A Kind Of Magic

Queen Album

Incidental Vocals on ‘Don’t Lose Your Head’ by Joan Armatrading.
UMI and BBC B (computer keyboards).
Lynton Naiff (strings on “One Year of Love”).
Steve Gregory (saxophone on “One Year of Love”).
National Philharmonic Orchestra (on “Who Wants To Live Forever”).

Freddie Mercury: Vocals,Keyboards.
John Deacon: Bass Guitar, Keyboards, Occasional Guitar.
Roger Taylor: Drums, Occasional Vocals, Keyboards.
Brian May: Guitar, Occasional Vocals, Keyboards, Orchestral Arrangement.

Recommended Songs:​ One Vision (Queen), A Kind Of Magic (Taylor), Who Wants To Live Forever (May)

Review

‘A Kind of Magic’ contains many songs from the hit movie, Highlander, which is about a group of immortals who can only die if they ‘lose their heads’. Queen had previously written songs for ‘Flash Gordon’ and Russell Mulcahy was shooting the film, Highlander and wanted Queen to do the music, as he couldn’t think of any better band to do it, insisting that the movie needed their anthemic​ songs and their energy. Unlike the Flash soundtrack, there are no instrumentals on the general release of the album, however, an instrumental​ version of ‘Who wants to live Forever’ is included as an Extra Magical Ingredient on the album. The songs which appeared in the film were, ‘A Kind Of Magic’, ‘Who Wants To Live Forever’, ‘Gimme The Prize’, ‘Don’t Lose Your Head’ and ‘Princes Of The Universe’. These 5 songs are very powerful, each in their own way and they really add to the film.

The remaining songs include ‘One Vision’, and ‘Friends Will Be Friends’, which are two of Queens best known songs both of which are on ‘Grestest Hits II’ and both of which were performed at the ‘Wembley 86’ concert. The album has a mixture of everything, Kerrang called it a ‘medley of music styles‘, and it is, from the hard rock and power drums of ‘Don’t Lose your Head’ to symphonic pieces like ‘Who wants to live Forever’, for which the London Philharmonic Orchestra was used to provide instrumentation for the song. This album for me marks a time when they were working very creatively and the excellence come through in the songs. It is a Kind of Magic – Enjoy !

Did you know …. Freddie recorded a very short version of ‘New York, New York’ for the film & there has been much debate as to whether there is a full version of the song in the vaults. However, Queen sources say, there was no such version recorded.

Buy “A Kind of Magic” album on Amazon