Guns N Roses - Chinese Democracy

The last time Guns ‘N Roses released an album, people lined up in front of record stores at midnight and got their copies early. I waited, which was a good thing as it turned out because Use Your Illusion sucked ass (What? Did you think I was talking about The Spaghetti Incident?) and the videos were even worse. I loved how at first everyone declared the double release set such a landmark album, but now has had sixteen years to figure out that is was nothing more than an overwrought Queen handjob, the first steps in making the musicians of G’n’R irrelevant while Axl began assuming control of the brand name.
If sixteen years seems like a long time between albums, consider that the distance between Chinese Democracy and Appetite For Destruction feels and sounds like a lifetime. I don’t need to tell you that there isn’t a modicum of similarities between those two albums, so how Axl can get away with calling Chinese Democracy a G'n'R album is beyond me.
But it’s here now and the best thing about it is you can get yourself a free Dr. Pepper.
Oh, I’m sorry. Is this the part where I’m supposed to be nice to Axl now? Is bashing Chinese Democracy so overdone that we're starting to hear a chorus of supporters who actually praise for this album?
Get the fuck out of here! Chinese Democracy is a piece of shit and the only reason that it’s getting released now is because Axl has officially run of money, ideas on how he can tweak it to make it better, and hard drive space that he could even put that extra overdub.
If I’m being a bit harsh…it’s probably because this has the G’n’R name on it. It’s obviously Axl’s solo album, and a farely lame one at that. Besides, for me to believe that it was a Guns album, I would have to be able recognize some of the players. On Chinese Democracy, I can only recognize Axl (even that is hard to do in some tracks) and the occasional Buckethead guitar solo.
It’s filled with lengthy ballads…hell, everything on it is lengthy, or at least appears lengthy…and huge arrangements that are unnecessary and give the album a pointless cinematic sheen. It would have been a very contemporary sounding album were it released in 1995, but now it sounds woefully dated. Chinese Democracy is a perfect follow-up to the Use Your Illusion set and there is nothing on it that can adequately explain why it took sixteen years to finish.
With all of the ballads…particularly the ones tacked on at the end…the album takes sixteen years to finish. Seriously, these are not tactful and emotive ballads like “Patience” or even “Don’t Cry,” they are epic in scope with Axl just throwing in a bunch of bullshit lines like “You like to hurt me/You know that you do.” That line, from the worst song on the album called “Sorry,” finds Axl hidden behind a bunch of processing, sounding a little like Frank Zappa on “I Have Been In You” from Sheik Yerbouti. The difference being that Zappa was being funny while Axl is dead serious.
There are two fair songs on the album, the title track and “There Was A Time” and one obvious choice for the lead-off single, “Better.” When I say “fair,” I mean that I could have gone forever without hearing them and not missed a goddamn thing while the other eleven tracks, I actually wished that I had gone forever without hearing them.
So why now? I seriously think it’s because Axl is running out of money and, more importantly, out of options at this point. There is an increasingly small window of opportunity with each passing year that enables him to even release an album. Essentially, he would have been forever dicking around in the studio, making a bunch of irrelevant edits, remixes, and overdubs only to have the entire thing leaked onto the internet where a decreasing audience would have downloaded the shit for free.
Which is exactly how I would recommend acquiring Chinese Democracy. But I expect there are still a few hardcore fans that will trek out to Best Buy and shell out whatever is being asked. There will be enough to make this album debut at number one, but very little to sustain it beyond the new year. It will go down in history as a stiff instead of a punch line, but it would have been a hell of a lot more intriguing to just sit on the album forever.
It’s here now, sixteen years of endless discussion that will soon reach the end. Regardless of what I say, you’re probably curious enough to seek it out by whatever method you choose and formulate your own opinion.
And to that, Axl himself addresses it right out of the gate with a line from the title track:
“It don’t really matter/I guess you’ll find out for yourself”