Axl Rose Brings ‘G N R’ Into The 21st Century With ‘Chinese Democracy’
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.
Once a rock band reaches a certain level of success, they just cant win. If they try to keep growing as artists by exploring different sounds, influences or whatever they’ll hear people whining about wanting things the way they used to be. A lot of purists hated it when KISS took off their makeup, but they deserved respect for doing something different and trying to forge a new artistic path. On the other hand, if a band *doesn’t* do anything new and keeps playing their old stuff in the same way ad nausium they’re branded as a nostalgia act. Think KISS now”Gene Simmons eventually made the calculated, slightly cynical decision that commerce trumped art. Hes now content with giving fans the best representation of the KISS that their nostalgic desires long for”to the extent of dressing a new guitarist and drummer up like Ace Frehley and Peter Criss. Hes not breaking new ground as an artist, but he is backing a Brinks truck up to the Simmons household every night.
Axl Rose could have taken the same route with Guns n Roses. All he needed to do was patch things up with former lead guitarist Slash and the two of them and whatever supporting players they recruited could have toured forever playing the old songs in the old way and make a ton of money along the way. 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) Never mind the fact that everything Velvet Revolver has ever recorded sounds the same, or that the band members are all well in their 40s and a little old to be doing the rock n roll gypsy routine.
Axl refused to play the nostalgia game. He deserves credit for this, but he doesnt have much of a knack for self promotion or 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 Elton John-esque piano 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.
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.
Ross Everett is a respected freelance writer who covers travel, casino gambling 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 deep sea diving. He lives in Las Vegas with four dogs and a pet coyote.