The track, titled “Little Darlin” was released this week by Rhino Entertainment and was originally recorded by McVie in 2004 when working on her solo album, In the Meantime.

McVie would have turned 80 on 12th July 2023, with Rhino working together with McVie’s nephew, Dan Perfect, to release a remastered version of “Little Darlin” on this date to celebrate the singer’s legacy. Perfect was involved in the original writing and production of In the Meantime back in 2004, and has continued to play a significant role in his aunt’s career.

Rhino have also shared further plans to release reissues of McVie’s solo album In the Meantime as a whole, in addition to a reissue of her self-titled 1984 album later this year. These projects are also being overseen by McVie’s nephew, Dan Perfect, who shared his thoughts in the liner notes of the re-release.

Perfect said, “When my aunt Christine McVie died unexpectedly last year, plans were already afoot for the re-release of this solo album, which is perhaps her most personal and intimate project.”

Perfect also shared, “Chris and I had been working for some time on remixing the original tracks in Dolby Atmos, and Chris was excited and intrigued by this process, which was bringing fresh life and contemporaneity to the songs… I dearly wish that she could have lived to see this re-release as she would have been delighted.”

McVie’s former Fleetwood Mac band member Mick Fleetwood also paid tribute to her to mark her 80th birthday. He released a spoken word adaptation of McVie’s track, “Songbird,” saying in the track, “As the songbird sings, now from the heavens, to you Christine, I wish you all the love in the world. But, most of all, I wish it from myself.”

Mick teamed up with Jake Shimabukuro to produce the track, with Mick on vocals and percussion.

“Songbird” was also performed by Mick Fleetwood, Sheryl Crow and Bonnie Raitt in tribute to McVie at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards earlier this year.

McVie passed away in November of 2022 following a brief illness, and has left behind a huge legacy that is still being celebrated after her passing.

Fleetwood Mac shared their thoughts via social media, writing, “There are no words to describe our sadness at the passing of Christine McVie. She was truly one-of-a-kind, special and talented beyond measure. She was the best musician anyone could have in their band and the best friend anyone could have in their life. We were so lucky to have a life with her. Individually and together, we cherished Christine deeply and are thankful for the amazing memories we have. She will be so very missed.”

“I’m happy that our team were able to find this track,” said guitarist Brian May, “After all these years, it’s great to hear all four of us, yes, Deacy is there too, working in the studio on a great song idea which never quite got completed… until now.” The album will not only feature this lost track but it will also include some of the band’s conversations in studios in London and Montreux, Switzerland.“It was kind of hiding in plain sight,” May continued, “We looked at it many times and thought, oh, no, we can’t really rescue that. But, in fact, we went in there again and our wonderful engineering team went, ok, we can do this and this. It’s kind of stitching bits together.”

Roger Taylor, Queen’s drummer, went on to say that they had “kind of forgotten about this track,” but described the song as “wonderful, a real discovery. It’s a very passionate piece.” This will mark the first new song featuring Freddie Mercury since the Queen Forever album which was released in 2014. It featured three unheard tracks: ‘Love Kills’, ‘Let Me In Your Heart Again’, and ‘There Must Be More to Life Than This’.

The original release of The Miracle went to number one in the UK, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland and received critical acclaim with Rolling Stone saying: “The Miracle is a showcase for Freddie Mercury and his love of sweeping, quasi-operatic vocals. And indeed, Mercury – especially on the title track – has never sounded better…”

Queen formed in 1970 and went on to be one of the biggest stadium rock bands in the world. Their 1981 Greatest Hits album is the best-selling album in the UK and has been certified nine times platinum in the US. The band comprised of Freddie Mercury (lead vocals, piano), Brian May (guitar, vocals), Roger Taylor (drums, vocals) and John Deacon (bass). Freddie Mercury passed away in 1991 from AIDs-related complications. He performed for the final time with Queen at Knebworth in 1986. Today, Roger Taylor and Brian May still perform as Queen with Adam Lambert on vocals.

