Roger Taylor's Ultimate Playlist

The term legend is bandied around a fair bit these days, but one man fully deserving of the title is Roger Taylor: drummer, singer and songwriter for Queen - quite simply one of the greatest bands to have ever existed - and a successful solo artist in his own right. To top this off, he's a very nice guy too.

Roger releases a new album, Fun On Earth whilst also rereleasing his back catalogue The Lot later this year, so we caught up with him to find out the tracks on his Ultimate Playlist, including a huge 90s club anthem, a spot of Frankie Goes To Hollywood, and the revelation of his favourite Queen song...

Listen to the whole playlist on Spotify

Roger Taylor's new album 'Fun on Earth' (preorder here) and his full back catalogue 'The Lot' (preorder here) are out on 11th November

The Queen Extravaganza tour comes to the UK for the first time starting 25th October www.queenextravaganza.com

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Favourite Sad Song

"For this one, I'd say it'd be Jealous Guy by John Lennon. I just think it's the most beautiful song, beautifully sung and I did used to sing it actually, I always enjoyed singing it. I find it just moves you, y'know - and that's what sad songs are supposed to do."

Favourite Song From a Movie Soundtrack

"Now that's difficult...I think one of my favourites, it's more of a theme actually - it's Love Theme from Blade Runner by Vangelis. It features a saxophone which I find very atmospheric - and it's also a wonderful movie as well. It's a great soundtrack, but that Love Theme in particular."

Favourite Song That No-One Else Knows

"The trouble is I don't know if anyone else has heard it! I'm gonna pick something by Rufus Wainwright - a song called Slideshow. It's the most incredible song musically - it's got the most extraordinary sort-of orchestral chorus and the timing and the words are so clever, I just thing it's an amazing late-night song. I really like the sound of his voice and he's a fantastic musician - he's a natural I think."

Favourite Club Anthem

"My wife's a clubber, I'm not! But I think my favourite thing - the one that'll get me going is Underworld - Born Slippy. You can't not go for that one can you?"

Favourite Song From Your Childhood

"I was gonna say The Runaway Train, or Sparky's Magic Piano or something like that, but if it's an actual proper song, it might be Singin' The Blues - it's very old. It's by Ricky Nelson but Tommy Steele did a cover, but I think I like Ricky Nelson's. It's that really old, sort of almost rockabilly thing. I just remember hearing it on the radio - it was one of the few things they used to play on the radio that wasn't Doris Day - and I just loved it."

Favourite Wedding Song

"Well I'd rather not go to a wedding! I'm not a big fan of weddings, but I could suggest Relax, Don't Do It - something like that. A bit of advice!"

Favourite Novelty Song

"It's a novelty song I remember from my childhood, and it's called Sparky's Magic Piano, and it's got probably the first known vocoder - y'know, the piano speaks and I thought that was a bit marvellous when I was a kid."

Favourite Lyrics

"Really, really hard, but if I was to pick something off the top of my head, I would go with Desolation Row by Bob Dylan. It's a long song, but it's a very beautiful melody with the most incredibly imagery - quite hard imagery, it's just fantastic. "They're selling postcards of the hanging" is the first line I think. It's just brilliant, it's brilliant all the way through."

Favourite Song From The Last Ten Years

"I liked that Keane song - Somewhere Only We Know. He's got a great voice, Tom - he sang a song with us, actually, a couple of years ago and he was brilliant."

Favourite Song From Your Own Music

"Well I've got one on my current album - which is called Fun On Earth - the song I like the most is Fight Club. For Queen I might pick Under Pressure - I just like that one, it could have been recorded better - technically - but it's just a special song."