Queen - The Cosmos Rocks

This Special Edition of the 2008 studio album ‘The Cosmos Rocks’ includes a DVD of Queen + Paul Rodgers captured live in Japan.

“Our teachers were The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, blues & soul…”

The first thing you notice about ‘The Cosmos Rocks’, the much anticipated first album from rock legends Queen + Paul Rodgers is “all tracks written by Queen & Paul Rodgers” + “produced & performed by Brian May, Paul Rodgers and Roger Taylor” (indicating that between them they played all instruments, including bass – Paul & Brian swapping duties – in case you were going to ask). This is obviously not a case of Paul lightly stepping in to fill a vocal gap, as some might have been drawn to assume would be the case when the three of them got into the studio together.

No, this is a full bodied, group endeavour: May, Rodgers and Taylor in a totally democratic union, even down to equally sharing the credits. The album's dedication to legendary Queen front man ‘Freddie Mercury’, (you'll also see thanks credits to John Deacon + Paul Kossoff) shows the band mates still feel his presence strongly enough to dedicate this entirely new work to him, nearly 13 years on from Queen's last studio album.

You also wonder how Paul, who takes control as main vocalist on all of tracks here, feels about his work being dedicated to the man whose fans still worship at the altar of the pre-Mercury demise Queen. But then thinking about it, it doesn't seem quite so strange. Brian & Roger have, after all, never shied from acknowledging the mighty presence Freddie provided to the band on stage and the wonders of his extraordinary creativity in the studio. Mostly, they acknowledge how even today, they still miss “dear Fred”.

In the case of Paul, he can stand assured in the fact that Freddie always rated him as one of the best rock voices of his time. It is public record that Freddie would make a point of dropping into the Marquee or any number of other London venues when Paul was performing with his band Free. Freddie often in his past acknowledged Free's ‘Fire and Water’ as one of the albums to most influence Queen. On top of this, Paul has now played enough sold-out & wildly received dates as Queen + Paul Rodgers to know that it works, and that the acceptance is there.

‘The Cosmos Rocks’ was recorded & mixed at Roger's The Priory studio between November 2007 & August '08, and co-produced + engineered by Joshua J Macrae; Justin Shirley-Smith; and Kris Fredriksson. It marks the first album of newly recorded material from Queen + Paul Rodgers since they first set out on the road in '05, and the first Queen studio album since 1995.