The release includes an entirely new mix of Animals, reworked into 5.1 Stereo by sound engineer James Guthrie. Additionally, the Blu-ray and DVD releases will come with the original 1977 mix. It also includes new artwork by Aubrey Powell, who was a partner of the original cover’s artist, Storm Thorgerson, as a member of the London-based collective Hipgnosis.

Pink Floyd shared a statement on their social media where they explained that Powell took new photos of the building pictured on the ‘Animals’ cover – the Battersea Power Station on the south bank of the River Thames – during recent conversion work, adding to the narrative behind the album’s concept. Powell himself stated, “With the original 1977 album cover being such an iconic piece of stand-alone art, I had the chance to update it, which was a rather daunting task, but Hipgnosis took the opportunity to re-photograph the image to reflect a changing world, and by using modern digital colouring techniques I kept Pink Floyd’s rather bleak message of moral decay using the Orwellian themes of animals, the pig ‘Algie’, faithful to the message of the album.”

You can take a look at the cover art for the 2018 Remix edition of Animals as well as the band’s full statement on its release – below:

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As the name, 2018 Remix edition suggests it was initially completed four years ago, just after the album celebrated its 40th anniversary. Unfortunately plans to release it were then axed because of a feud between guitarist David Gilmour and ex-bassist Roger Waters, which reportedly came from a dispute over the album’s newly re-written liner notes.

Waters wrote four of the album’s five songs by himself, while he and Gilmour collaborated (and shared lead vocals) on the track “Dogs”. Last June, Waters wrote in a blog post that Gilmour refused to authorise the new release unless the liner notes, written by journalist Mark Blake, were scrapped from its packaging. “[Gilmour] does not dispute the veracity of the history described in Mark’s notes,” Waters said, “but he wants that history to remain secret.” It’s unknown whether those liner notes will indeed appear on the 2018 Remix edition of Animals, but they are already publicly accessible as when he shared the Gilmour’s dissatisfaction with the liner notes, Waters posted them to his website.

Meanwhile, Pink Floyd also announced a physical release for their Ukraine benefit single “Hey Hey Rise Up”, the band’s first new material in over 25 years which arrived digitally in April. In both the UK, Europe a seven-inch vinyl and CD single will be available for purchase on July 15. However, it won’t be released in Japan until August 3 while in North America, Canada, Australia and Mexico, it will drop on October 21. The B-side will also feature a reworked version of “A Great Day For Freedom”, from Pink Floyd’s 1994 album The Division Bell, reimagined by David Gilmour based on the original tapes for the track.

In the very long and detailed message released on the 31st of May, Waters claims that David Gilmour ‘does not dispute the veracity’ of the liner notes. In fact, the album sees the bassist as the most important figure of the creative process of the album making, including songwriting and the cover design. Instead, Waters thinks that his ex-bandmate ‘wants that history to remain secret’.

The musician continues in his statement:‘What precipitated this note is that there are new James Guthrie Stereo and 5.1 mixes of the Pink Floyd album ‘Animals’, 1977. These mixes have languished unreleased because of a dispute over some sleeve notes that Mark Blake has written for this new release. Gilmour has vetoed the release of the album unless these liner notes are removed. He does not dispute the veracity of the history described in Mark’s notes, but he wants that history to remain secret.’

He continues: ‘This is a small part of an ongoing campaign by the Gilmour/Samson [Polly, Gilmour’s wife] camp to claim more credit for Dave on the work he did in Pink Floyd, 1967-1985, than is his due. Yes he was, and is, a jolly good guitarist and singer. But, he has for the last 35 years told a lot of whopping porky pies about who did what in Pink Floyd when I was still in charge. There’s a lot of “we did this” and “we did that”, and “I did this” and “I did that”.‘

Waters also shared that he started working on a possible memoir during the lockdown caused by the pandemic that will reveal more about Gilmour being given too much credit. Animals, released in 1977, reached number 2 in the UK charts and number 3 in the States, and is considered one of the best Pink Floyd’s releases along with ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’, ‘The Wall’ and ‘Wish You Were Here’.

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