Fifteen years, millions spent, but still no Guns N' Roses album

Laura Barton

Tuesday June 24, 2008

The Guardian

 

 

The year 1993 was a time of such fresh-faced optimism: the world wide web was born, the European Union was formally established, Bill Clinton arrived in the White House and we all honestly believed that the next Guns N' Roses album would be with us any moment soon.

Fifteen years, a collection of live recordings and a greatest hits album have done little to remove the lingering disappointment of The Spaghetti Incident?, GN'R's last official album, a hotch-potch of punk and glam-rock covers. Still, for the band's devotees, there was always the sweet promise of their next full record of new material, Chinese Democracy, the recording of which began in 1994.

 

The years went by, line-ups changed, dates were set and missed, tours passed, haircuts altered and £6.5m of recording costs were allegedly spent. Dr Pepper promised a free can of pop to every American if GN'R could just see their way to releasing the album this year. But still no official release date.

Then, last week, nine of its tracks were leaked on the internet. The source has yet to be ascertained, but it began on an American blog, Antiquiet, where a poster named Skwerl uploaded the tracks claiming that they were both "mastered and finished". Six had been leaked before: Better, The Blues, the title track, Madagascar, IRS and There Was a Time.

 

This time, they were more polished, and there were three new songs, including Rhiad and the Bedouins, which Billboard magazine describes as "a pounding rocker with a trademark down-and-dirty main guitar riff and a flashy solo" and If the World, apparently a "blend of flamenco guitar, industrial synth tones, bluesy piano licks and Axl Rose at the top of his vocal register".

 

It is, though, hard to remain optimistic about an album that has taken 14 years, and marries flashy guitar solos, industrial synths, flamenco and blues. Other sources have spoken of the album's "grandiosity", while Rose himself has stated that Chinese Democracy is "a very complex record".

 

One is put in mind of the tale of the Emperor's New Clothes, so opulently described, but which ultimately transpired to not exist. With the record company still refusing to comment on a release date, let's hope that can of Dr Pepper is the only thing the band's patient fans miss out on.

 

Are you looking forward to the album or not?

20th June 2008 Leaks:

 

Chinese Democracy

 

Better

 

The Blues

 

Madagascar

 

I.R.S.

 

The other four to follow........

There Was A Time

 

Rhiad and The Bedouins

 

Message For You

 

If The World

 

OK, so what do you think of the leaked tracks?

what a surpirse...

 

$h!t.

 

and thats only part way through the first song.

 

im not even going to bother with the others.

YAWN. I havn't checked the songs yet but I shall do.

 

I actually wouldn't mind seeing it hopefully sometime soon. :lol: It'll be quite interesting, but I doubt they'd ever release it as sales of the album would never be able to pay back on how much it actual cost to record it.

Can someone explain how its possible for an album to cost so much to make? :blink:

Can someone explain how its possible for an album to cost so much to make? :blink:

14 years of work in studio's, equipment used, people worked with, well I don't know. :lol: But it's cost bloody millions!

Links down. I heard every single song was bad. Not a surprise, they're a terrible and boring band.

Looks like they've been pulled off You Tube....

 

Cant say that I really give a sh!t about G N R anymore.... I'm far more interested in the possibility of a new My Bloody Valentine record to be honest.....

It's ACTUALLY now got a release date. :lol:

 

November 23rd 2008. :heehee: [seriously!]

 

 

 

I may not live in America, but If I buy this I'll still want my Dr Pepper drinks can. -_-

It's ACTUALLY now got a release date. :lol:

 

November 23rd 2008. :heehee: [seriously!]

I may not live in America, but If I buy this I'll still want my Dr Pepper drinks can. -_-

 

 

Its truth, doubt it will happen though :lol:

It's ACTUALLY now got a release date. :lol:

 

November 23rd 2008. :heehee: [seriously!]

 

Would this be the tenth or eleventh "confirmed" release date now....? I've honestly lost count.... :lol: :lol:

 

:heehee:

 

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61jT4JgKUvL._SS500_.jpg

 

November 24th, 2008 [uK Release Date]

 

Tracklisting;

1. Chinese Democracy

2. Shackler's Revenge

3. Better

4. Street Of Dreams

5. If The World

6. There Was A Time

7. Catcher N' The Rye

8. Scraped

9. Riad N' The Bedouins

10. Sorry

11. I.R.S.

12. Madagascar

13. This I Love

14. Prostitute

 

 

Glad they included Shackler's Revenge on the album. The lead single is okay. It's all very "Kerrang-ish", yet it's harder stuff than what came out from the Illusion albums. I still miss the bluesy/sleazy-hard rock/metal sound, but that dissapeared when Slash went (who commented on the track Chinese Democracy as 'cool'. :lol: )

i dont like it

That is one REALLY sh!t album cover..... :lol:

That is one REALLY sh!t album cover..... :lol:

:lol: A sh!t album cover for what will most probably be a really sh!t good album! :o

12 days till release! Can't wait! B)

You can pre-order it on iTunes to! [but don't bother, albums on iTunes are rip offs!]

