Flash Gordon (Soundtrack)
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Free Music Notes for Flash Gordon (Soundtrack)
Free Music Review: This is an emotional stirring masterpiece.
Hit: 4 Stars
This will initially be confusing if you did not see the movie, but it will grow on you with its tribal sounding drums, rockin guitar and classical sounding keyboard work. I have worn out my first tape and cd and am buying my third.Free Music Review: Flash Gordon (Soundtrack)
Hit: 4 Stars
This is a classic soundtrack of a movie that is from a classic movie. It is classic Queen at its best. The music has awesome guitar riffs as well as a great feel.Free Music Review: Great
Hit: 4 Stars
I am very satisfied with the promptness of the seller and the quality of the item. I would buy from this seller again.Free Music Review: Flash!.... AH-AAAAAAAAH!
Hit: 3 Stars
Oh my. To say this Queen album was full of good cheezy fun is quite the understatement. In essance, this album typifies the big budget movies of the late 70's/early 80's quite well with it's hugely dramatic and sprawling guitar riffs akin to that of some kind of electrified opera. It's as if their hit BOHEIMIAN RHAPSODY had spawned an entire album, or more to the point, it's as if it was THIS album that actually produced it, because most of the music on this album is just that kind of kitschy, grand drama that we loved as kids of the time period.
We loved that about Queen... ready to do opera at a moment's notice, if only someone would give the fat lady a Fender electric guitar.
This soundtrack is of the type i love most... the muscial score trimmed with bits of dialogue from the film itsself. It's like listening to a condensed version of the film, with all the good stuff left in. In fact, when I was a young lad, I had actually recorded parts of the movie on my old boombox for listening later, and was VERY surprised to find that in comparison, both my recording and the actual soundtrack were damn near IDENTICAL. Perhaps the album contains the most interesting bits of the film after all?
I have to admit, to fully enjoy this Queen offering, you really do have to like the movie. If you don't, you will simply be bored to tears.
The best tracks for me are "In The Space Capsule" with a driving drum beat, "In The Death Cell" with it's dream like simplicity and any of the tracks dealing with the battle scenes at the end of the film. I admit, it's kinda hard to describe this album in terms of tracks, because any individual track doesn't seem to stand up on it's own as a song, and isn't terribly interesting to listen to out of sequence or without knowledge of the film's storyline.
Even when Freddie Mercury makes a vocal appearance on the album it feels like a last minute thing, like somehow it's being revealed that Queen was indeed the providers of music. It's not his best...even the "Boheimian Rhapsody"-ish "The Hero" is just a gentle rip-off of the far superior source material.
This album was re-released on cd in 1991 with a bonus track by Mista Lawnge, which if you ask me, is totally pointless and totally uniteresting. If we needed a bonus track for this album why didn't we include the Queen single "Flash Gordon" which did get airplay and was what got me interested in the movie in the first place? It's nowhere to be seen. Personally, I have programmed my cd player to skip the Mista Lawnge offering with minimal effort.
Basically, this album is probably for either total Queen-philes or anyone who really enjoyed the goofy movie... of which I am both. You may want to weigh this before purchasing.
Free Music Review: Too much synths
Hit: 3 Stars
2 1/2 stars. Unlike companion bands such as Rush who added synthesizers gradually into thier sound, Queen added some synths in thier sound in 1979 and then the following year suddenly added too many synth sounds into their music as if to make up for not having included them on thier pre-The Game albums. It was not a good move and it badly marred thier 1982 album Hot Space but mainly the 1980 Flash Gordon Soundtrack album. No doubt Flash Gordon is a godsend to those seeking instrumentals from Queen (they were always rare but this albums almost completly instrumental) but Queen play too many synths and not as much of their respective instruments especially Brian May. Though Brian really rips it up on The Hero, Battle Theme and a few other tracks 8 songs (Voltans Theme, The Ring, Mings Theme, In The Space Capsule, In The Death Cell, The Kiss, Arboria and Escape from The Swamp) dont feature Brians guitar at all, a major Queen trademark. On Queen studio albums there were only 5 songs May did not play on (Dear Friends, Seaside Rondevous, One Year Of Love, My Melencholy Blues and Forever). Not only is the Synth playing to prevailent over all the songs, its too simple and repetitive. For a band of such great multiinstrumentalists and keyboardists as Queen this is shocking. On the plus side thier is a campy charm much like the movie on this album and the songs have more of a Prog Rock/experamental edge then on the usual Queen album however this is not one of Queens better efforts.