God, Save The Queen: What's Happened To Brian May?

Queen guitarist Brian May has been acting bizarrely this past year...

First, May made the announcement that Adam Lambert, an American Idol runner-up would join him and Roger Taylor at Queen's headlining slot at this year's Sonisphere festival. While Adam arguably has a theatrical vocal style, making a name for himself on the American Talent Show's in 2009, he has failed to attract much success internationally. Queen fans would have hoped for a frontman to have paid truly paid his dues in order to step into Freddie's shoes.

Next, May joins Lady Gaga at last year's MTV Video Music Awards as she played her alter-ego Jo Calderone, and sang her track You & I. While it is understandable that Lady Gaga would shove her own grandmother under a New York subway in order to get herself more press, what is not clear is why Brian feels the need to make himself available to a popstar at the start of her career instead of playing with his peers.

Then, May teams up with Dappy on his latest single 'Rockstar." Maybe we could forgive him once for overlooking Dappy's lack of talent and thirst for attention, but then we hear that Brian has collaborated again with the grime-rapper for BBC's Live Lounge. Again, maybe we could excuse the usual major-label push to drive sales and a hilarious attempt to play the manufactured monstrosity that its "Rockstar" live with a band, but May and Dappy went on to murder the anthem that is "We Will Rock You".

Queen fans have had to put up with a lot of soul-destroying activity these past years. Those who survived the '90s would remember 5ive resurrecting the Queen corpse with their diluted-pop cover of "We Will Rock You". Then came a jukebox musical in the West-End with the same name, savagely cashing in on the magic of Queen.

When May was asked to comment about the strange collaboration, he simply had to say: "This track came on which was Dappy's 'No Regrets', and I thought, 'I do get this, this does something for me… It's very different... so vocal led, which I love. I thought this was really interesting and I wanted to know more." Is Brian going senile? Surely his doctors must have some medicinal ear drops to lodge all that wax building up on his drums?

But the question must still be asked -  if Freddie were still alive, would he have done something similar? Queen have always acted as mavericks. Just have a peruse through their video library to get a taste for breaking social, gender and political boundaries. Is Brian simply channelling a little bit of Freddie in his surprising moves these last days?

And lest we forget that ontop of those generation-defining Queen lyrics, and Freddie's powerhouse and physics-defying vocals were plenty of catsuits, glitter, bravado and a whole lot of pop. Maybe Lady Gaga and Adam Lambert may never step up to Freddie in terms of sheer talent and poetic insight, but they do share more than a fair bit of showmanship. Dappy, however, we give up!