Guns 'N' Roses Chinese Democracy Nov 23 & a free Dr Pepper (1 Viewer)

[Jack Gilvey]

Grabbed it yesterday at BB along with new Rush BD. Some cool stuff on there, and Axl sounds better than I expected, although to Paul's point there appears to be quite a bit of manipulation of the vocals (Vocoder or such) that may have been needed to bring them on-key. I thought it went a bit overboard in some places, with Axl singing stuff he never would have even 20 years ago and getting too "busy" with notes/lines.

The guitar work doesn't have the meat that Slash used to bring to the proceedings...more flash. Even some sweep-picking...yay. Not bad, though.

It's pretty laid-back overall, and does sound great based on my one listen.

 

[AnthonyC]

I enjoyed it; the five consecutive ballads at the end isn't a sequence I'm crazy about but the songs themselves are mostly good, if not great. (I can't get into "Sorry" at all though.)

Taking so long on the album actually hurt it IMHO--there are so many elements in some of these songs that are just unnecessary and feel like they're there for the sake of being there. The orchestra on "There Was a Time" in particular.

 

[Ruz-El]

I haven't had a chance to listen to it yet, aside from the first single. IT sounds alright, but really, how could it meet the expectations they are implying by saying it took 14 whatever years to make? I seriously doubt every day in that time was spent in the studio working on tracks, and suspect it was mostly personal issues that kept this from being finished for so long.

 

[Jack Gilvey]

Yup, agreed. I suspect even Axl wouldn't spend a year on each song.

This album's growing on me quite a bit, and I'm really digging some of the tracks. "Better", in particular, is one I've gotten into quite a bit. As apparently processed as it is, I just really enjoy his voice. And the sound is very good, very punchy and full.

 

[Nathan Eddy]

I have no problem with whatever name they call this "band." If Yes and King Crimson can get away with having a couple dozen members go in and out of their bands, then why not GnR? Personally, I didn't think it was GnR after they got that drummer from the Cult, you know, the guy who could actually keep a steady beat.

GnR is *supposed* to be all slop, barely in tune, barely sober, and raw as hell. When they thought they could make Physical Graffiti II (aka "Use Your Illusion), that's when they lost it IMO (though I do like a couple tracks).

I will never forget being a sophomore in high school and hearing Welcome to the Jungle for the first time while going to an after school piano lesson! Needless to say, it was very difficult to think about Mozart after that. (Okay, sure, some of it had to do with the girl who was getting a piano lesson before me, and offered me a ride, and played WthJ on the way.

) After that, it seemed like an entire year of my life was lived to the soundtrack of Appetite for Destruction. I remember listening on my crappy car stereo while chasing girls in the fall, or my "boombox" at the pool in the summer. There was even a Pizza Hut in my tiny Bible Belt town that had "It's So Easy" on the juke box, curse words and all!

". . . Besides, you ain't got nothing better to do--and I'm bored."

I can't imagine them ever topping the irreverent genius of those days. But I'm curious to hear the new one.

 

[Jack Gilvey]

Really, really digging this now. It's become my #1 in the car. Despite (or perhaps due to) the apparent electronic manipulation, Axl sounds fantastic, and the vocal lines and melodies are really working for me. The guitar is all-around great, and the juxtaposed styles/tones fits perfectly.
The big thing that's surprised/delighted me is that there's not one song I automatically skip past.

 

[AnthonyC]

You know what song has really grown on me? "If the World." At first I kind of wrote it off as some bad disco song, like inferior Bee Gees with heavier guitar riffs. And now I can't stop playing it. I'm not all that crazy about "Shackler's Revenge" but for some reason it gets stuck in my head and I play it constantly too.

 

[Jack Gilvey]

Funny, at first I found Axl's ending lines flat and bending up to pitch in "If The World" annoying, now I sing along at full volume in the car.

Those opening lines are an example of how the electronics are helping loads, I think. His voice was never that pure in the upper reaches.
"Shackler's Revenge" and "Better" are my two faves at the moment.

 

[The Drifter]

Bumping this ancient thread because I've been going back & listening to my GnR albums recently, especially Chinese Democracy.

I was a huge fan of GNR from around 1988-early 1991. I thought (and still think) Appetite for Destruction was/is an amazing hard rock/metal album, and is easily 1 of the top 5 hard rock/metal albums of the '80's.

Flash forward to Fall 2008 - I heard that another GnR album was on the horizon, which shocked me since the band had dropped off my radar not long after UYI came out. So, primarily fueled by nostalgia, I went to Best Buy and bought the exclusive CD on it's release - and, I really liked it! IMHO, it's a very solid hard rock album, and it reminds me a lot more of AFD than GnR's later albums (Use your Illusion I & II, etc.). My favorite tracks are: "Chinese Democracy", "Shackler's Revenge", "Better", "Riad N' The Bedouins", "Madagascar", "Sorry", and "There was a Time", though the other songs are decent too. In fact, listening to this album temporarily transports me back to the late '80's when I was first discovering the band.

 

[Jeff Adkins]

Bumping this ancient thread because I've been going back & listening to my GnR albums recently, especially Chinese Democracy.

I was a huge fan of GNR from around 1988-early 1991. I thought (and still think) Appetite for Destruction was/is an amazing hard rock/metal album, and is easily 1 of the top 5 hard rock/metal albums of the '80's.

I think it's terribly underrated. It's a fantastic album that most people didn't give much of a chance because of lineup changes and year after year of delays.

 

[The Drifter]

I think it's terribly underrated. It's a fantastic album that most people didn't give much of a chance because of lineup changes and year after year of delays.

Agree 100%. CD actually got me re-interested in GnR; I started listening to their other albums a lot more after getting this. And, it's worth noting that CD was a blind-buy; I bought it without hearing any of the songs, which I rarely did with albums. I actually had no idea that a new GnR album was even on the horizon prior to reading about it online - not long before the album was released.

I suspect that the Best Buy exclusive aspect to CD hurt sales - though I could be wrong. You would think that having the album available in other brick & mortar retail stores like Wal-mart, Target, etc. would have resulted in more copies being sold. That being said, even by the late 200X's a lot of folks were listening to music digitally & not even buying physical media - and that's obviously true a lot moreso today.