Heavy Metal Nation is a place for fans of heavy, interesting music to come and read, write, and comment on articles about heavy music. Album title: Chinese Democracy
Release date: November 2008
Label: Geffen Records

Band members:

• Axl Rose - vocals
• Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal - guitars
• Richard Fortus - guitars
• Robin Finck - guitars
• Tommy Stinson - bass guitar
• Chris Pitman
• Dizzy Reed - keyboards
• Brain - drums
• Buckethead - Lead & rhythm guitars
• Paul Tobias - guitars
• Frank Ferrer - drums

Tracklist:

1. Chinese Democracy
2. Shackler's Revenge
3. Better
4. Street of Dreams
5. If the World
6. There Was a Time
7. Catcher in the Rye
8. Scraped
9. Riad n' the Bedouins
10. Sorry
11. I.R.S.
12. Madagascar
13. This I Love
14. Prostitute

The world's most expensive album to date (as of November 2008) is finally out, a good 10 years of writing and recording (most say longer but recording didn't officially start until 1998 and Axl Rose tends to write music all the time) so in my books, it's 10 years, not 15. To say that this album has been anticipated immensely is an understatement, so much so that it eventually became a running joke as to when this album would, if ever, be released. But it did and after listening to all 14 songs, it's definitely Axl Rose's most ambitious effort yet. Is it worth the decade-long wait? No, but to be fair, no album would really. Aside from a few standout tracks, this album is to say the least, disappointing. It's not just based on the fact that the core members of Guns N' Roses (Slash, Duff, Izzy) are not on it, the album overall just isn't as great as previous stuff.

Now I'm not one of those people that refer back to Appetite For Destruction and compare everything afterwards to that one album. To me, Use Your Illusion I was the best album this band ever put out. Appetite just had the rawness and attitude which appealed to so many young fans but the songwriting was much simpler than what is found on the Illusion albums. Chinese Democracy is pretty much a progression from those 2 albums, in fact the last song on Illusion II, "My World" hinted at the next GNR music, with "Oh My God" from the 1998 soundtrack to "End Of Days" confirming that vision, so when early versions of some of these tracks came out, it was no surprise the style of which these songs were in, at least to me anyway. And especially with Slash out of the picture, Axl was pretty much free to control the direction of the songs in the ways that he always wanted it to go in. The big difference though, between Chinese Democracy and the Illusion albums is the sound and feel of the songs. Whereas Illusion retained guitar-oriented styles mixed with a lot of other colors thrown in, Chinese Democracy is completely sterile in sound, doing away with a rock n roll sound and having a much more electronic/techno-ish style. Any life Slash brought to the table is pretty much gone and all we are left with is a cold lifeless album, which has it's moments sporadically. But it has to be noted that these moments do exist, it still is a decent album due to Axl Roses's talent in his songwriting and compositions. One thing should be made clear, Axl is more of a songwriter/compositioner rather than a rockstar. If he wasn't singing, he would be in that field working alongside people like Elton John and Meatloaf. Maybe comparing Axl to those guys is a bit extreme but his talent cannot be denied. It's no surprise then that the stronger songs on this album are the more interesting and bigger tracks.

The title track is an easy one, it's a big rock song that launches the album with a bang, clearly a fan-favorite. "Better" is a decent track, "Street Of Dreams" originally titled "The Blues, is classic Axl Rose. Has a little of "Yesterday" only more slick, the mid section with guitar solo is epic sounding, a great melody.

"There Was A Time" is another great song with a nice beat, 2nd half is mesmerizing with a rare great feel. Compositions of melodic parts was always Axl's strong point in his song writing, the biggest and more complex songs on the Illusion albums was mostly written by Axl himself but towards the end of this song it does get a bit overly stretched out. Interestingly, a title of this song circulating around was T.W.A.T, a humorous title indeed but not sure if this was Axl's intention or not. Wouldn't be surprising given his name (W.Axl Rose aka W.A.R.).

"I.R.S." is another solid track, the original versions of this had a much more sterile electronic sounding vibe but this final version has a much looser lively feel to it making the song much better. The big epic song on this album which resonates well with songs like "Estranged" or "November Rain" is "Madagascar". While not as long in length as the aforementioned, this is still a huge song which has a fairly strong political statement stamped on it. If any songs on this album were to make any impact on the radio, this would be it.

The other tracks are either below average or simply just not that good. There's some r&b sounding stuff, more sterile electronic tracks and even a sappy love song that would even try the patience of the most devout hardcore fans. It's these songs that bring the batting average of this album down and unfortunately there's too many of them to ignore the lacklustre of the album overall.

As far as the famous Axl Rose vocals are concerned, the voice is sounding better than ever despite ignorant claims he has lost his voice. Granted, its not 1987 vocally but its pretty much on par to what he did on the Illusion albums. And considering that since 1993 he hasn't done many shows or released any new albums aside from a couple of one-off recordings, there's no reason why he would of lost his voice in the first place. There's a lot to be said about some of his wild antics and strange behaviours, the controversies etc, any and all criticism of those things much deserved as there is no excuse for a lot of the things he has said and done, especially on-stage but there's also a lot of things said about him in other areas that are really just stretching the imaginations a bit, whether it's down to sheer ignorance or just plain childishness. In the band's hey-day Axl pretty much stopped giving interviews because of these kinds of things, one can only imagine what he thinks of the internet today. The only other band member worth mentioning is Buckethead, specifically on guitar solos. Say what you will about the absence of Slash, which is very evident, Buckethead holds up very well in his own right, lending his talent with solos that really make some of the songs better. I think without him, this album would have been even worse than it is.

But overall, with it's hit and misses, it's not an entirely bad album, it's just not as good as it should, or could have been. With reports that Axl has written and recorded another 2 album's worth of music which are reportedly intended to be released over the next few years (which partly explains why the release of this album was so long), it may have been better had Axl been a bit more selective in the album's tracklist or maybe not overthought the music so much. There is such a thing as overkill. But in any case, let's hope the next one isn't so far away.

Posted 27th July 2010 by Axl409
Updated Tuesday, 27 July, 2010 8:20 AM