twinturbo2
butthurt Heat fan
I'm going to have to agree with the consensus about Better being one of the, well, better songs on the album. Sorry is pretty good, too.
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Official Chinese Democracy release thread
- Thread starter shantyman
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I bought a vinyl copy at Best Buy along with the CD just for the novelty of it. And for the bonus of the digital mp3 copy of the album, which will probably sound better than what I'd rip from the CD.
There were plenty of copies at the store. I was surprised to see that they didn't have a display at each checkout for the album, I thought that was part of the store-exclusive push they would leverage for Black Friday week.
There were plenty of copies at the store. I was surprised to see that they didn't have a display at each checkout for the album, I thought that was part of the store-exclusive push they would leverage for Black Friday week.
How much was the LP Tedd? I might go back and pick it up for the collection.
Walking into Best Buy this morning and buying a brand-new GnR CD was pretty surreal, I'm glad I did it for that reason alone. Thinking about how much my life has changed since 1991 was sobering. I hope I don't have to wait another 17 years for a new record, but as long as it kicks ass like this one does I can't really complain.
Walking into Best Buy this morning and buying a brand-new GnR CD was pretty surreal, I'm glad I did it for that reason alone. Thinking about how much my life has changed since 1991 was sobering. I hope I don't have to wait another 17 years for a new record, but as long as it kicks ass like this one does I can't really complain.
Buckethead
Banned
I think a CD is $11.99, while the vinyl is $20.
The vinyl comes with 2 double sided records + the digital download. Solid deal.
The vinyl comes with 2 double sided records + the digital download. Solid deal.
Shikamaru Ninja
任天å ã® å¿è
Catcher in the Rye, Street of Dreams, Better, Sorry, Scraped are awesome songs. I like Riad and the Bedouins and some other stuff too.
I think the album is fantastic.
I think the album is fantastic.
Corwood Rep
Member
You know, I'm not a Guns N' Roses fan, but I enjoyed listening to Chinese Democracy a good deal, largely because it feels like an event album, an actual album, which has not happened since fucking forever in our increasingly singles and mp3-dominated musical landscape. I appreciate the fact that most of us listened to the album pretty much when it came out. Plus it's been kind of a journey, you know, since I've been reading about this thing for years and years and years.
That, and regardless of my opinion of the "band" (a title that's hard to defend here since it seems like GNR is a revolving door of member turnaround) this actually sounds like Guns N' Roses, by and large. In 17 years, Axl didn't forget what worked about his music, so good for him. This is canon, and not the worst GNR album by any stretch.
From an artistic standpoint, damn does it suck, but I had fun, and a good deal of it. Plus, I mean, if I can enjoy a Michael Bay movie without bitching about its artlessness, I figure I can enjoy the Michael Bay of hard rock's delusional insanity finally committed to record.
That, and regardless of my opinion of the "band" (a title that's hard to defend here since it seems like GNR is a revolving door of member turnaround) this actually sounds like Guns N' Roses, by and large. In 17 years, Axl didn't forget what worked about his music, so good for him. This is canon, and not the worst GNR album by any stretch.
From an artistic standpoint, damn does it suck, but I had fun, and a good deal of it. Plus, I mean, if I can enjoy a Michael Bay movie without bitching about its artlessness, I figure I can enjoy the Michael Bay of hard rock's delusional insanity finally committed to record.
twinturbo2
butthurt Heat fan
I AM JOHN!
Banned
Okay GAF, give it to me straight: did I just waste $20?
twinturbo2
butthurt Heat fan
Damn straight!ImperialConquest said:GnR>>>China
Count Dookkake
Member
My friend, who is a staight-up country-ass thug, gave the album a listen. Given his background he is not very familiar with GnR or a lot of 'white' music, barring the stuff he plays on Guitar Hero. A few tracks in, he said he liked it and thought it sounded a lot like "white R Kelly."
I think he has a point.
I think he has a point.
Shikamaru Ninja
任天å ã® å¿è
That's an interesting analogy. However, I think the album is great. I think Axl explains the album and his position best in prostitute. I really respect the album and think some songs are just insanely good. I was redeemed in my optimism when I read the rolling stone review.
Buckethead
Banned
From GN'R Myspace:
I'm a sheep, what can I say?
