I've been flagging this everywhere for years, Foursticks... But only to deaf ears and replies regarding rights, and an everlasting list of who bought what rights, and what.. I have given up on this issue, and hold TIGHT to my bootleg release, which is crap, yes, but better than nothing...

adragon, July 3, 2006; 2:42 AM

Thanks for your reply.
Yeah, I sympathise with buying bootlegs when the suits have obviously made everything so unnecesarrily complex that an official soundtrack can't even be released. It's a shame because a lot of people (fans of both the film and Queen) would go for it. Out of interest, were you mainly contacting the companies that now own the film (I'm assuming the production companies that actually made it- Cannon etc- no longer exist) or those that own the music?
Going after the owners of the Queen back catalogue would seem the best way to go as they always seem up for putting out as much previously unreleased/alternate version stuff as possible. But then I suppose the fact that one of the unreleased tracks is a cover causes even more problems.
Maybe we should start one of those online petition things to get EMI or whoever to put some effort into making this happen. I know it's not the biggest deal in the world but might be worth trying.
Personally, I believe it should be simpler than this. In his DVD commentary for "Easy Rider" Dennis Hopper said in 1969 all you needed to use a song in a film and put it out on a soundtrack was permission from the writer. Unfortunately nowadays an army of lawyers seem to have everything entirely stacked in their favour and soundtrack law is just insanely complicated.

fourstickssludgefactory, July 4, 2006; 2:14 AM

Hi everyone. I have a 3 CD set that contains 75 Tracks of all the
music from Michael Kamen as well as Queen. If those idiots at EMI
won't release a proper soundtrack, then screw them - I have the
soundtrack anyway which runs at just over 3 hours!! Back in
1988 I wrote to EMI and asked them why the soundtrack hadn't
been released like other films, but all they could say was that
Queen's "A Kind of Magic" was the soundtrack (which, clearly, it
isn't!!!!). I suspect it's something to do with a deal struck with
Queen's lawyers to only have that particular album available. As
for the comment about the lawyers - I TOTALLY agree. Lawyers,
particularly Solicitors, are the scum of the earth and just wrap
everything in red tape in order to make themselves more and
more money. Like I said before - screw them! I have my complete
soundtrack so I don't care!! And as long as the bootlegs exist and
continue to be sold, EMI or whoever will be deprived of the
income. It's their own stupid fault for never releasing a proper
soundtrack isn't it?!! I love HIGHLANDER - it's one of my all-time
favourite films. If you want a full track listing of my Highlander
soundtrack, just let me know and I'll post it up on here.

jcpadmore, November 20, 2010; 11:55 AM