You're right Cosmos Rocks was a complete failure - all I was saying is that it did have some potential, in the tracks that I mentioned (IMHO), but that the potential was never met.
Freddie was one source of inspiration for Queen, and his voice and what it could do was a huge influence on the way that the others wrote. There is no doubt he was a unique personality and had a unique personality, and there is no doubt that he was an absolute genius as a songwriter and arranger. The things his voice could do were unsurpassed in his day, and even today in the days of comprehensive vocal coaching there are few around who can really sing his music.
Adam Lambert has worked in Glee (or is about to), that's absolutely correct. Glee is big business in the USA, and Adam Lambert has obviously been offered a lucrative deal. Is he a rock star? Well, that's open for debate. Whatever a rock star is these days, I don't know. 25 years ago it could be said that Freddie was the archetypal and ultimate rock star, and in fact he carved out most of that image himself. Because over the years there has been both a convergence of styles in the main stream, it's difficult to look at the music scene today and figure out who is the archetypal rock star in new bands. Personally I like The Killers, but I can't for an instant imagine Brandon Flowers in Queen - his voice is too 'nice', you know, too pure.
What Adam Lambert is, though, is a great singer. He has great technique, phenomenal in fact, and has an unsurpassed range - at least in terms of the well known singers today, and he has a well-honed stage presence and he knows how to connect with an audience. I went to the Wembley show and thought that it was an excellent show, and I thought Adam handled the situation really well (hey, if you were in his shoes, you'd take the job of fronting Queen for a couple of years too!), and he really won the audience over. Whether or not you personally like the sound of Adam Lambert's voice is a different matter, and that's fine if you don't.
All of this though is fairly academic, because we're talking about Adam Lambert making the transition from fronting a back-catalogue band to making an album of original material with that band. If the album does go ahead, and Adam is one of the songwriters on the record, it's going to be quite different from a Freddie-based Queen album. It could be a disaster - of course it could - but it might not. It really depends what happens. I know of course, that there is a difference between commercial success and a good album, and there is also the matter of whether or not an individual actually enjoys the album.
I am optimistic about it because Brian and Roger are still excellent musicians, and Adam is a great singer (whether you feel he is right for Queen or not - again, that's a different matter to whether or not he can sing). The Kerry Ellis album was not really a rock album, it was Brian May producing musical theatre and other cover versions with Kerry Ellis - who is also an excellent singer. It was all very musical theatre, but that's exactly what it set out to be, so from that point of view it was a success. Brian has always been attracted to those kind of projects - look at 'Talking of Love' which is a very similar situation - it's just that in Brian's career at the time it was bookended with A Kind of Magic and The Miracle. Roger's Fun on Earth isn't my favourite album, in fact I haven't bought it yet (I might, it's taken me a long time to soften to Happiness?), and it sort of sounds like, well, it's quite tame and a little pedestrian, you're right.
When I saw the show with Adam Lambert though, I saw something in the band that was reminiscent of the old Queen. It was nothing like what I've seen with Paul Rodgers. It was like they had a young Freddie back, but I mean that in Brian and Roger's reaction to what was going on rather than how Adam was, because Adam is very different from Freddie.
I don't know, all I'm saying is, yes, some of the projects that Brian and Roger have been involved in recently have been substandard, but let's give it a chance and see what happens. If we don't like it, if it's substandard too, then fair enough. If I don't like it I'll come on here and say, yes you were right and my hopes are dashed. I'm willing to give it a try though, because I believe that they are still capable of producing excellent work. I treat every performance and song that I hear as a new fresh chance - that's something I've learned as a musician myself - sometimes we write off people as being not so capable and then they deliver something to you that is of unbelievable quality. Sometimes the reverse happens.
Of course, if you don't actually like Adam Lambert then you certainly won't like a Queen + Adam Lambert LP. Also, I agree with your sentiment that it isn't Queen as we know it, it's not the version of Queen that we all wish could still happen - it can't be because you've got one writer dead and another one retired, and that's very important when considering the sound of a group. John was as important a part of Queen as Freddie was and I think nobody here has forgotten that.
It's hard for Brian and Roger to stop playing though because firstly, they are musicians and the Queen brand is probably the best brand for them to use to get out to the public (cynical of me to call it a brand, but it is, we all know that), and secondly the public on the whole actually want Queen to go out and perform. Whether or not they want another record is, of course, quite a different matter but if they go ahead I wish them luck.
After the Cosmos Rocks it does feel like something that fans will treat with trepidation, but then, for me, the band that produced A Night At The Opera went on to produce Jazz and Hot Space, but people still came back to them. The singer that wrote Bohemian Rhapsody also made the Mr Bad Guy album, but then after that he went on to make Barcelona and record the Innuendo album, which I think are two classics. Let's just wait and see.
