Chinese Democracy, Nov 25, through Best Buy ???

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I listened to the stream and agree that there are some good songs on there, but it lacks any sort of cohesiveness. It just seems all over the place at times, and way over-processed and over-produced.

That being said, it seems that the near mythical status of this project has many long-time fans really wanting to like the album in spite of its glaring faults. Read their MySpace page. One guy said this album is better than Appetite....umm, no.
 
GirlsAloudFan said:
I don't know, whoever the lead guitarist is (Buckethead? Chickenmouth? whatever) rips some kickass solos on the album.

I need to listen to this again.
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Yes there are some absolutely awesome solos on the record; for an Axl solo album it's funny that he is overshadowed by basically everything else
 
Zootlesque said:
Hey, thanks for posting that review! That guy is a big Axl fan, it seems. I may end up getting this if it's only 10 bucks at BB. :hmm: Plus I'm in a GNR mood this weekend.
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Zoots, I've been listening to the album for about a day now. I think you might like it. Its pretty good. Its no Appetite for sure, but its better than Lies so far. :wink:
 
MrPryck2U said:
Zoots, I've been listening to the album for about a day now. I think you might like it. Its pretty good. Its no Appetite for sure, but its better than Lies so far. :wink:
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Haha cool! Btw, did you see my post in the Top 100 results thread? I commented on you including No Code. :drool: And I see you included the Illusions too. :drool:
 
Listening to this monstrosity right now on myspace. The title track is kind of fun, but it sounds like every other post-grunge pseudo-metal rocker ever made.
 
Here's my review of the album that I just posted on RYM

"Ah the fabled Chinese Democracy, years in the making and with everyone either expecting, it to be awful or to be amazing or people not really caring either way. I fall into the third category, I was never a big Guns N' Roses fan, although they do have a few great songs. This album however, I just had to hear it. It doesn't matter whether it sucks or not, I just had to hear it.

The album kicks off with the title track, which has a nice enough build up and rocks better hard. All good so far right? Well that is until Axl starts singing. Overall on this album it is his vocals that are the weakest link and it's painfully obvious right from the start. However, some brilliant instrumentation makes up for that on "Chinese Democracy", giving the album a pretty good start. However, it was obviously far too good to last and by the second track "Shackler's Revenge", the album already has a major dip in quality. "Better" also has its high points and sounds like it could be a really great track until that part of the chorus, that just lets the whole thing down completely. The completely boring second half of the song doesn't help it either.

The over-the-top "Street of Dreams" proves to be a surprising highlight of the album, with strings, piano and everything you expect in a ballad, come together and actually work quite well. Too bad Axl seems incapable of making more than one great track at once; "If the World" while showing the band trying something new at times, just doesn't work at all. From this point on however the album just turns into background music; some great guitar work, some over-produced vocals but nothing that grabs attention at all. It's with the half a minute intro to "Riad 'n the Bedouins" that the album finally grabs the listener's attention again. However Axl again delivers a really sub-par vocal performance that just ruins the whole thing again. Half of his vocals in this song are him screaming, which just does not work. The song however sounds at least slightly interesting, so that's an improvement on the last several tracks; too bad it really struggles to deliver anything beyond that.

"Sorry" has everything a bad song should have. Awful guest vocals, uninteresting guitar-work, and over-processed vocals by Axl; it is easily the worst song on the album. The fact that it also doubles as the third longest song on the album doesn't help matters either. The equally awful "I.R.S." comes next and really the less said about that one the better. "This I Love" is meant to be one of the earliest written tracks on the album and it's no surprise that it also happens to be one of the five strongest tracks on the album. The final track "Prostitute" is a fairly strong song too, much better than the majority of the other album and the album at least finishes on a high.

Overall the album is pretty weak; with about two songs that I would class as being great and about three maybe that are good. The majority of the songs are simply average, with a couple of bad ones thrown in as well. Surprisingly the weakest link on this album is not the band; it is Axl. Despite being basically the Axl solo show, the band proves to be much stronger than him in every regard, with some of the solos even being pretty great. So where can Guns N' Rose go from here? It's simple; they should get rid of Axl.