I'm a sheep, what can I say?
i've heard the album a few times online prior to picking it up at best buy last night
after a few more spins last night, i can say i'm pretty impressed with the fact that it's actually pretty good, i dont think it was worth the 14 year wait, but its pretty damn good, so i'll take it
after a few more spins last night, i can say i'm pretty impressed with the fact that it's actually pretty good, i dont think it was worth the 14 year wait, but its pretty damn good, so i'll take it
Now that I have had time to digest the album, I can say that Sorry is simply awesome. The bridge before the chorus just blows my mind.
Scraped is very interesting and a good tune. I recall someone complaining about the vocals in the beginning- I thought they were cool myself.
I don't know what to make of This I Love yet.
Scraped is very interesting and a good tune. I recall someone complaining about the vocals in the beginning- I thought they were cool myself.
I don't know what to make of This I Love yet.
Count Dookkake
Member
aznpxdd said:
Not that they sound the same, just that both have a preference to for big arrangements and experimentation. My friend particularly liked how the album seemed to jump styles regularly, even within songs.
Also funny to note, he wondered if the Axl was black or at least had a black girlfriend. I then told him about the cornrows and that seemed to make it all make sense.
Count Dookkake
Member
Buckethead
Banned
So...."There Was A Time" solo......
Best ever or best ever?
(Of course it's not the best ever but it's awesome)
Best ever or best ever?
(Of course it's not the best ever but it's awesome)
Buckethead
Banned
jett said:
Definitely, that'd be Mr. Finck. Like a dagger in the heart, that solo. *tear*
Dare I ask what Chinese Democracy II (or whatever the other songs Axl's been saving) will sound like? Hopefully more Buckethead and Finck on 'em.
I'm fairly disapointed with this album. It's not that it is bad per se, but only one song (Street of Dreams) really sounds like a GnR song. There are some great guitar solo's, but the whole thing is a bit overproduced.. and just isn't quiet right. Ive only listened once to the whole album, I'll give it another spin today.
Hai guys, remember me?
I'm the guy who towards the begining of this thread said he had missed out GnR and wanted to know if I should buy this? Do you remember, huh?
ANYWAY, I bought the album last night. Heard it this morning on my long commute in to work.
I like it. I don't love it, but I can tell it's something that will grow on me and wil be appreciated as time goes by.
I dove into this album recognizing that I don't know Axl as an artist or person. His work on Welcome to the Jungle and Paradise City is all I am familiar with as far as original GnR goes. I know this is his album, something that he induldged himself in for the last decade+... and made no apologies for it. I can respect that... it's actually something that I would like to see from many more artists.
I can already appreciate how BIG the whole thing feels. I like that. One of my favorite songs of all time is Achilles' Last Stand (LedZep) which this album reminds me of as a whole, simply because of how each song seems to float about at it's owm pace, without the need to come to a timely end. The songs just seem to come to an end only after they've thoroughly exhausted their energy... and not a moment sooner.
My favorite song so far after basically one go through, is BETTER. It;s the only song I played twice.
There was also a song towards the end, song 13 maybe, which caught my attention and will play once I leave the office today.
My $0.02 for now.
I'm the guy who towards the begining of this thread said he had missed out GnR and wanted to know if I should buy this? Do you remember, huh?
ANYWAY, I bought the album last night. Heard it this morning on my long commute in to work.
I like it. I don't love it, but I can tell it's something that will grow on me and wil be appreciated as time goes by.
I dove into this album recognizing that I don't know Axl as an artist or person. His work on Welcome to the Jungle and Paradise City is all I am familiar with as far as original GnR goes. I know this is his album, something that he induldged himself in for the last decade+... and made no apologies for it. I can respect that... it's actually something that I would like to see from many more artists.
I can already appreciate how BIG the whole thing feels. I like that. One of my favorite songs of all time is Achilles' Last Stand (LedZep) which this album reminds me of as a whole, simply because of how each song seems to float about at it's owm pace, without the need to come to a timely end. The songs just seem to come to an end only after they've thoroughly exhausted their energy... and not a moment sooner.
My favorite song so far after basically one go through, is BETTER. It;s the only song I played twice.
There was also a song towards the end, song 13 maybe, which caught my attention and will play once I leave the office today.
My $0.02 for now.
Angry Grimace
Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
What does a GNR song sound like?StoOgE said:
Given that Appetite doesn't sound like Lies, Use Your Illusion doesn't sound like Appetite OR Lies, and The Spaghetti Incident sounds like none of AFD, UYI or Lies?
