Queen - Flash Gordon (Original Soundtrack Music) (2011)

Flash Gordon is an unusual album in many ways, breaking with previous traditions. First of all – although concept albums were not far from Queen’s ideas – this is the first complete material that is just a collection of songs developed from a few closely related themes, in which the band, which has always placed great emphasis on visuality, can fulfill its desires for visuality and multimediality, since this time they did not make a video for their songs, but they wrote the accompanying music for the film of the same title as the album.

On the other hand – and this is perhaps even more important than the previous ones – although the members of Queen have always been proud that their magically complex music, colored with operatic choirs, was completely free of synthesizers, now – just like on The Game released in the same year – each member of the band also added something to the film score with a synthesizer.
This then took Queen's music in a new direction, which resulted in later hits, songs that were far removed from traditional rock - to some's delight, to some's sorrow, but certainly a positive shift in terms of the band's commercial success.

The music itself consists of songs that use the dynamic, multi-part guitar themes that are familiar from Queen, such as the characteristically "queen" songs such as "Flash's Theme" and the closely related "Battle Theme", and on the other hand, it is based on synthesizer melodies that have the power of novelty, such as the three other main themes, namely "Love Theme", "Ming's Theme" and "Vultan's Theme".

Even the old fans get what they have always praised and adored Queen for. The unadulterated, sweeping Mercury tune of “Football Fight”, the well-known wedding march borrowed from Richard Wagner’s opera Lohengrin in the “Wedding March” with Brian May’s concise guitar sound, the album and film’s closing “The Hero” could have been on any previous Queen album.

This soundtrack is an experiment, but I think it’s a lucky experiment, which is confirmed by the soundtrack written for Highlander a few years later. Those who love Queen will like Flash Gordon despite the lack of thematic and stylistic excess compared to their other albums, and those who are just getting to know the band will – if nothing else – get an idea of ​​how diverse musicians these British guys were at the turn of the eighties.