The news that Brian May and Roger Taylor were to record an album as Queen, with Free and Bad Company's Paul Rodgers on vocals, was met with consternation. What harm, it was asked, might such a venture wreak on Queen's artistic legacy? But, really, what damage is there left to do? Unfairly critically reviled in their heyday - their wit and willingness to take outrageous risks overlooked, their ability to craft perfect pop singles and slip easily between genres ignored - Queen's oeuvre had just been favourably reassessed when the former members unleashed We Will Rock You, a musical that bent over backwards to suggest that the 70s rock hacks might have been right all along: here was a band uninterested in anything other than commercial success. It wasn't just the awfulness of the show itself. It was the crushing effrontery: a Queen musical about how appalling manufactured boybands were, that opened shortly after Queen's surviving members collaborated on a version of its title song with a manufactured boyband, Five, and that celebrated Freddie Mercury's 60th birthday by bringing onstage another manufactured boyband, McFly, to perform Don't Stop Me Now. Whatever The Cosmos Rocks sounds like, it can't conceivably be worse than that.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/sep/12/popandrockreview.queen


And another review from Virgin Media

4) Queen + Paul Rodgers - Cosmos Rocks: In their day, Queen were as astounding as they were preposterous - but showmanship like Freddie Mercury's is rare. Meat Loaf could perhaps have replaced him; the guy from Free has no chance.

At best, this sounds like Queen with a lifeless stand-in where their heart should be. At worst, it's not even that, sounding like a third-rate ZZ Top or just anonymously dull stadium rock. Hard to pick the nadir of such a dire selection, but C-lebrity's galumphing satire particularly grates. Rating: 3/10

(Review by Alex Sarll)

http://musicnews.virginmedia.com/news/?news_id=86694