If addict Steven Adler had shared half of his drugs with psychopath Axl Rose, they would both be healthier today. Despite publicity you can't put a pricetag on from Dr. Pepper and the Chinese government, Axl Rose's Chinese Democracy has failed to reach the number one spot in America and England. The album, the payoff to GNR fans who have waited seventeen years for an LP of original material, has wildly underperformed expectations. I'm glad. No doubt Axl and the Hired Guns will blame the poor economy or the antiquated CD format. But this didn't prevent AC/DC, a similar act, from doing monster sales of its new disc Black Ice. The Chinese Democracy tracks that I have heard on the radio are horrible. The excesses of the over-produced Use Your Illusions albums seem mild in comparison. At least back then, we could watch Stephanie Seymour if we didn't quite like the song. Now we're stuck listening to a guy born in the early 1960s miming music that was stale by the late 1990s. And that's just in his attempt at rockers. On the rest of the tracks, with pianos, strings, and Spanish guitars, the music sounds like Elton John with hard rock layered above. Axl apparently spent much of the last seventeen years listening to Operation Mindcrime, as his voice sounds less like a prime Robert Plant and more like that guy from Queensryche. Whatever it is, it's not Guns n Roses. The absence of all of Axl's classic GNR bandmates (but pretty much everyone else who plays an instrument appears in the album's credits) should have been a clue suggesting a fraud. But the ballad-heavy shlock on Chinese Democracy confirms it. If Axl really believed GNR to be a Chinese Democracy with him playing Dear Leader, then the joke's on him as his faux-GNR is about as successful as the real Chinese Democracy. To love Guns n Roses is to hate it in its current state.
AC/DC succeeds and will continue to do so, because they've got a solid blues rock sound that's FUN. I've never liked GnR, or really any other band that took itself so seriously. The same BS that killed Van Halen (EVH thinking that Diamond Dave was too goofy for their oh-so-serious rock band - culminating in the worst April Fool's joke of all time), is the same reason I could never get into GnR's "cool asshole vibe". I certainly could never accuse any of the members of AC/DC of being prima donnas. At least, if they were/are, the label never really suck. Entertain us, show us a good time, and we'll make you rich baby. Why is that so hard?
PS, Slash is an amazing musician.
stuck
I was watching some old VH videos this weekend and Roth was as integral to that band's character, music and success as Edward's guitar work.
What a great band and, as mentioned, fun!
As soon as Roth was ousted and they went to Hagar and synthesized leads, they went down hill.
Flynn, you are so wrong about this. Get yourself the Chinese Democracy CD and actually listen to it in order, all the way through, at least ten times.
It's the best CD of the year, and "Street of Dreams" the best song of the year.
Buckethead clearly hasn't heard the new Metallica album! Best album of the year my arse.
Wow, you are putting down an album you haven't even heard per your quote "The Chinese Democracy tracks that I have heard on the radio are horrible." It's pretty clear that no matter what Axl released under the name GNR you were going to bash it and you took first few weeks of album sales to justify it. Why don't you read the reviews (Rollingstone 4 stars enough) instead of going by album sales? Why don't you actually listen to the whole album? Oh, cause you choose your favorite music based on album sales. Then go buy the new Britney Spears album you moron.
You said it, Jon. Clearly Flynn is a "Rock Intellectual Moron" on this.
Hey, Gainsbarre, I did hear the new Metallica. Nice guitar work, but the whole disc is like watching a good black and white movie compared to GNR's glorious new Chinese Democracy technicolor. Metallica works within such narrow parameters, I'm sorry, it gets boring awful fast.
Sorry for you, not sorry for me.
