Queen’s 1986 A Kind Of Magic album is probably my favorite from the band.
I was already a fan of the band, and had a vinyl copy of News Of The World, a cassettes of A Night At The Opera and one other. I had watched VHS tapes of a couple of concerts and was primed to have more from the band. When the film Highlander came out I loved it in part because of the subject matter, but also the soundtrack. Though there wasn’t a soundtrack for the film released this album almost fills that role.
Over the years I have acquired several other Queen albums, each one fantastic for their own merits, but A Kind Of Magic will always hold a special place in my heart. I have in the ensuing years been able to separate my (youthful) affection for the Highlander film from this album and able to enjoy Queen’s music on its own (unlike with the Flash Gordon soundtrack). Yet A Kind Of Magic still holds a special place in my heart as it was the album that cemented my affection for the band.
“Who Wants To Live Forever”
This was one of the cassettes I had back in the 80s that got stolen. I replaced it with another cassette and ultimately picked up the vinyl version. This was all well before 1990. I would listen to the vinyl version quite a bit and still have it. Unfortunately my life with small kids is such that vinyl is impractical to listen to on a regular basis. Compact disc would be the medium for most of my music listening, but I didn’t have a copy of A Kind Of Magic on CD.
Until last week.
“Princes Of The Universe”
It has been a while since I have listened to the whole album, and thankfully it still holds up today. Actually, pretty much all of Queen’s music does. But this album, coming at a point in time from the band when they found rejuvenated purpose and energy, holds up fantastically well.
I have mentioned before “One Vision” is one of my top driving songs. Song for song, A Kind Of Magic does not stack up among my favorites, oddly. It is the album as a whole that I enjoy so much. It’s nice to be able to listen to the whole thing again.
Now I have it on CD, the reissue from a couple of years ago. This edition adds a second disc of songs, some of which have been released before as bonus tracks on previous CD releases. not only do we get the piano instrumental version of “Forever” but single mixes of certain songs and more. One inclusion is “A Kind Of Vision” which showcases how the two songs “One Vision” and “A Kind Of Magic” came from the same place before being split into two separate songs.
It would be nice to have all the Queen albums to listen to and give a totally subjective (as much as possible) viewpoint on them to absolutely declare which on I think is their “best” or my favorite. Until then, A Kind Of Magic stands in that role.