From Queenpedia.com

Following the success of the One Vision single, Queen's thirteenth studio album, A Kind Of Magic, was completed by February of 1986. It was different to their previous albums - with six of the nine tracks appearing in some form as songs in the film Highlander, and a seventh, One Vision featuring in the film Iron Eagle. Also, it was the first new Queen album to be released on CD (previous albums had by now all been rereleased on the format) - and followed the trend of the time, including additional tracks on this format only.

Upon hearing a rough cut of the new album, the band's American record label, Capitol Records, wanted a different single than the rest of the world. Their market research suggested that heavy rock sold better than pop-rock, and wanted the hard-edged Mercury composition Princes Of The Universe (also the opening theme to the Highlander film) as opposed to Roger's lighthearted A Kind Of Magic, which their European record company preferred.

Deciding to let both companies have the singles they wanted, Queen made a promo for both tracks with Highlander director Russell Mulcahy (also responsible for most of Duran Duran's highly popular music videos). A Kind Of Magic was the first to be shot, due to the timescale required to complete the animated sections.

Filmed in the disused Playhouse Theatre in London's Northumberland Avenue at Charing Cross, the video was Queen's first to include animation since Save Me, with computer graphics bringing the characters from the cover of the new album to dazzling life as, among other things, the band's backing singers.

The theatre was once used by the BBC to record programming for radio, and this was the inspiration for the video itself - Freddie is the magician who returns to the abandoned theatre where he was once a star and turns three down-and-out squatters (Brian, Roger and John) into his band. The shoot itself was somewhat less magical - the theatre lacked central heating and was very cold, much to the discomfort of the band and the crew.

The results spoke for themselves however - the single was an enormous hit, reaching number three in the UK singles charts in March of 1986, and hitting number one in no less than 35 other countries - helped in no small part by both the Highlander connection and the promotional video, which proved so popular that it was released as a VHS video single (the first of its kind) in October of 1986 together with the promo for Who Wants To Live Forever. That, and it's just a damn catchy song.

It was later chosen to open the Greatest Flix II VHS in 1991, and also features on the Classic Queen video in America, and the Greatest Video Hits 2 DVD released in 2003. The latter proved controversial, as due to an authoring fault, the picture was presented in its original letterbox format, but squashed down to fit inside a 16.9 anamorphic widescreen presentation - resulting in an unnaturally distorted presentation.

Credits

Version	Name	Artist	Recorded	Format	Length	Director	Filming Location
Standard Version	A Kind Of Magic	Queen	February 1986	Video	4.24	Russell Mulcahy	Playhouse Theatre, Northumberland Avenue, Charing Cross, London

Availability

• Standard Version - A Kind Of Magic / Who Wants To Live Forever VHS video single, Greatest Flix II VHS, Box Of Flix VHS, Classic Queen VHS, Greatest Video Hits 2 DVD