Views on how badly EMI promoted Queen+Paul Rodgers The Comos Rocks???

All involved knew they had a turkey on their hands.

Trying to sell "Queen" without Mercury was going to be about impossible.  The crap music they came up with without him didn't help......and they wonder why the general public still think Mercury WAS Queen......

At least Cosmos Rocks didn't include crap songs like Delilah, My Baby Does Me, Pain Is So Close To Pleasure, Friends Will Be Friends, Man On The Prowl, ...

The album wasn't promoted because Brian, roger, paul and everyone else involved knew the album wasn't very good.......the title track is possibly the worse Queen related song of all time...yes, worse than the above songs mentioned...a few songs are decent.  "butterfly"  and "small" but overall it's not good.  Still burnin?.....warboys?   We believe is ten times more cringe worthy than Friends will be friends.  Call Me?.....Don't try and blame poor promotion for it's lack of success.  just be honest and say the album wasn't any good!

Ken8 wrote: All involved knew they had a turkey on their hands.

Trying to sell "Queen" without Mercury was going to be about impossible.  The crap music they came up with without him didn't help......and they wonder why the general public still think Mercury WAS Queen......

most of the general public doesn't even know about the cosmo rocks, or doesn't care to know....sadly, in most people's eye's mercury =Queen.   I personally think Brian is one of the best guitarist in rock history, but when i say that to people they don't want to hear it........They say he's pretty good, but freddie is Queen.....i understand Freddie was a great frontman and original for sure, but other bands had great frontmen, and the other members of those bands still get their due respect.   The Who, Zep, The Stones, Van halen all had legendary frontmen...   what was Brian missing?.....maybe because he wasn't a great shredder?...but gilmore gets a lot of respect from the general public, he's also not a shredder.   I think no one knows how good Brian is because most of the hits don't have much guitar...Radio Ga Ga type of songs....Even the 70's hits don't have much guitar.  Bo Rhap, Somebody to love, ect.....only in the solo's, which were good but short.  If 'it's late' was among queen's most popular songs people would see them in a whole different light.

I think TCR had so much potential to do well, but as stated above the promotion just wasn't there - I always feel this happens with any new Queen related stuff since Made In Heaven.

The Eye game was reportedly going to have an "unprecedented" media campaign surrounding its launch. The launch was then delayed and the game was released almost unnoticed, with staff in shops such as Game having never heard of it two weeks after its release.

Another World and Electric Fire had some marketing, but all I can really remember was Brian going on the Smith and Jones show to appear in a sketch and maybe an interview on BBC Breakfast (which no-one watches).

And then the same happened with TCR. When they appeared on the Al Murray show and performed C-lebrity I actually thought there may be some hope, as that show was a prime time ITV show but 6 months went by with virtually nothing in the way of build up or promotion.

In my mind TCR stands up well against other Queen / BM / RT / Bad Co / Free / PR albums - yes there are some duff tracks as with any album, but that is more a matter of personal taste than anything.

C-lebrity could have done well as a single if released to coincide with a reality TV show such as X Factor or Big Brother.

Cosmos Rocking whilst a little cheesy is a good rocking, dance along track which would appeal on many levels and would have made a better first single.

Small is to my mind the weakest song on the album, along with Surfs Up and is certainly not single material.

For me, the best tracks are Voodoo (but I like blues) and Warboys (more for the lyrics as they reflect my own views).

SINT is a good single to promote the charity, but to provide it as a free download and then as a paid for single was a mistake. People would not have minded paying for the download if the money was going to the MPT/46664.

With regards to the album covers, I get the impression that Brian is making them himself nowadays on his computer. The TCR cover and album title is clearly a Brian concept as it connects to his love of space and the fact that he has to use the word "rocks" in everything he does. ROTC looks like it was done in MS-Word.

Putting all that aside though, for me it's the music thats important and if Queen/EMI or whoever don't promote it, then it's their loss, not mine.

The Cosmos Rocks is definetly not a bad album. It´s not one of their best studiowork, but it´s not a bad album!

To those people who hate Paul Rodgers:
1) I don´t quite understand you guys. Why?
2) Would you still see Brian and Roger play together to massive audiences? I sure would, ´cause i saw them live with paul and i saw how very much they enjoyed it. If the answer is yes, then how would you suggest they´d do that? Meaning who should be the singer? Would you prefer somebody who´se trying to imitate Freddie, which would totally suck , ´cause as we all know nobody´s gonna succeed in doing that? Or would you prefer somebody who tries to give something new to the song, like paul did?

Oy...The Cosmos Rocks thread eh? Well...everyone has their opinions, one way or another...

EMI and Hollywood DID do a poor job in promoting it. Their tour did OK here in the States, I saw them in San Diego and they were on FIRE! I've seen alot of great bands over the years live, and they just absolutely killed it! So I think to myself, God if these guys put a CD together...