3.6/10"
 
I'm actually enjoying the album quite a bit. It's just derivative and overblown.

The Dr. Pepper will be better.
 
Okay, so I dont expect much out of Axl...but I thought that there would be a decent single and thats it. The whole album blows.
 
Sounds like it has been being produced for the last 15 years.

This is the poster child for why downloading is a good thing.

It's horrible, if I'd spent money on it I'd be really pissed off. It has almost zero redeeming qualities.

It's taking up valuable space on my hard drive............
 
This album seems like either, after more listens, you're going to love it more or hate it more. I like it more each time. :up:

It's funny, I never thought that Metallica and Guns N' Roses would release new studio albums within the same year ever again. Gen X rock still lives! :hyper:
 
Alright, so I listened to the whole stream on myspace... :crack:

I don't know.... most of it seems so unmemorable! Chinese Democracy didn't even seem like that great an opener. It was only okay for me and the second song was just awful! I could not get into Shackler's Revenge. Better was okay, somewhat better than the opening track I guess but again nothing great. It had a somewhat decent guitar solo though. Street Of Dreams didn't do much for me although it started out good. If the World and everything following was boring as hell and I still patiently sat thru it all so I could give all the songs a fair chance. Finally after the mostly awful Riad n the Bedouins, things seem to look up. IRS is a somewhat decent number. I remember listening to the demo a few years back. And Madagascar was not bad I guess, with lots of samples like MLK and a repeat of the Cool Hand Luke thing. And then This I Love... this is clearly the best song here! It almost does not even belong with the rest. The sad melody made me feel sorry for Axl actually! lol :( And then the closer, Prostitute sounds good enough. Nice outro. So the good songs all seem bunched up at the end! Maybe I'll give it one more listen but right now I seriously doubt I'm gonna buy this unmemorable mess of an album! :huh:
 
BoMac said:
^What are you talking about? Some fan on the news said it was the "greatest" album of all-time.
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lol. Oh man, did you see the gazillion reviews at bestbuy.com? It's like a 5 star fest! I don't know what those people are hearing. :crack:
 
I gave it a pretty superficial once-through listen today.

I was prepared to give the expected 'negative' response like some of you.
It's just fun to hate on such things, ain't it?

I won't make a big judgment after just one listen but I have to say, I am certainly more impressed than I thought I'd be. Which isn't particularly a lot but at times, there is some decent songwriting going on there.

His voice grates on it, there is just no way around it. It always did sorta, just like Corgan but in spots (the high pitched spots) it's a little embarrassing. But there are some ideas here that people would have swallowed easier if he had Duff and Slash on board.

Mostly it's a bit too much. You can tell it had a long gestation period.
By the middle of the album I was ready for it to be over, not in a "this is total shit" reaction but in a "I feel like I've already heard the gist of new GNR" reaction.

In other words, this could have used some fat trimming not unlike the new Metallica, and much the same as Death Magnetic, it's more nostalgic in spots than anything.
Derivative but not that bad.
 
U2DMfan said:
I was prepared to give the expected 'negative' response like some of you.
It's just fun to hate on such things, ain't it?
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I don't know if you were talking about me but I certainly did not go in deciding that I will hate it no matter what. In fact, I was a pretty big GNR fan back in the day and I was actually kinda looking forward to this... but on first listen, it really sounds quite bad and not to mention, boring! It did get a bit better on second listen and there are a few bright spots here and there like a guitar solo or a pretty melody but overall I'm still quite underwhelmed. Maybe it's a grower? I don't know. But it does seem like Axl took some cues from the nu metal genre? and maybe that's what's putting me off. Not to mention, his voice is mostly awful throughout the album! I loved his voice on Appetite and even the Illusions but here it sounds strained and screechy.
 
Zootlesque said:
Maybe it's a grower? I don't know. But it does seem like Axl took some cues from the nu metal genre? and maybe that's what's putting me off. Not to mention, his voice is mostly awful throughout the album! I loved his voice on Appetite and even the Illusions but here it sounds strained and screechy.
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:hmm:

Yeah, Axl sounds like he's really straining to get that big vocal sound, and I agree that is does sound a bit 'off'...but for the most part this is a much better album than I thought.

