FEATURE:
Second Spin
Guns N' Roses - Chinese Democracy
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BY the time…
IN THIS PHOTO: Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses/PHOTO CREDIT: Martin Philbey/Getty Images
Guns N’ Roses got to their sixth studio album, the band were vastly different to the ones who wowed fans and critics on their 1987 debut, Appetite for Destruction. Fortunately, it seems like there is more harmony and a sense of hope in the band’s camp. I suspect that, when lockdown is through, they will tour and there will be new music. When Chinese Democracy was released in 2008, it arrived after a huge delay and strife. It was the first Guns N' Roses album since the 1993 covers album, "The Spaghetti Incident?", and the first album of original studio material since Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II, of 1991. Chinese Democracy is an album that was delayed by personnel and legal problems. As we can tell from Wikipedia, the classic line-up of Guns N’ Roses was way in the past:
“In the mid-1990s, amid creative and personal differences, guitarists Slash and Gilby Clarke, bassist Duff McKagan, and drummer Matt Sorum all had departed. Only Rose and keyboardist Dizzy Reed remained. In 1997, they began work on the album with guitarists Robin Finck and Paul Tobias, bassist Tommy Stinson, drummer Josh Freese, and keyboardist Chris Pitman. The lineup shifted several times, incorporating guitarists Buckethead, Richard Fortus and Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal and drummers Bryan "Brain" Mantia and Frank Ferrer. Guitarists Brian May and Dave Navarro, vocalist Sebastian Bach, and producers including Mike Clink, Youth, Sean Beavan, Eric Caudieux, Roy Thomas Baker and Caram Costanzo worked on the album across 15 studios. The band recorded dozens of songs, and suggested they could release them across multiple albums”.
There is a huge history and a lot of backstory to Chinese Democracy that is probably not that relevant. I wanted people to see the album less of a mess and disaster – as many have – and see the quality that is in there. I think the title track, Better, Street of Dreams, and I.R.S. are brilliant. There are at least half a dozen (of fourteen tracks) that are superb. I would say there are a few weak tracks but the remainder is solid. I will bring in two contrasting reviews to end things. Before bringing in some critical opinion, it is worth noting how Chinese Democracy fared in terms of sales:
“Best Buy purchased 1.3 million copies of Chinese Democracy from UMG before release and pledged not to return unsold copies. The album was released on November 22, 2008, in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. It was released the following day worldwide, except for the United Kingdom, where it was released on November 24.
Chinese Democracy debuted at number three on the US Billboard 200 chart, selling 261,000 copies in its first week, well below expectations. It debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart. Second-week US sales dropped significantly and it fell from #3 to #18 on the Billboard chart: a 78% drop. The programming director at KLOS-FM said the low sales were due to the holiday season release and lackluster lead single. Critics also cited Rose's lack of promotional appearances as a factor.
After selling 21,000 copies in its sixth week and charting at #30, Chinese Democracy was certified Gold, passing the 500,000-shipped mark on January 7, 2009. It was certified Platinum by the RIAA on February 3, 2009, having shipped one million copies in the United States. It placed 55th on the 2009 Billboard 200 Year End charts”.
From that, it would appear that this hyped album was a bit of a disaster. I actually think the fact many critics put Chinese Democracy in their top-fifty albums of 2008 shows that there was love for it. I would not place the album near the band’s very best work; I do feel that it is a solid album that has plenty to appreciate. If Chinese Democracy was not near the gold standard Guns N’ Roses reached in the late-1980s and early-1990s then it was an impressive release none the less. I am not sure whether the band have plans to release any more material. Since 2016, Slash and Duff McKagan have been back in the fold – so one can never rule out a new album from the guys. In a rather mixed review, Pitchfork wrote the following about Chinese Democracy:
“Perhaps the most striking aspect of Chinese Democracy is that it's about the fifth-most shocking Guns N' Roses album. Sure, it's difficult to endure both Use Your Illusions in one sitting, but there's something fascinating about how the bombastically lonely "Estranged" could share disc space with the junior-high politicking of "Civil War", "Yesterdays"' concise, sepia-toned pop, and the critic-baiting tantrum "Get in the Ring". Had that record been a career-ender, it would've been a fitting finale. Instead, Axl took 17 years to, we hoped, explore new textures, manipulate songwriting conventions, seek out challenging collaborators, or delve into unfamiliar genres for inspiration. Yet on the way to being this decade's Sgt. Peppers, Chinese Democracy became its Be Here Now-- a record of relatively simple, similar songs overdubbed into a false sense of complexity in a horrorshow of modern production values.
