| Worth The Wait: Guns 'n' Roses Triumphant 'Chinese Democracy' |
| Written by RossEverett | |
| Tuesday, 16 February 2010 | |
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The worst thing can be said about Chinese Democracy is that its not the wall to wall heavy metal onslaught suggested by the early release of the title track. On the other hand, it very well may be the best album of the year.
The worst thing can be said about Chinese Democracy is that its not the wall to wall heavy metal onslaught suggested by the early release of the title track. On the other hand, it very well may be the best album of the year. After a rock band becomes a major success, they're really in a 'no win' position. If they try to break new artistic ground, exploring different sounds or influences, they'll invariably hear complaints that they were better the way they 'used to be'. If they keep doing things the same way, a band risks losing any sort of artistic relevance and becoming a 'nostalgia act'. Some bands try to stay innovative for awhile, but eventually assume the role of a 'nostalgia act' due to the financial upside that sometimes results. Axl Rose could have taken the same route with Guns n Roses. Patch things up with former lead guitarist Slash and they could have toured forever playing the old songs for nostalgic fans and made a ridiculous amount of money. To some extent, Slash has chosen this route with his band Velvet Revolver. They play similar blues based hard rock to vintage GnR, and brought in former Stone Temple Pilots vocalist Scott Weiland on vocals (who sounded almost just like Axl on a number of the early STP songs) Axl refused to play the nostalgia game. Hes a very talented guy, but he doesn't have much of a knack for self promotion or media spin. While he worked on putting together a new version of the band and recording Chinese Democracy he let a variety of interests"not the least of which were his old bandmates"control the media spin. For that reason, there are plenty of people including media and critics that have predisposed to hating this album before it was released or even having heard any of it. In many ways, its reminiscent of the Use Your Illusion releases in its depth and complexity. Many albums are fairly straightforward and are easy to figure out with a couple of listens"this song rocks, this is the power ballad, this song is filler and so forth. Others evolve and change with repeated listening"different songs become your favorites, you notice new things about ones you thought you knew well and most significantly songs that you glossed over the first time around start to grow on you. On Chinese Democracy is definitely an album that lends itself to repeated listening. A great case in point is the song 'Better' It doesn't really jump out on first listen, but may be the catchiest pop song since The Killers first album. One of the real triumphs of Chinese Democracy is the difficulty that a listener has in pigeonholing the songs. There's definitely a lot of the piano based material first heard on the 'Use Your Illusion' releases but overall its evident that the band is breaking entirely new musical ground and even they don't really know where they'll end up. It's very unpredictable and can be hard for a long time fan to wrap their head around, but once that happens its a very exciting sound. Perhaps the worst thing about 'Chinese Democracy' is that a number of the songs have clearly been overproduced--not really surprising for an album that took so long to make. The best example of this may be 'Madagascar'--the band has been playing this song live for almost a decade, but the finish product doesn't have the same 'edge' or emotion that has been on display during live performances. That's a minor beef, however, about what is overall an amazing album. If you're one of those who've bought into all of the anti-Axl media hype the best suggestion I can make is to try and put aside all of your prejudices, preconceptions, and misgivings and just listen to Chinese Democracy. There's nothing nostalgic about it, just the sound of a great band breaking new ground. About the Author: Ross Everett is a experienced freelance writer who covers travel, poker and sports handicapping. He is a staff handicapper for Anatta Sports where he is responsible for providing daily free sports picks. In his spare time he enjoys fine dining, fencing and scuba diving. He lives in Las Vegas with four dogs and a pet coyote. From the Webmaster: "Having the opportunity to share my hobbies and interests with so many people around the world gives me great satisfaction. As a bonus, I blog and produce websites about topics that interest me and receive ad revenue from the websites and Blogs." You can live like this too. Get your domain name and set up a blog on your favorite place or topic. No come-ons. No "Get-Rich-Quick" promises. The results are worth the time and effort needed to build a REAL business.You can start your first or your fiftieth Blog or website to build long- term, ever-growing profits that can take you where you want to go. For less than $10 dollars a year for a domain name and $3.95 a month for basic blog hosting you can start to earn from your hobby or interest. To begin, Click here to sign up for a domain name and Blog hosting . Or, Click here to learn more about starting a blog or website for profit. |