The title track is OK, but starting with 'Better' the album picks up and kind of ebbs and flows throughout the remainder of the album. I'm not sure if 'Madagascar' is epic or overblown...but it's definitely interesting. 'This I Love'...is very cool...and 'Street of Dreams' is 'November Rain' II.

I will say the guitar work is stellar, which I guess is expected when you have 5 or 6 guitarists on the album, which I think may turn some people off (lack of cohesiveness). I dunno, I think it is a 'grower' Zoots...:yes:

But is it "Guns N' Roses"...:shrug:...it's definitely Axl...:yes:
 
It's a very powerful album. Not the greatest of all time, but very good. 4 Great songs, 6 very very good songs, the rest decent enough.

You really need a few listens- there are so many subtleties that you miss in a quick listen. The songs don't hit you right away, they unfold. It's a very rich album, must listen at least once on a good sound system and you'll say WOW!

Great guitar work as well.

No it's not Slash and Duff, so don't expect it to sound like it.

Recommended listening:
Prostitute
This I Love
There Was a Time
Street of Dreams
Better
 
Zootlesque said:
I don't know if you were talking about me but I certainly did not go in deciding that I will hate it no matter what. In fact, I was a pretty big GNR fan back in the day and I was actually kinda looking forward to this... but on first listen, it really sounds quite bad and not to mention, boring! It did get a bit better on second listen and there are a few bright spots here and there like a guitar solo or a pretty melody but overall I'm still quite underwhelmed. Maybe it's a grower? I don't know. But it does seem like Axl took some cues from the nu metal genre? and maybe that's what's putting me off. Not to mention, his voice is mostly awful throughout the album! I loved his voice on Appetite and even the Illusions but here it sounds strained and screechy.
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I wasn't addressing anybody in particular Zoots, just an attitude about this album that has grown over the last decade. Whatever you feel is probably perfectly understandable. I wouldn't ever to claim to have been a 'huge' GNR fan, I was always certanly a fan but I prefered bands like Metallica, Pantera and Megadeth at the time. GNR was always the one 'hard rock' band that was cool with the metal heads.

Don't we all have to sort of agree that it was more or less unwritten that this thing would suck? The 'development hell' , the first song they officially released several years back (the soundtrack song) was pure horseshit and the leaks have been all over the place. Plus, the MTV appearance which was quite embarassing for Axl. I think most people were ready to pounce like wolves.

All I'm saying, after one listen, it's not a sacreligious record.
Maybe it's a sacreligious concept for some, GNR w/o Duff, Matt and Slash.

I didn't notice too much of a Nu Metal inspiration.
High-low, dropped C guitars, hip hop nonsense. Cookie monster vocals.
I loathe that shit, I hope I would have noticed.

I did hear some sampling and electronic bits, which worked a bit on some songs more than others. The one with the MLK sample, part of it worked for me and part of me thought it was ot of place. Eh, I dunno.

I am not giving the album a ringing endorsement, by any means, just surprised I didn't outright laugh at it.
 
dr_pepper.jpg
 
The album's better than I thought it would be, most of the songs weren't laughably bad like I imagined they would be but seriously I would of enjoyed it more if it was as bad as I was expecting. It turned out to be just boring
 
This album is not boring...:no:

It's complex, complicated, overblown, epic, crazy....but it's not boring.

The best thing about album reviews, done right after listening to the album once is that they're jaded. I mean if you think Axl is a crazy, self-absorbed artist, then you're going to hate the album...and those who love Gun will most likely like the album in most cases. So I have to laugh at the reviews who listen to the album once and then claim "Chinese Democracy' is 'no' 'Appetite For Destruction'....how do you know for sure?!?!?!...:shrug:...you don't...it's all subjective or objective or perspective...:crazy:

Yeah, I dig old G n' R, but I was totally prepared to not like this album...but I have to say it has exceeded all my expectations. Street of Dreams, and Better are in heavy rotation on my iTunes right now...:rockon:
 
let's say it this way...

it's no spaghetti incident or Lies... nor AFD

it's right there with UYI I and II... good albums with a lot of extra weight
 
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