The long awaited return of Queen - well, at least half of the band - arrives this coming Tuesday with guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor backing former Bad Company vocalist Paul Rodgers. The stargazing album's title The Cosmos Rocks is rather fitting, with May's recent doctorate in astrophysics. Sorry, but his Ph.D. thesis, A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud, is not included in the liner notes.
Fans across America get a special front-row experience on November 6 when more than 400 movie theaters - including Showcase 53 in Davenport - present Queen + Paul Rodgers: Let the Cosmos Rock in a special one-night showing. The concert experience was filmed last month in Freedom Square in Kharkov, Ukraine, before 350,000 fans in collaboration with the Elena Franchuk ANTIAIDS Foundation and Queen's Mercury Phoenix Trust. Check out FathomEvents.com for a complete listing of participating theaters. Feeling misty over the absence of the irreplaceable Freddie Mercury? Hollywood Records is also issuing expanded remastered editions of 1974's Queen II and Sheer Heart Attack, 1975's A Night at the Opera, and 1976's A Day at the Races.
Television Alert
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno hosts the Cold War Kids on Tuesday; The Late Show with David Letterman presents James Taylor on Tuesday; Late Night with Conan O'Brien offers the Black Crowes on Tuesday overnight; The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson boasts the Cold War Kids on Thursday and Lenka on Friday overnight; Jimmy Kimmel Live features Lady Gaga on Thursday, Smashing Pumpkins on Friday, and Alkaline Trio on Tuesday overnight; Austin City Limits is all new with Carrie Rodriguez and Jakob Dylan on Saturday; and Saturday Night Live's musical guest this weekend is Coldplay.
New Releases Coming Tuesday, October 28
88-Keys - The Death of Adam (Decon) with guests Kanye West, Bilal, and Redman
Ryan Adams & The Cardinals - Cardinology (Lost Highway) featuring a bonus seven-inch single with the pre-ordered vinyl edition
Catz 'n Dogz - Stars of Zoo (Mothership Music) warm electronic waves of lush, deep house from the Polish duo
Chairlift - Does You Inspire You (Kanine) catchy, creepy-cool trio lost in '80s playful synthesizer pop, hot off tour with Ariel Pink
Chiodos - Bone Palace Ballet: Grand Coda (Equal Vision) expanded reissue featuring four new songs and acoustic versions of "I Didn't Say I Was Powerful, I Said I Was a Wizard" and "A Letter from Janelle"
Juliette Commagere - Queens Die Proudly (Aeronaut) recently a guest on CDs by Puscifer and Avenged Sevenfold, this luscious, dreamy solo album from the Hello Stranger vocalist features guest Ry Cooder on two songs
William Control - Hate Culture (Victory) solo debut from the Aiden frontman
The Cure - 4:13 Dream (Geffen)
Cut Off Your Hands - Happy as Can Be (Frenchkiss) CD EP produced by Bernard Butler
D:Fuse - Thanks for Listening (Lost Recordings) collection of 10 years of club singles, featuring new versions with vocalist Jes
Dark Captain Light Captain - Miracle Kicker (Loaf Records) gently awakening, tripping debut of spinning, folksy guitar lines and floating beats that conjure childlike explorations in green forests of cool shade and filtering light
Deerhunter - Microcastle (Kranky) with guest vocalist Cole Alexander of the Black Lips on "Saved by Old Times"
The Devil Wears Prada - Plagues (Rise Records) expanded reissue featuring a bonus live DVD
DJ Babu - Duck Season 3 (Nature Sounds Records) new from the Dilated Peoples and Beat Junkies member, with guests Little Brother, Bishop Lamont, and MF Doom
Dog Fashion Disco - Beating a Dead Horse, to Death ... Again (Rotten Records) rarities collection featuring a heavy cover of the Melvins' "Anaconda"
Dreamend - The Long Forgotten Friend (Graveface Records) also available in a vinyl LP version with four extra songs, a pop-up gatefold sleeve, and a bonus CD of demos and rarities
Greg Dulli - Live at Triple Door (Infernal Recordings) digital-only release of 11 acoustic songs recorded live last year at a benefit show in Seattle, highlighted by stripped down versions of the Afghan Whigs' "Tonight," the Gutter Twins' "Front Street," the Twilight Singers' "Candy Cane Crawl," and a cover of Jose Gonzalez's "Down the Line"