It's that flaw which ultimately delivers the fatal blow. Even if Chinese Democracy had dropped a decade previous, it would still sound dated. 1996 appears to be the cut-off point for sonic inspiration, a time when the height of electronic and rock synergy in pop music involved having an acoustic guitar and a drum machine on the same track. Fans deserve better than hearing Axl trying to fight with post-NIN nobodies like Stabbing Westward and Gravity Kills for ideas. "Better" and the closing "Prostitute" feature memorable, fluid melodies, but are tied to rudimentary Roland tracks that Steven Adler could've replicated in his sleep, and while "I.R.S." sports an Illusion-sized chorus, it's dampened by empty conspiracy theorizing.
To that point, Chinese Democracy is inevitably and sadly limited in scope to the actual making of Chinese Democracy. Apart from a handful of appropriately vague love songs, Axl seems convinced that the only thing that's mattered to us over the past 17 years was anticipating whether "Riad and the Bedouins" might ever see its proper release. Anyone outside of Axl's inner circle appears lumped into some royal "you" and thrust into a meta exercise to be held up as evidence of a defiantly achieved victory: "All things are possible/ I am unstoppable," "No one ever told me when I was alone/ They just thought I'd know better," and most pointedly, "It was a long time for you/ It was a long time for me/ It'd be a long time for anyone/ But looks like it was meant to be”.
Although AllMusic did not rave about Chinese Democracy, they did highlight how it is good. It is an album that is more of a grower compared to some of the band’s earlier work. I really like Chinese Democracy and I think it has received some slating that it does not deserve. I want to bring in a few passages of AllMusic’s extensive review:
“Such maniacal indulgence is ridiculous but strangely understandable: Rose received unlimited time and money to create this album, so why not take full advantage and obsess over every last detail? The odd thing is, he spent all this time and money on an album that is deliberately not a grand masterpiece -- a record that pushes limits or digs deep -- but merely a set of 14 songs. Compared to the chaotic Use Your Illusion, Chinese Democracy feels strangely modest, but that's because it's a single polished album, not a double album so overstuffed that it duplicates songs. Modest is an odd word for an album a decade-plus in the making, but Axl's intent is oddly simple: he sees GNR not as a gutter-rock band but as a pomp-rock vehicle for him to lash out against all those who don't trust him, whether it's failed friends, lapsed fans, ex-lovers, former managers, fired bandmates, or rock critics. Chinese Democracy is the best articulation of this megalomania as could be possible, so the only thing to quibble about is his execution, which occasionally is perplexing, particularly when Rose slides into hammy vocal inflections or encourages complicated guitar that only guitarists appreciate (it's telling that the only memorable phrases from Robin Finck, Buckethead, or Bumblefoot or whoever are ones that mimic Slash's full-throated melodic growl). Even with these odd flourishes, it's hard not to marvel, either in respect or bewilderment, at the dense, immaculate wall of god knows how many guitars, synthesizers, vocals, and strings.
The production is so dense that it's hard to warm to, but it fits the music. These aren't songs that grab and hold; they're songs that unfold, so much so that Chinese Democracy may seem a little underwhelming upon its first listen. It's not just the years of pent-up anticipation, it's that Axl spent so much time creating the music -- constructing the structure and then filling out the frame -- that there's no easy way into the album. That, combined with the realization that Axl isn't trying to reinvent GNR, but just finishing what he started on the Illusions, can make Chinese Democracy seem mildly anticlimactic, but Rose spent a decade-plus working on this -- he deserves to not have it dismissed on a cursory listen. Give it time, listening like it was 1998 and not 2008, and the album does give up some terrific music -- music that is overblown but not overdone.
True, those good moments are the songs that have kicked around the Internet for the entirety of the new millennium: the slinky, spiteful "Better," slowly building into its fury; the quite gorgeous if heavy-handed "Street of Dreams"; "There Was a Time," which overcomes its acronym and lack of chorus on its sheer drama; "Catcher in the Rye," the lightest, brightest moment here; the slow, grinding "I.R.S."; and "Madagascar," a ludicrous rueful rumination that finds space for quotations from Martin Luther King amidst its trip-hop pulse. These aren't innovations; they're extensions of "Breakdown" and "Estranged," epics that require some work to decode because Axl forces the listener to meet him on his own terms. This all-consuming artistic narcissism has become Rose's defining trait, not letting him move forward, but only to relentlessly explore the same territory over and over again. And this solipsism turns Chinese Democracy into something strangely, surprisingly simple: it won't change music, it won't change any lives, it's just 14 more songs about loneliness and persecution. Or as Axl put it in an apology for canceled concerts in 2006, "In the end, it's just an album." And it's a good album, no less and no more”.
If you are a Guns N’ Roses fan and put Chinese Democracy aside, give it another listen as there are some great songs on it. If you have never heard the album or wrote it off when it was released, spend a bit of time with it. It is not perfect by any means, but it is a very interesting album. I do not usually put out two Second Spin features of a weekend, but I have come across some solid albums that have not received their just acclaim. In spite of some weaker tracks, Chinese Democracy offers up…
MORE than a few treasures.