their creative partnership extended to Mercury's solo album Mr. Bad Guy, a project that allowed the singer to fully explore his passion for dance, pop, and electronic music.
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