Guns N' Roses
Chinese Democracy
(Interscope)

By: Chuck Klosterman

The endless wait is over.

It's been a long time since Guns N' Roses have released an album of new material. Everybody knows this, but it's a fact that bears repeating. If you purchased a kitten on the day that Use Your Illusion I & II arrived in stores, it's probably dead by now. As a consequence, there has been a great deal of pressure on Axl Rose to deliver a record that would validate a 15-year, $13 million wait. There is really only one way for Chinese Democracy to avoid utter and absolute failure: It needs to be the greatest rock album ever made.

Chinese Democracy is not the greatest rock album ever made.

Oh, it's certainly awesome, but I don't think it's "15 years awesome." Had Axl released his album after a silence of, say, 11 years and two months (at a cost of, say, $11.5 million), Chinese Democracy would be an undeniable masterpiece, but considering the circumstances, some of this work seems shoddy. I get the impression most of the 13 songs were written between 1993 and 1999, and Rose merely spent six or seven years touching them up in the studio. One is forced to wonder if a track like "Madagascar" was only recorded 75 or 80 times, which calls Axl's alleged "maniacal perfectionism" directly into question.

Does Chinese Democracy offer glimpses of the paranoid, misogynistic genius we once heard on the soundtrack of Interview With the Vampire? Absotively. "The Blues" might be Rose's crowning career achievement: It's an epic combination of mid-period Stevie Wonder, early Elton John, and side two of In Through the Out Door. This is the kind of gutter-glam boogie ballad that makes "November Rain" seem like a bucket of burro vomit warming in the afternoon sun. Chinese Democracy is simultaneously propulsive and ponderous, and there are some electrifying guitar arpeggios on both "Silk Worm" and "Thursday Morning Strip Club" (performed, I assume, by either Buckethead, Robin Finck, Zakk Wylde, Johnny Marr, or Brian May -- all five are listed in the liner notes). But this transcendence is sporadic at best: All too often, Rose's sonic neurosis plunges into self-reflexive self-indulgence, most notably on the outdated 14-minute rap-rock anthem "Pound You (Good)" and an embarrassing "roots rock" duet with new buddy Dave Pirner titled "You're Still Too Sweet Not to Be My Baby Anymore." Several songs make thinly veiled references to the architect who designed Rose's backyard topiary garden, a move that may confuse casual listeners.

Obviously, the sexy albatross hanging around Rose's wiry jugular is simple modernity: Could he create an album that would sound contemporary -- and competitive -- in today's ever-evolving marketplace? As such, it is hard to understand why he elected to have Chinese Democracy coproduced by Bob Ezrin (Pink Floyd, Kiss) and Phil Ramone (Billy Joel, Barbra Streisand). Songs like "Catcher in the Rye" exhibit the sculpted sheen of Billy Joel's Glass Houses, and the LP includes several tracks on which GNR bassist Tommy Stinson appears to be playing a note-for-note replication of the bass line from "Another Brick in the Wall." Skeptics might also bristle at the anger that still resides in Axl's heart; his hairstyle and facial features have changed, but his inner intensity remains grizzly-esque. On the caustic rocker "Slash and Burned," Rose lashes out at his former bandmates now in Velvet Revolver with staggering specificity: "Your singer has cocaine eyes and a skeletonized trance / We'll see if RCA recoups their advance." Rose has also retained his pathological distaste for the media, lyrically attacking the editors of Vanity Fair, MTV personality Sway, numerous teenage bloggers, and the city hall reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer (who, curiously, has never written about pop music).

Still, Rose always possesses the potential to surprise us, as he does on a slightly reggaetón cover of Thin Lizzy's "Cowboy Song" and a faithful (albeit befuddling) version of "Think About You," a tune actually written and recorded by Guns N' Roses in 1987. But a deeper quandary remains: Does Chinese Democracy accomplish its goal? After all this time and all that money, will this album truly bring democracy to China?

I don't know. I just don't know.

FAST FACTS

1. The album's working title for much of 1994 and '95 was Chinese Theocracy.
2. To capture a specific drum sound, Rose coated the walls of his home studio with four inches of wet adobe from the Sonoran Desert.
3. Two weeks before his death in 2002, ex-Clash frontman Joe Strummer contributed guitar for a song tentatively titled "Janky Holocaust." However, Rose eventually dropped the track, citing "dehydration."
4. The liner notes include Rose's complete voting record, dating to 1992.
5. This version of Chinese Democracy only exists in an alternative reality ruled by the fools of April.

Worst. Klosterman. Ever.

Well that was dumb.

Brian May? WTF???????

bwahahahahahahaha!

My favourite line was "Songs like "Catcher in the Rye" exhibit the sculpted sheen of Billy Joel's Glass Houses"

EDIT: or this one

lol

I was still surprised to open up a magazine and see a review of a new GnR. I thought "this must be a joke." For some reason I thought Chinese Democracy was still more of an "idea" rather than an actual work that has been forged into existence. And I figured it was too soon for April fools. 8) But I was still suckered.

I believed every word of that until the last line.

Goddamn it. I was fooled too.

I'm of the mind that the album has never been recorded and that Axl is a nutjob with thousands of hours of takes and no actual album.

But I might be going out on a limb there as I know everyone else attests to what a sane and nice young fellow he is.

Im sorry, this piece is fucking brilliant. the sarcasm is top notch throughout. I laughed out loud (doesnt happen often) - "If only it had taken 11 years and 2 months at a cost of 11.5 million"

Guffaw.



edit: oh, wait, you mean there's no new album?

edit edit: "Pound You (Good)", tee hee

Yeah. But I was entertained up until that time.

Yeah, I was like "Joe Strummer? Ill!"
Well done Klosts

Best piece from him in some time. I like th 5 guitarists line and some other stuff.

(And, was fooled as well)

Hard to hide an April Fool's joke in a record review, which is seemingly by nature smarmy, ironic, and saracastic anyway.

I thought it was pretty dumb.

Wait, you people were really fooled by this?

i was fooled because 1) i don't care enough about gnr to read critically, and 2) people here inexplicably do care enough about them to keep posting news about this album, such that i have been led to assume its release is impending.

I just naturally assume anything related to this album is automatically false.

I thought it was serious enough until I read the line about Interview with the Vampire, which tipped me off. They covered Sympathy for the Devil for the soundtrack.