Couple of years pass by, Cosmos Rocks comes out. I was stoked for them, couldn't wait to get my hands on it. C-Lebrity was...meh...ok. Not a single by any means. They had some good tracks on there, but honestly it sounded...err...they could have written a few stronger tracks. 'Voodoo' I never cared for. There were a few key elements, but it was just not that cohesive. I thought 'Still Burnin' and 'Small' were really good, as was a few others. But the weaker tracks kinda overshadowed the other good moments. With the caliber of musicians, with the artistic ability, I expected more. I needed more guitar on there, and it just wasn't happening. I wasn't expecting Freddie on there, nor should've anyone who bought that CD. Otherwise you've already let yourself down. I thought Q+PR was a good combo, and still could be. They just needed...some stronger songs. They sounded a bit lost, and therefore I think it shows in the final product.

That being said, I would like to see them have another go at something sometime in the future. Just my thoughts, and I know there's gonna be quite a few that disagree with me, and that's ok too...

imo the cosmos rocks has better tracks on it than a lot of the dance/pop pap on lots of the later Queen albums.

Soundfreak wrote: EMI had little to do with that album except distributing it. It always depends on the deal how much a record company invests in the promotion.
Why did the album go down?
I think it was too british, the single "C-lebrity" was maybe a good wordplay but only for english people. And the song had no real hook. Also I think the band itself didn't really believe in the album, there was no tv performance in other countries and even in the concerts only few songs were played.
It's always difficult when you have such a huge history and then come up with something new. Anyone remember the last Rolling Stones album ??? Or the last McCartney album ?
Yep the last Stones album had Rough Justice, something that could stand up with any of their greatest, and McCartney is still making brilliant records. People seem to dwell on the one or two duds on his records, Queen had at least one or two duds per record in their heyday!

Hate the album, hate the cover, hate the whole lot

DO NOT BUY THIS

theultimatequeenpage wrote: Hate the album, hate the cover, hate the whole lot

DO NOT BUY THIS
Any chance of a reason why?

bambams-paradise thank you for your comments my friend, I agree with you.

Paul Rodgers is his own man, not trying to copy anyone else and why should he, hes Paul Rodgers for fuck sakes.

Question:

Why does everyone hate Queen and Paul Rodgers?????

The album is better than Hot Space, surely people???

Or would everyone perfer just Brian May and Roger Taylor???

I liked TCR a great deal. While some of the songs weren't to my liking, I found myself in the minority opinion defending its many merits at the time it was released.  It's stunning to me how much opinion on this has changed since then!  I'm reading probably more than half of the responses to this thread saying positive, logical, and valid things about the Q+PR merger. How nice to finally see this!  It makes me think that maybe Q+PR were smarter than the room (is this a surprise?), so to speak, and we're all finally listening to it and hence catching up with the recognition of this album for what it is (and not what it's not). It's a Q+PR album, and it rocks in an impressive variety of ways. It's NOT an album with Freddie, nor is it just a Queen album, for the same reason. So any mention thereof tells me that listener (reviewer) is too distracted by anal-retentive angst to listen objectively to a different band. So screw'em. 

I'm in the USA, I fully "got" C-lebrity, and I gently disagree that it was too British in tone/emphasis. We got it. I loved it!  But Rolling Stone and American Radio (Classic Rock stations & Popular Music stations) are still often quite dismissive of Queen (which format would they fit, I wonder?), and while I did hear promotional mentions of their new album on the radio (WLUP Chicago), the DJ basically made a sarcastic joke out of it, scoffing as he read the scripted ad... very insulting, and no wonder that kind of childish crap didn't help them out.

Sooo... what's my point? It was politics. Again. It has been that way, here in the States, ever since Sun City. The powers that were around at that time are still around, still way too influential, and they will never, ever let that one go.  So sad... (her eyes)...

p.s. Thank you Pim Derks for lending your "spot on" perspective - it's scary how precisely your "dreaded tracks" list coincides with my own!  LOL

Not politics, just weak songs and the fact that whether it was Q & PR it was a new band that paled in comparison to the Q part of their name.  If they had a Bohemian Rhapsody or WWRY on the album, do you really think all of the record companies would've under promoted it, or the radio stations would run from a hit (read $) over alleged politics?  Not a chance.

GOATHEAD1985 wrote: bambams-paradise thank you for your comments my friend, I agree with you.

Paul Rodgers is his own man, not trying to copy anyone else and why should he, hes Paul Rodgers for fuck sakes.

Question:

Why does everyone hate Queen and Paul Rodgers?????

The album is better than Hot Space, surely people???

Or would everyone perfer just Brian May and Roger Taylor???

Hot space is Better IMO.....