Queen 14: A Kind Of Magic

The Live Aid concerts in July 1985 were a big deal, and of all the artists given twenty minutes to strut their stuff onstage, Queen pretty much stole both shows. The history leading up to this occasion has been muddled by the major dramatic license taken by the Bohemian Rhapsody biopic, but the fact remains that—overseas anyway—the band was still quite popular. They chose to capitalize on this momentum with a new album that partially tied into another major motion picture.

So given that they’d re-established themselves as rock royalty, and Freddie Mercury had gotten his pop preferences out of the way with his solo album (which, despite what the movie said, did not threaten to break up the band), you’d think that A Kind Of Magic would kick butt, right?

Well, it didn’t. The cartoon artwork throughout looked like they were hoping to ride the coattails of the Stones’ “Harlem Shuffle” video, and there was just the barest tie-in to the Highlander film with a single line on the back cover. The whole thing was just plain garish, even for them, and considering the year in which it appeared.

“One Vision” would have been better served had they started with those classic Brian May chords then the mysterious-sounding intro that kills a full minute. It’s not a bad tune, even with the “fried chicken” joke at the end. The title track continues the “one” theme in the lyrics, and is pretty harmless, especially compared to the rest of the album, starting with “One Year Of Love”. This is execrable adult contemporary, right in line with other hits of the time, complete with the same saxophone player from “Careless Whisper” and strings played first on synthesizer and then on real instruments. “Pain Is So Close To Pleasure” is dominated by Freddie’s unflattering falsetto throughout; he might have been going for Motown, but it sounds more like the worst parts of Hot Space. Brian remembered he played guitar in time for “Friends Will Be Friends”, another attempt at a grand singalong, forgetting that they’d only ended up combining and diluting “You’re My Best Friend” and “Somebody To Love”. (John Deacon had a hand in the last three, so maybe he was having a tough year.)

Side two is most closely connected with the movie, which would only be obvious to those who’d seen it. “Who Wants To Live Forever” has another orchestra for extra pomp, and the song only works once the drums come in. After several seconds of Brian trying to out-hammer Eddie Van Halen, “Gimme The Prize” is helpfully titled “Kurgan’s Theme” after the villain, and his voice can be heard quoting Def Leppard’s “Rock Of Ages” in the many samples heard among the heavy metal tropes. Roger Taylor is responsible for “Don’t Lose Your Head”; apparently he was content to program a drum machine, and somebody roped in Joan Armatrading to intone the title a few times. “Princes Of The Universe” ends a mostly loud album with a lot of bombast, but nothing really original.

As a soundtrack, A Kind Of Magic is no better than Flash Gordon, and as a Queen album, it’s a disappointment. Yet somehow the album has since made it to rank on several classic albums lists. The original CD had extras in the form of extended mixes of “A Kind Of Magic” and “Friends Will Be Friends”, as well as a solo piano instrumental of “Who Wants To Live Forever”. The 1991 CD added only that last track, plus an extended mix of “One Vision”. Two decades later, the third version added “Forever” and the extended “Friends”, the movie mix of “A Kind Of Magic”, single mixes of “Pain Is Close To Pleasure” and “One Vision”, plus a demo of the latter and a live version from their 1986 concerts at Wembley.

Coming a year after Live Aid, those shows were a big deal in the UK, where they were celebrated at year’s end with Live Magic, most of which came from the tour finale at Knebworth. Unfortunately, several songs were edited—badly, in the case of “Bohemian Rhapsody”, since the Galileo section came from the record anyway—so all could fit on a single LP. It didn’t come out on the US for another ten years, by which time Live At Wembley ’86 had already become the standard celebration of their triumphant return to the scene of Live Aid. It’s a full two hours, complete with their “ay-yo” jam, Brian’s nine-minute solo off “Brighton Rock”, an oldies medley, and starting the encore with “Big Spender”. Ten years later it was repackaged and retitled, with bonus tracks from other shows, including the Hungarian folk song Freddie performed in Budapest. (Some of that show was already excerpted on Live Magic, and the whole thing was commemorated on VHS and laserdisc in the UK and Japan in 1987. The full performance was released on CD 25 years later as Hungarian Rhapsody.)

Queen A Kind Of Magic (1986)—2
1986 CD: same as 1986, plus 3 extra tracks
1991 Hollywood reissue: same as 1986, plus 2 extra tracks
2011 remaster: same as 1986, plus 7 extra tracks
Queen Live Magic (1986)—3
Queen Live At Wembley ’86 (1992)—3½
2003 Live At Wembley Stadium: same as 1992, plus 4 extra tracks