Well, I am currently listening to a preview copy of the new Guns n Roses album 'Chinese Democracy'. I am only a few songs in but there is one thing that I can't help but notice about this album. Axl Rose has pulled a Madonna. I know that may not make the most sense so I'll explain.
I was watching some trashy MTV show a few years ago and the TV bint was talking about Madonna and how she 'reinvented' herself by following the contemporary sound of that particular time in music. In other words, Madonna rips off other popular artists in order to shift records.
Now if we take this ethos to Chinese Democracy, you can hear direct rip offs in almost every song (Ironically enough, Velvet Revolver seems to be the main influence on title track 'Chinese Democracy' and 'Shakler's Revenge' could easily have been a Rob Zombie outake. Hell, even 'Streets of Dreams' has a Caleb from Kings of Leon vocal style to it).
Aside from the musical plagerism, I find it very difficult to hate this album. It took 14 years, $13 million and a flood of changing band members to make it, so it really should be the best damn album ever (in theory). But its not. To be honest, it feels like an album which would have been forgotten about by Christmas just because it lacks any really effort. If it was going to go anywhere, it would have needed more potential than 'Appitite for Destruction'.
Instead, its a mediocre recording with ever questionable vocals from Axl Rose and a 'cut and pasting' of the most popular rock genres of the last decade. But at least it has a better production job than 'Death Magnetic'.
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2 comments:
I totally agree with you (apart from the Metallica bit) - I think C.D.'s a big pile of poop.
There's a review in a very similar vein at http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/nov/21/guns-n-roses-chinese-democracy ,with a particularly funny bit saying "Chinese Democracy is frequently as exhausting to listen to as it must have been to make, not least on the regular occasions when Rose, clearly unable to decide whether to have another verse or a widdly-woo guitar solo, opts to do both at the same time"
Lol betar than Def magnetic dat is unpossibl it is banging on my ipod and totally loud lol./
Or at least, that's presumable what someone might feel compelled to say. Christ, is that record ever compressed to hell and back. It's no Iggy Pop (but then again, there was no subtlety in that album to be lost, so that might be slightly more alright?), but it's still up there with the worst examples of aiming for iPods as far as production goes.
And I can't slag off Chinese Democracy yet (on account of having been paralysed with indifference towards it), but I can't imagine I'd feel very different about it either.
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