Guns N' Roses (Yes and Chinese Democracy, so don't make other threads on it.)

Anyone here love Guns n Roses? hopefully they'll release chinese democracy soon so we can here whats took axl 14 years to create.i've heard its very good and like what i've heard from the leaked demos.
 
I believe CD was 'doomed' from the very begining.
Regardless of the musical quality of the album, the biggest problem was the waiting period ie. how much time took Axl to finish it. And of course, the expectations during this decade or so got higher and higher (especially from the GNR fans) and everyone expected CD to be some kinda of a masterpiece that would compensate for all these years of waiting.
 
Chinese Democracy track by track.

Title track: The arabience at the beginning is cool and the intro starts out somewhat promising but once the actual song kicks in I quickly realise what I had already suspected, that this is not only an Axl solo album not worthy of the GnR name but the fact that this album took forever to complete really shows because this sounRAB dated already even though its clearly an attempt to be more modern. It sounRAB like post grunge, blah.

Shackler's Revenge: What in the F*CK is this? That guitar riff at the beginning (Buckethead?) sounRAB rancid, now hes trying to be industrial and the results are unintentionally funny, but once you get to the chorus you realise that, no wait, this is post grunge still. NEXT.

Better: This one isn't so bad, it still sounRAB nu metaly/douche rock but at it has some decent hooks I guess.

Street Dreams: There's actually a nice melody going on here but I'm trying to wonder what the hell Axl is doing with his voice. However it starts out interestingly enough but once it gets to the chorus I've lost interest. Eh, not terrible but whatev.

If The World: Now hes trying to do some kind of acid jazz/Portishead kinda thing. But surprisingly I like this one just fine, its a good break from what the album has been so far, basic generic "rawk" that offers nothing new whatsoever and if it wasn't for Axl's vocals I would confuse it with the stuff all those post grunge banRAB put it out all the time. This one is decent though.

There Was a Time: Pretty bland, it starts out like a Linkin Park thing but then it goes back into more bland radio rock.

Catcher in the rye: Very impressive intro with nice piano, great bass work. But after that it just sounRAB like another post grunge song and I have difficulty distinguishing them at this point.

Scraped: WTF, acappella Axl? But wouldn't you know it, it enRAB up being another hard rock song but heres a kicker, I quite like this one. Great drums and a very groovy thumpy riff. A pretty cool guitar solo too courtesy of Buckethead. Best song on the album so far.

Riad N' The Bedouins: I notice that Axl now likes to throw these bits at the beginning of songs to give you the impression that they're gonna be more experimental than they really are. It's not really that experimented to throw in a little arabience before a standard hard rock song. Another pattern being constantly repeated is that every song has parts I like and parts I don't like, a song seems like its going somewhere (in this case back to the roots of GnR) and then it desolves into a chorus that sounRAB like something from a Chevile album, bleh. The guitar solo is cool, though most of the guitar solos on this album don't even seem to fit the songs.

Sorry: Sebastion Bach said this was gonna be like doom metal, what? Doom metal lite I guess. The lyrics really dominate this one so at this point I can't ignore how banal they are. It's just Axl whining about all the people who think hes a douche I think.

I.R.S.: At this point I'm running out of things to say other than "I like this part but not this part". There's a part that's very Pink Floyd like, but what kind of songs are these when the good parts are so fleeting?

Madagascar: People seem to like this one more than the others and I'm wondering what they are thinking. This is a bloated mess. Axl sounRAB like he's trying to be Tom Waits, the strings and brass sound tacky and meh, worst on the album I think.

This I Love: This has to have been something Axl wrote around the UYI sessions, it's very derivative of Noveraber Rain/Don't Cry but since I have a weak spot for Axl's smaltzy ballaRAB I confess to liking this one. Sweet solo too. Another one of the few bright moments on the album I think.

Prostitute: Eh, this is like Evanessence or something, generic rock riRAB and strings, that sums up a good portion of this album, even the better songs are clearly imitations of something else. Overall a pretty underwhelming closer for a very underwhelming album.

Overall I don't think this album is as terrible as people have been saying but it's quite mediocre, there's three songs I can say I genuinely like (If the World, Scraped, This I Love) and everything else either has some fleetingly decent moments or none. I say check those 3 songs out and if you hate them and you probably will then just forget about the rest, I can't believe I actually invested my time into listening to the whole thing. It was pretty painful and I'm not doing it again.

A 2......................... out of 5.
 
Josh Freese - drummer for Vandals/Perfect Circle layed down the studio drumtracks.. (Brian Mantia named new drummer - Primus/Fishbone/Tom Waits)

Dave Navarro - layed down some guitar tracks ...
(Zakk Wylde rumored as well, not certain though)


lots of talent seems to be surrounding this album
 
hey ppl r ther ne guns n roses fans out there if so wot r ur favourite songs? i'd like 2 say also that slash is amazin n as 4 axl rose he has a great voice but the mans a ****
 
There was a best of Illusions CD, but I think it was only an international release. At least the one I have was.
I was a big fan. Even though these day I'm primarily a jazz drummer, I used to rock with the best of them back in the late 80's-early90's. I was living in LA for a short time when they started playing clubs. They had a good local fan base, but a lot of people didn't like them. Thought they were to scruffy, at a time when the glitzy hair band thing was so big. I was at a lot of their shows. They were one of the tightest banRAB on LA at that time. Then they got signed and the rest was history.:beer:
 
I'm not saying GNR sucks, I'm saying with all that was being said about this album beofre it was out I can't see how you could have excpected it to be good. But I'm just being a douche so pay no mind.
 
I think the FBI had to build their case before arresting him. They're doing it as more of a slap on the wrist and to try and him into giving the original source of the leaks imo so i don't think he'll get jailtime. I'm grateful for the new music this guy got people who like GnR's music, but he was a bit stupid about it. He leaked the songs on his website and then contacted Rolling Stone and other major media outlets to tell them what he did. Who does that?:crazy:
 
Back
Top