Fun in Space

Fun in Space is the debut solo album by English musician Roger Taylor, the drummer of Queen. It was released on 6 April 1981 in the UK and 9 May in the US. The album peaked at number 18 in the British charts, while it performed poorly upon its US release, due to no promotion from the record company.

Fun in Space
Studio album by
Roger Taylor
Released6 April 1981
Recorded1978 – 1981
StudioMountain Studios, Montreux, Switzerland
GenreRock
Length40:12
LabelEMI/Parlophone (UK)
Elektra (US)
ProducerRoger Taylor
Roger Taylor chronology
Fun in Space
(1981)		 Strange Frontier
(1984)

The album was recorded in between legs of Queen's tours for The Game and Flash Gordon albums. Taylor wrote, produced, sang and performed all of the songs himself.

The album's credits state "P.P.S. 157 synthesizers", a joke referring to Queen's usual statement of "No synthesizers" in the liner notes of all albums up to The Game.

"Future Management" was issued as a single in Europe, while "Let's Get Crazy" was released in the US. The album was re-released as a digitally remastered CD in 1996.

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]

Cover

The original cover art was created by American artist Jim Laurier. The piece was commissioned for the July 1980 issue of Creepy magazine. The back cover of the album shows Roger Taylor reading that issue.

The 'alien' writing on the magazine on the front cover consists mainly of upside down Hebrew characters. The actual words are meaningless. An interesting point to note is that the model Alien was in fact modelled and built by Tim Staffell (Taylor's erstwhile bandmate in the pre-Queen trio, Smile), while he was freelancing as a Special FX Modelmaker in the early 'eighties. Ironically, neither knew each other's connection with the project until much later.

Track listing

Side 1
  1. "No Violins" – 4:33
  2. "Laugh or Cry" – 3:06
  3. "Future Management" – 3:03
  4. "Let's Get Crazy" – 3:40
  5. "My Country I & II" – 6:49

Side 2
  1. "Good Times Are Now" – 3:28
  2. "Magic Is Loose" – 3:30
  3. "Interlude in Constantinople" – 2:04
  4. "Airheads" – 3:38
  5. "Fun in Space" – 6:22

Personnel
  • Roger Taylor – drums, percussion, lead and backing vocals, guitars, bass guitar, keyboards
  • David Richards – engineer, approximately 50% of keyboards
  • Hipgnosis – artwork, cover design

Singles
  • Future Management

A-Side: "Future Management"
B-Side: "Laugh Or Cry"
Released on 30 March 1981.
Reached #49 in the UK Singles Chart.
Released in the UK, Germany, The Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Brazil and Ireland.

  • Let's Get Crazy

A-Side: "Let's Get Crazy"
B-Side: "Laugh Or Cry"
Released on 15 May 1981.
Released in Japan, USA, Canada and Australia.

  • My Country

A-Side: "My Country"
B-Side: "Fun In Space"
Released on 29 June 1981.
Did not chart.
Only released in the UK.

Charts
Chart (1981) Peak
position
German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[2] 42
UK Albums (OCC)[3] 18
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References
  1. Orens, Geoff. Roger Taylor: Fun in Space > Review at AllMusic. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  2. "Offiziellecharts.de – Roger Taylor – Fun in Space" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
  3. "Roger Taylor | Artist | Official Charts". UK Albums Chart. Retrieved 6 January 2019.
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