From the mid 90s onwards Axl Rose has gone from being of rock’s most respected vocalists to becoming one of rock’s most ridiculed. The past decade has seen thousands of music commentators questioning the sanity of Mr. Rose. Fourteen years spent on one single album, does not exactly abide the laws of economics, but it would all melt down to the final outcome. From the looks of it, Axl doesn’t have enough going right on the album that could justify the time lag to his loyal fans. It would be obvious to expect something twice as brilliant as “Appetite For Destruction”, but this could also mean that the musical accomplishment of the album has got buried in its heavy weight of expectations.
Clearly what the old Guns N’ Roses had, and the present Guns don’t is the presence of strong characters. Slash and co. weren’t the best musicians in the world by a long shot, but they each had such strong musical presence that they contributed to the Guns sound more than the current crop of musicians in the band, who ironically might just be more accomplished in terms of talent. It doesn’t take a musical genius to tell that this is Axl Rose and his backing band, rather than the 80s hard rock band Guns N’ Roses, something Axl would be trying hard to mask.
Axl has picked up a lot of the sounds resonating around him during the interim, but unfortunately the 90s and the 00s weren’t exactly the ideal period for picking up sounds for a rock album. Axl has taken in elements to Hip-hop and electronica into the album, which simply murder the album to a great extent.
The saving grace for the album would be Axl’s vocals, which have truly passed the test of time. On “Madagascar” he adorns a grunted voice similar to the Guns classic “Live and Let Die”. Even on the Floydish lament “Sorry”, adorns a classic Axl Rose voice for the verse sections, while choosing a muddier tone for the chorus section. But again great vocals aren’t always sufficient to make an work. The robotic “Shakler’s Revenge” sounds out of place in the album, while the prolonged track “Prostitute” is a really flat song with a severe lack of pep.
Although the excessive experimentation has worked adversely for Axl, “If The World” is one of the few tracks that have worked as planned. The eastern vibe on the song tends to grow on the listener after a couple of hearings. “I.R.S.” is another track that pulls the album away from being a complete landslide. The song brings with it a great amount of energy which one found on the band’s early works.
Axl had hoped to make “Chinese Democracy” something spectacular and was looking forward to something to surpass all previous efforts. But in the attempt, he has baked up a sub standard product. It is hard to believe that someone could spend fourteen years on fourteen songs and yet not deliver even one song to rival the likes of “Sweet Child O’ Mine” or “Welcome To The Jungle”. Quite honestly, a good band could churn up a better album in a couple of months time, than this disaster.
Chinese Democracy - A real disappointment.
Comments
3 comments. Add your own comment below.
Juju1985
Dec 9th, 2008 at 4:57 pm | #
true to a great extent. but it wasn’t that bad also but have 2 admit it was really dissapointng
Howard
Dec 10th, 2008 at 9:51 pm | #
I think that’s a fair review. A let down no doubt… but the first time I heard ‘if the world’ I was just so happy to hear Axl’s voice again … I really missed guns n roses. But apart from Axl the rest of the band and their contributions just don’t feel right.
The album does have great songs, I guess if this was released a few years after ‘the spaghetti incident’ it would have done much better than it has.
1. Chines Democracy : Typical early guns n roses… can’t help but compare this to ‘its so easy’ from their first album. Nice solo…
2. Shacker’s Revenge : Awful. I thought it sounded like Static X in the intro. The song really goes to hell before the chorus…
3. Better : One of the BETTER songs on the album. A small departure from Gn’R’s standard songwriting when it comes to mid-tempo ballads. But really catchy hook for the chorus. Super riff toward the end of the song!
4. Street of Dreams: Not a bad number. Axl sounds brilliant on this one, This one started off building up to be one of those grandiose masterpieces like ‘novemb..’ or ‘estranged’, but it just didn’t go anywhere close. Good song though.
5. If the World: I love this song. Right from the Spanish guitar solo… to the wah guitar in the background, to Axl’s almost bordering on falsetto vocals in parts.
6. There was a time: I tried imagining this song like I was back in 94, watching MTV, and could almost see the video, with the chopper cameras circling the open fields. Unfortunately this is 2008. Don’t think even that kind of a video could help this song so much. Still a nice song.
7. Catcher in the Rye: This song has a very ‘yesterday’ feel to it… if you you now what I mean. Boring song. na na na.. na na na … nanananana….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
8. Scraped: Oh man! what a killer intro for the song… Axl acapella! Fucking brilliant!!! I’m sure this song will sound awesome live. Some cool riffs.
9. Raid in the Bedouins: the beginning of the song got some weird sci-fi sounds. I mean can you imagine Arab Nomads in space…lol. The verse is pretty regular. But it switches to a very catchy chorus. Watch out for that! Sweet Salvation… if only.
10. Sorry: Beautiful. Slightly reminiscent of ‘You ain’t the first’ . I know the next time I’m jamming with some friends and some beers, we’ll be singing this song. “but I donth want thoo dhoo eit”
11. I.R.S.: Some how this song lacks the punch it should. Cos the verse and chorus are catchy. they better call someone … or wait. Its too late. S’okay song.
12. Madagascar: I got bored listening to this song. Its one of those that you always end up skipping while driving.
13. This Love: My mom likes this song… well don’t get me wrong, my mom likes a lot of cool music. But this reminded her of neil diamond. lol… NEIL DIAMOND Y’ALL!!! Nice lyrics… and super solo, I hope this is Bumblefoot…
14. Prostitute: This could have been a Bon Jovi song! And that damn ‘cher’ voice is really irritating.
Well apparently, this is NOT the Guns n Roses we all love and know so well. But I’ll tell you what… It’s still better than Death Magnetic in my book. lolz…
And we’re all waiting for the video’s….
Aditya
Dec 21st, 2008 at 2:02 pm | #
HAHA Aren’t you the same guy who reviewed Sceptre’s “Now Or Never” and loved it? I’m not surprised you didn’t enjoy a terrific album like GNR’s Chinese Democracy.