I think there's only two songs on Chinese Democracy where I prefer the earlier leaked versions, which is a pretty good success rate when you consider how overcooked these tracks could've been.
Street of Dreams - The leaked "The Blues (REMIX)" version is a lot better in my opinion. You have a nice lead guitar melody hook at the beginning by Robin Finck that was stripped out entirely in favor of more piano, a cool synth hook during the chorus that was replaced by overwrought strings, and there are other little touches removed... The transition of the end of the guitar solo back into the verse is better in "The Blues," it slides down into two crunching chords instead of staying high and thin like in the final version. Axl got a little too in love with his own voice and mixed it up too high at the end as well (with the additional "What I tell ya?" lines), whereas in the leak you can hear a nice outro guitar solo. So yeah, he kind of ruined this one.
Catcher in the Rye - Not as different from its earlier leak as "The Blues" is, but I prefer the demo's guitar solo by Brian May to the Ron Thal noodling that replaced it. The rhythm guitar at the end (starts during "On an ordinary day...") is more melodic and less monotonous, with a better outro solo by May. And the piano break in the middle of the song is funkier, it blends into the song better and you can hear more of backing rhythm track underneath it.
Street of Dreams - The leaked "The Blues (REMIX)" version is a lot better in my opinion. You have a nice lead guitar melody hook at the beginning by Robin Finck that was stripped out entirely in favor of more piano, a cool synth hook during the chorus that was replaced by overwrought strings, and there are other little touches removed... The transition of the end of the guitar solo back into the verse is better in "The Blues," it slides down into two crunching chords instead of staying high and thin like in the final version. Axl got a little too in love with his own voice and mixed it up too high at the end as well (with the additional "What I tell ya?" lines), whereas in the leak you can hear a nice outro guitar solo. So yeah, he kind of ruined this one.
Catcher in the Rye - Not as different from its earlier leak as "The Blues" is, but I prefer the demo's guitar solo by Brian May to the Ron Thal noodling that replaced it. The rhythm guitar at the end (starts during "On an ordinary day...") is more melodic and less monotonous, with a better outro solo by May. And the piano break in the middle of the song is funkier, it blends into the song better and you can hear more of backing rhythm track underneath it.
Buckethead
Banned
shantyman said:I'm pretty sure the new Catcher solo is Finck. In any case I am not sure there is anyone who does not prefer Brian May's solo.
Robin does the "middle" solo. The other ones are Bumblefoot.
At first I didn't like the new version of the song compared to the prior version, but overall it's much better I think. The old one sounded like a scrapped Beatles track recorded on analogue in the 60s.
This version is more contemporary, faster and doesn't drag as much. I'd love to see Axl work with Brian in the future (they'd be great together) but overall I think that this track is better in it's final form.
Well, a crappy mp3 encode of a demo tends to do that to most recordings...Buckethead said:
Don't you think the middle piano break is much better in the earlier leak though? In the final, it just sounds like someone decided to play chopsticks for 12 bars in the middle of the song. It mixed much more fluidly in as it was in the demo, since the underlying bass line was up higher, and when it finished it flowed more naturally back into the song.
CounterSeal
Member
So why is this album called Chinese Democracy? Is there a political message or something significant to this?
Buckethead
Banned
CounterSeal said:
(This is a theory only, but one I've thought about for awhile).
Well first off, because a "Chinese Democracy" is a complete contradiction in terms. China is growing at an incredible rate and rapidly become an economic powerhouse, but at the expense of suppressing freedom and oppressing it's people through a violent dictatorship. The title track is about these things, but at the same time it's not, it's about frustration and anger.
So this instantly makes for a great artistic title as is. You can think about it for awhile and imagine what a true democracy in China would be like, etc. Rock n' Roll has always been very contradictory, rock has always had some measure of "say this on the record, but do that on the side". Often some rockers have these songs that mention religion or deep messages that relate to humanity on a primal level, yet they themselves live deviant lifestyles that seem to go against what they're saying. Like "Guns N' Roses"....that contradicts. In the old days, Slash played bluesy/sensitive riffs while Axl wailed like a banshee from hell. Their styles clashed but it turned out something great.
And even though all of these songs themselves have different messages like for example "If the World" is about 'environmental decay in the futurist context'. On "Scraped" the speaker (lets assume Axl) is battling between giving in to the pressure or doing what he wants. Being strong or "believing the lies that they tell" him. All of the songs have an element of either "loss and pain" to them or "anger and hatred". Once again the contradiction rears it's head.
