I must admit I was not convinced when I first heard about Queen teaming up with Paul Rodgers.\u00a0 It just didn\u2019t look good on paper — but in reality, it worked.\u00a0 Return Of The Champions<\/i> showed a band doing justice to classics from both Queen and Paul Rodgers\u2019 rich catalogs.\u00a0 It put a new twist on a group of well-known songs, and the results were surprisingly great.<\/p>\n
Now comes a new studio album, and this is a different venture.\u00a0 Without relying on a tracklist of \u00a0legendary cuts at their disposal, as in the live setting, the band members had to succeed or fail on their own.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The Cosmos Rocks<\/i> is rather complicated affair, and it would be a bit unfair to judge it after a listen or two.\u00a0 Living with this record for a month can allow the listener to truly discover all the qualities hidden away from the initial plays.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Having read some reactions from the press, I found the record to be largely ignored, misconstrued, or not even properly listened to.\u00a0 I was wondering if these folks were writing about the same album, but the headlines indicated so.\u00a0 Well, it\u2019s so easy to take a shot this combination of musicians and hold them accountable to all sorts of charges, but what\u2019s the point?\u00a0 Let\u2019s not forget, it\u2019s all about the music, and not an individual reviewer trying to grab their 15 minutes of fame.<\/p>\n
Ah, the music.\u00a0 The Cosmos Rocks<\/i> starts with the very upbeat title cut.\u00a0 It sets the tempo — it\u2019s loud, energetic, and very glam-oriented track.\u00a0 I\u2019m not necessarily blown away by this song, but I can see how it could be snatched up by radio for a good use.\u00a0 \u201cTime To Shine, the second cut, is where the album begins for me.\u00a0 It starts slowly, somewhat reminiscent of the early Queen song \u201cKeep Yourself Alive,\u201d and then Paul Rodgers gets to the chorus and soars.\u00a0 What an incredible moment this is.\u00a0 It\u2019s only the second cut, and we\u2019re already in overdrive.\u00a0 The momentum is kept throughout the record, with varying tempos and different levels of emotion invested in each song.\u00a0 <\/span>We get the best of both Queen\u2019s and Paul Rodgers\u2019 writing and performing abilities, and that is a high bar.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Later on, things get even better \u2013 yes, you\u2019ve heard right!<\/p>\n \u201cSome Things That Glitter\u201d sets the tone for the rest of the record, and features some of the best vocals here from Rodgers, and beautiful, gentle guitar work from May.\u00a0 Then it\u2019s back to heavier rock, as \u201cC-lebrity\u201d takes on the subject of easy-come fame from the reality TV craze.\u00a0 Finally, two of the best tracks on the album are at the very end.\u00a0 Reflective \u201cThrough The Night\u201d shows Rodgers and Queen at their absolute best.\u00a0 This collaboration was worth it just to write this song alone.\u00a0 \u201cSay It\u2019s Not True\u201d is an epic song featuring excellent combination of voices and instruments speaking for each other.\u00a0 Brian May solos on this track as if it was the last lead he would ever be allowed to play in his life, making this an absolutely breathtaking and beautiful moment.\u00a0 The album could just end there, but it continues for one more track — they end with a raging rocker as \u201cSurf\u2019s Up\u2026School\u2019s Out\u201d just tears the listener apart, with a little emotional twist of course.<\/p>\n This record should\u2019ve been called The Best Of Both Worlds<\/i>, because it\u2019s what you get here.\u00a0 The excellent songwriting by Queen (and that\u2019s without John Deacon), and the superb delivery from Paul Rodgers.\u00a0 The quality of the performances is overwhelming here; this is not a cheap attempt at forging a career, it\u2019s the new chapter.\u00a0 My hat is off to May, The Cosmos Rocks<\/i> is an album that deserves to be heard by a wider audience.\u00a0 Let\u2019s hope many of these songs will make into the set-lists when the band takes the stage.\u00a0 <\/p>\n The big question remains.\u00a0 What would Freddie think?\u00a0 It cannot be answered because Freddie isn\u2019t here.\u00a0 One must point to the fact that Mr. Mercury was full of passion, and always delivered quality performances \u2013 both characteristics represented on the new album.\u00a0 So, maybe you can answer that question by yourself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":29538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7671],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-41255","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-queen-paul-rodgers","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41255"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}