Background
There are two versions of the opening track. The album version (Flash's Theme) is the start to the film, with part of the dialogue from the first scene. The single version (Flash) features parts of the dialogue taken from various parts of the film. This version was also included on the Greatest Hits compilation from 1981. The single reached number one in Austria. The track is noted for its pounding, repetitive bassline and the camp humour of the snippets of dialogue from the film that it contains.
All but two of the tracks on the album (Flash's Theme and The Hero) are instrumentals. The album makes extensive use of synthesisers, which Queen had employed for the first time on their previous album, The Game, although to a much lesser extent.
Side A of the album, except for the opening track and Freddie Mercury's Football Fight (also chosen as a B-side for the Flash single), contains mostly synthesiser, vocal, guitar and drum soundscapes (accompanied by the movie dialogues), written and performed by Mercury, Taylor and Deacon. Side B, while starting with similar compositions by Deacon and Taylor, develops for the most part around the full-band rockier themes, mainly Flash's Theme and Battle Theme, composed and arranged by Brian May. The last track, "The Hero", while an individual song, reprises both motifs. Different takes of the song were used for the end credits in the film and for the album finale.
The album contains mostly the score performed by Queen, and only two short, uncredited fragments of Howard Blake's orchestral score (appearing in The Kiss and The Hero).
Read more about this topic: Flash Gordon (soundtrack)
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“... every experience in life enriches one’s background and should teach valuable lessons.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)