Here was a mock American review that I wrote up as an April Fools gag based on rumoured recorded tracks, etc... let's see how accurate it is:

 

As the GNR new album gag has sort of bombed (maybe I should have accounted for the fact that most members could not give a monkeys who GNR are/were).

 

Anyway, I've just spent an hour writing up a mock review of the album:

 

Guns N' Roses

Chinese Democracy

(Interscope)

****1/2 Stars

By: Chuck Klosterman (Spin magazine)

April 1, 2007

 

http://www.spin.com/reviews/magazine/images/2006/03/060323_gunsnroses.jpg

 

The endless wait is over.

 

It's been a long time since Guns N' Roses have released an album of new material. Everybody knows this, but it's a fact that bears repeating. If you purchased a kitten on the day that Use Your Illusion I & II arrived in stores, it's probably dead by now. As a consequence, there has been a great deal of pressure on Axl Rose to deliver a record that would validate a 16-year, $13 million wait. There is really only one way for Chinese Democracy to avoid utter and absolute failure: It needs to be the greatest rock album ever made.

 

Chinese Democracy is not the greatest rock album ever made.

 

Oh, it's certainly awesome, but I don't think it's "16 years awesome." Had Axl released his album after a silence of, say, 11 years and two months (at a cost of, say, $11.5 million), Chinese Democracy would be an undeniable masterpiece, but considering the circumstances, some of this work seems shoddy. I get the impression like 2005's similarly impressive and reclusive Kate Bush's Aerial 2CD that a lot of the 22 songs were written between 1993 and 1999, and Rose merely spent six or seven years touching them up in the studio. One is forced to wonder if a track like "Madagascar" was only recorded 75 or 80 times, which calls Axl's alleged "maniacal perfectionism" directly into question?

 

Sarcasm aside, does Chinese Democracy offer glimpses of the paranoid, misogynistic genius we once heard on the soundtrack of Interview With the Vampire? Absolutely. "The Blues" might be Rose's crowning career achievement: It's an epic combination of mid-period Stevie Wonder, early Elton John, and side two of In Through the Out Door. This is the kind of gutter-glam boogie ballad that makes "November Rain" seem like a bucket of burro vomit warming in the afternoon sun. Chinese Democracy is simultaneously propulsive and ponderous, and there are some electrifying guitar arpeggios on both "Atlas Shrugged" and "Ides of March" (performed, I assume, by either Bumblefoot, Buckethead, Robin Finck, Zakk Wylde, Johnny Marr, or Brian May -- all five are listed in the liner notes). But this transcendence is sporadic at best: All too often, Rose's sonic neurosis plunges into self-reflexive self-indulgence, most notably on the outdated 14-minute rap-rock anthem "There Was A Time" and an embarrassing "roots rock" duet with new buddy Dave Pirner titled "Hearts Get Killed." Several songs make thinly veiled references to the architect who designed Rose's backyard topiary garden, a move that may confuse casual listeners.

 

Obviously, the sexy albatross hanging around Rose's wiry jugular is simple modernity: Could he create an album that would sound contemporary -- and competitive -- in today's ever-evolving marketplace? As such, it is easy to understand why he elected to have Chinese Democracy coproduced by Andy Wallace (Linkin Park, Foo Fighters). Songs like "Catcher in the Rye" exhibit the sculpted sheen of Jeff Buckley's Grace, and the LP includes several tracks on which GNR bassist Tommy Stinson appears to be playing a note-for-note replication of the bass line from "Another Brick in the Wall." Skeptics might also bristle at the anger that still resides in Axl's heart; his hairstyle and facial features have changed, but his inner intensity remains grizzly-esque. On the caustic rocker "Prostitute", Rose lashes out at his former bandmates now in Velvet Revolver with staggering specificity: "Your singer has cocaine eyes and a skeletonized trance / We'll see if RCA recoups their advance." Rose has also retained his pathological distaste for the media, lyrically attacking the editors of Vanity Fair, MTV personality Sway, numerous teenage bloggers, and the city hall reporter for the Cincinnati Enquirer (who, curiously, has never written about pop music).

 

Still, Rose always possesses the potential to surprise us. But a deeper quandary remains: Does Chinese Democracy accomplish its goal? After all this time and all that money, it may be a hell of a lot better than Red Hot Chili Peppers 2CD Stadium Arcadium, however it is not Physical Graffiti.

 

But will the masses go out and buy this album?

 

I don't know. I just don't know.

 

i think the album is $h!t.

 

 

if anyone doesnt know you can hear it on the Guns n Roses myspace