But even though these songs have different messages (as taken from a literal translation from the lyrics) the entire album seems to be about all the dramas, difficulties, emotions, and obstacles of MAKING an album. There are certainly a lot of GN'R politics that you have to understand to see this big picture.
For example on UYI I and II, Axl was a different person than he was when he made AFD. He was maturing and at a different stage in his life, he was married and coming to terms with himself getting older. This was no longer a band living off of Sunset living off of Night Train Whiskey and Pizza and Girls. So basically Axl wanted to go in a new direction (a more U2/Elton John/Queen direction and evolve and mature the sound of the band. Slash wanted to do the same old AC/DC style sound forever, while Izzy was caught up in his drug world (heroin) and Duff was a raging alcoholic.
So you have all these people splitting off in different directions (like the Beatles on the White Album) and all wanting to do their own thing. So basically Axl lost creative control and there was a lot of in-fighting which forced them to release this double-CD set. After the CD was out, Axl felt like shit because he felt that some of the material on UYI was dated, it wasn't the step forward that he wanted, and he felt like he was losing control of the band that he started. To an artist this is everything.
All this tension, etc., eventually led to the breakup of the band. The last tour date in 1993 which is basically when they broke up, however they didn't officially break up until 1997.
While GNR was on this massive world tour in support of the UYI records from 1991-1993 a lot of shit happened: Axl married and then divorced from his then wife Erin Everly. Then he got with Stephanie Seymour and was very very close with her son Dylan. Then Stephanie basically went crazy and her and Axl broke up and Axl was never allowed to see Dylan again. Dylan was basically Axl's son, Dylan even called him dad even though he wasn't his biological father. You can imagine why this would suck.
It gets worse. Then Axl's mom died of cancer. His friend Shannon Hoon (Blind Melon) died, and eventually a close friend of the band West Arkeen died. So basically as all this turmoil was going on record execs were demanding a new record and the other members of the band were giving Axl shit about the direction he wanted to take the band in. Yes, Axl gave out a lot of shit too, but at the same time he had far more going on than they did. So the breakup was basically because Axl felt like these people had called themselves his friend, but when he needed them to trust him the most, they abandoned him.
The old lineup broke up and since then he was trying to find the right band, the right songs, the right sound, etc., etc. to make a fuckin' record. You can blame him post 2002 that the delays were his fault but basically from 1993-2002, it wasn't really Axl's fault that there wasn't a record. He had a ton of personal bullshit to wade through and he wasn't in the right mind to even attempt to make a record given all the personal situations and the drama with the old lineup.
So it's been this long drawn out process for many reasons, as you can see. In his own words:
So in short, I think that the album has a duel meaning:Axl Rose said:
(1) A concept record about everything that prevented him from making a record and then overcoming those things to actually make one and
(2) The immediate themes that you draw from the songs "breakup", "heartache", "redemption", etc.
Count Dookkake
Member
shantyman said:
He don't need your level wars.
listened to it today and imo it's absolute shit.
Not that I expected much, since Gnr always were shit. But this is on a different level.
It's disgusting that talented musicians and songwriters receive no attention and coverage while a complete nobody like Axl Rose does.
Not that I expected much, since Gnr always were shit. But this is on a different level.
It's disgusting that talented musicians and songwriters receive no attention and coverage while a complete nobody like Axl Rose does.
Count Dookkake
Member
Don't hate Axl. You'll get signed one day!
I'm not an elitist at all, far from it. You really don't have to be to not like something. Particularly not if what is in question is this albumreilo said:
As for your question - thousands. I know it is unfair to compare things. After all GnR were a product of their time and they were very popular at the time, so it's natural that some attention comes Rose's way. Can't really compare it with modern days, because the music industry as it was does not exist anymore and in particular for rock bands there's hardly any market at all. Certainly not a real mainstream market. Other music types don't compare at all really.
But if you want names - I watched Extreme on Monday night at the Astoria in London (they come from a similar timeframe, if a bit later), and that's a completely different level from what GnR ever were and certainly what Rose today is (can hardly call it the same band anymore imo). I'm talking pure musical and songwriting talent here, not the talent to sell yourself. That's something different. Anyway, no media coverage whatsoever, no marketing for their (excellent) new album. I'd consider that unfair.
Then again it was a brilliant, sold out show. So can't really complain too much.
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