This is Queen The Greatest,
a journey through the Queen story so far,
celebrating their biggest songs,
performances and achievements.
In this episode we look back at
a fascinating venture for the band.
For what may have been the band’s
ninth studio album, this was also their
first movie soundtrack.
It is, of course, Flash Gordon.
In 1980, work on Flash began in tandem
with the recording sessions for The Game,
but while this would obviously represent
something of a departure for the band,
they were determined to make it as much a
Queen album as their previous ones.
Here, Brian and Roger explain
how the project came about….
[Brian May] “Somebody asked us,
I think that’s what it comes down to.”
[Roger Taylor] “It was an interesting
offer really from Dino De Laurentiis
and Joe Smith, head of Elektra,
engineered the whole thing really.
And, it was interesting actually,
because the film was a big hit in
Europe and UK, and
flopped completely in America.”
[Brian May] “But became a cult video thing
later on, didn’t it?
Yeah, I feel pretty proud of
the Flash thing, because really
I don’t think,
I think this was the first time
that a rock soundtrack had actually
been put to a movie which
wasn’t about rock music.”
[Brian May] “There was a lot of
resistance to it, a lot of people said
it wouldn’t work, actually including Dino.
When he first heard it he went
“oh, it’s not going to work for my film”.
The idea of the rock music being in there.
But he pretty soon became accustomed to
the idea and he loved it in the end.”
[Roger Taylor] “It actually really was,
it was sort of Brian’s thing really and
it really did forge quite a lot.
I mean you never heard heavy rock,
a lot of it was quite heavy,
music over film, on a film, on a movie,
and so this battle sequence is
really quite ground breaking.”
[Brian May] “It was,
I think it was the first.”
[Roger Taylor] “And now,
you can’t see a movie without soundtrack
albums coming at you and heavy music.”
[Brian May] “That’s right.
And heavy guitars.”
[Roger Taylor] “So I think we were quite
well ahead of the game there.”
Understandably, this project begged the
question at the time as to whether
Queen would consider doing
another movie soundtrack…
[Roger Taylor] “This film thing was
very interesting, and if somebody comes up
with a really fascinating offer for
another film, perhaps we might
think about that.
But, no, we’re a rock and roll band,
think we always will be.”
As The Game album started to
take up more of the band’s time,
Brian took on the responsibility of
getting the soundtrack over the line.
The title track, Flash, would be
the only single released,
but the album is crammed full of
classic queen tunes – not least The Hero,
which became a stellar opening
to the live show….