Eagles of Death Metal - Heart on (Downtown) on tour now, Jesse "Boots Electric" Hughes and Josh "Babyduck" Homme return with the party record of the season, equal parts glam-rock flirtation, street-rumble tough, and pinball-arcade coy
Forgive Durden - Razia's Shadow: A Musical (Fueled By Ramen) with guests Greta Salpeter of The Hush Sound, Brendon Urie of Panic at the Disco, and Dan Young of This Providence; look for a deluxe edition in a DVD-sized package with bonus illustrations and the complete script
Tom Gabel - Heart Burns (Sire) solo EP from the Against Me! vocalist featuring the song "Anna Is a Stool Pigeon" (about environmental activist Eric McDavid), with guests Chuck Ragan of Hot Water Music and Matt Skiba of Alkaline Trio
Genesis - Box Set 3: Genesis 1970-1975 (Rhino) seven CDs and six DVDs expanding Trespass, Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot, Selling England by the Pound, and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway with 5.1-channel mixes and many rarities
Kaiser Chiefs - Off with Their Heads (Universal) with guest Lily Allen
John Legend - Evolver (Columbia) with guests Andre 3000 and Kanye West; a deluxe edition comes with a bonus DVD
The Matthew Herbert Big Band - There's Me & There's You (!K7 Records) fascinating avant-big-band-jazz love child of Raymond Scott and Prince; this protest album is colored with unusual samples with a performance-art pedigree, such as the track "Yessness," using 100 people saying "yes"
Joey + Rory - The Life of a Song (Sugar Hill) featuring heart-stirring country ballads and a love for a simpler time, the husband-and-wife duo lays out a must-hear, slowed-down, pensive take on Lynyrd Skynyrd's classic "Freebird"
Lunatic Soul - Lunatic Soul (KScope) cinematic debut from Mariusz Duda of Riverside
OMFGG: Music Featured on Gossip Girl No. 1 - original television series soundtrack (Atlantic) featuring the Ting Tings, Phantom Planet, the Virgins, Republic Tigers, Crystal Castles, The Kooks, and a cool cover of Siouxsie & the Banshees' "Cities in Dust" by Junkie XL
Pink - Fun House (LaFace) featuring the single "So What"
Rewiring Genesis - A Tribute to the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (Prog Rock Records) two-CD, song-by-song reinterpretation of the classic Genesis album from the Peter Gabriel era, given a theatric new life by Nick D'Virgilio of Spock's Beard and a band of Nashville session players
Boz Scaggs - Speak Low (Decca) collection of standards by Rodgers & Hart, Ellington, and Johnny Mercer
School of Seven Bells - Alpinisms (Ghostly International) taking their name from a mythical school for pickpockets and soon to tour with M83, this soaring psychedelic spinner from Benjamin Curtis of Secret Machines and an ethereal pair of twin vocalists shimmers and dives like electronic starlings in flight
Sly & Robbie/Amp Fiddler - Inspiration Information (Strut) collaboration from the reggae icons and the Detroit soul vocalist, taking a long, slow draw from the funk pipe on terrific new original jams and a reworking of George Clinton's "Paint the White House Black"
State of Shock - Life, Love, & Lies (Universal Republic) debut from Canada featuring the smash hit "Money Honey" and two new songs on this stateside release
T. Raumschmiere - I Tank You (Shitkatapult) bite-down-hard techno beats and crushed-black-velvet fuzz with guests Tim Vanhamel of Deus, Warren Suicide, and Puppetmastaz; also available in a two-CD set with a bonus disc of instrumental versions
Tractor Kings - Homesick (Spur/Parasol) featuring a reverb-soaked, knee-slapping cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters of War"
Unbunny - Sensory Underload (Hidden Agenda) 18 singles and long lost EP tracks from Jarid del Deo's alter ego
Lucinda Williams - Lu in 08 (Lost Highway) four-song digital-only EP featuring the new, politically inspired "Bone of Contention," covers of Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" and Bob Dylan's "Masters of War," and a collaboration with Wayne Coyne and the Thievery Corporation, "Marching the Hate Machines into the Sun"
various artists - Women of Jazz (Putumayo) featuring Etta James, Cassandra Wilson, and Della Griffin; highlights include covers of Leonard Cohen's "Dance Me to the End of Love" by Madeleine Peyroux and Jackie Wilson's hit "I'll Be Satisfied" by Hope Waits
