There's not much material out there to preview from The Cosmos Rocks yet, but here are two minutes of the single, "Time to Shine":

Sure, there's nothing particularly offensive about that clip, but a Billboard article on Cosmos strikes fear in my heart.

The group has already debuted several of the new songs at shows and on TV, including first single "C-lebrity," which features vocals from Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins, and "Say It's Not True," written in honor of Nelson Mandela's 46664 AIDS initiative....

After a pitch-modulated voice exclaims, "What planet is this?" opener "Cosmos Rockin'" blasts in with a handclap-bolstered beat and a peppy blues riff from guitarist Brian May. "Time To Shine" is an atmospheric rocker with an inspirational vocal ("Raise up your mind / It's time to shine"), while "Still Burning" is a swaggering rocker that nods to Rogers' tenure in Bad Company and Free.

Elsewhere, "Small" and "We Believe" are acoustic-leaning power ballads, "Call Me" conjures the multi-tracked operatic singing that was Queen's Mercury-era trademark and the stomping "Surf's Up ... School's Out!" closes the proceedings on an arena-rocking note.

Something I don't particularly want to hear about a classic rock album is that it features "a pitch-modulated voice" or a track called "Surf's Up ... School's Out!" It takes a bit of cognitive dissonance to accept that Brian Wilson is still writing songs about teenagers and surfing, but at very least, he's from California. Paul Rodgers is nearing 60 and from Middlesbrough. The premise just doesn't seem plausible, unless they're talking about surfing the internet, which might be even worse. Also, a track called "C-lebrity", with vocals from Taylor Hawkins? Why? That's all I want to know. Why?

Still, if you hate yourself, and whatever legacy Queen have remaining, feel free to head to whatever store you buy your albums at come late October.

Queen Makes Date For 'The Cosmos Rocks' [Billboard]

Brian May's thesis examines the mysterious phenomenon known as Zodiacal light, a misty diffuse cone of light that appears in the western sky after sunset and in the eastern sky before sunrise. Casual observers, if they live under very dark rural skies, can best see the light two to three hours before sunrise as they look east, and many people have been fooled into seeing it as the first sign of morning twilight. A Persian astronomer who lived around the 12th century referred to it as "false dawn" in a poem.

Astronomers now know that Zodiacal light represents reflected sunlight shining on scattered space debris clustered most densely near the sun. The millions of particles range in size from tiny asteroids to microscopic dust grains, and extend outward beyond the orbit of Mars.

May's work focuses on an instrument that recorded 250 scans of morning and evening Zodiacal light between 1971 and 1972. The Fabry-Perot Spectrometer is located at the Observatorio del Teide at Izana in Tenerife, the largest of the Canary Islands.

Given that the book's publishers are saying that Queen fans are among the intended audience for the tome, it may not be too much of a stretch.

Guitar geek: Queen's May publishes astrophysics thesis [USA Today]

"What I'm doing is protecting the legacy that we have built ... cementing the rights to the trademark Bad Company for touring," explains Rodgers, acknowledging that the group has learned of plans for at least one bogus Bad Company planning to hit the road. "I can't really go into that because it's kind of in the hands of our lawyers at the moment. But there are a lot of things that make it necessary to reinforce our rights here.



He continues, "By doing this one-night stand with Bad Company, we will be cementing our right to the trademark 'Bad Company' for touring, and anyone who attempts to challenge us and tour misusing our trademark and mislead the fans will be liable to legal action."

If large amounts of money can't get groups to reunite for festivals next year, maybe they can grab what hesitant dinosaurs remain unreformed with this legal logic.

Bad Company Plots One-Off Reunion [Billboard]

"C-Lebrity" and the as-yet-unnamed album it graces should be released on Sept. 1, and the band has scheduled a 28-date, "14 countries in 7 weeks" tour. At the very least, I respect how evenly those numbers fraction.

QUEEN + PAUL RODGERS: Performance Footage Of New Song Available [Blabbermouth]