Here Today... Gone To Hell!

Chinese democracy Has to be the most underrated album ever.  Since the release of hard school and absurd, I wanted to revisit that era and wow .
There is no denying Madagascar  street of dreams IRS catcher in the rye this I love and There was a time is some pretty awesome work.  

Every song on it. Totally brilliant!

It's a pretty good but not great album that definitely has its standout moments.

It's also Guns N' Roses in name only.

I agree in the name only thing. I mean it doesn't really have anything outside of Axl and Dizzy Reed.

Although it is a good album, and imagine if it came out in 2002. The light on it would be so different. It would be this classic I think as it is very good.

But it took the time it took and what we ended up with was a good album. Or very good even. I think a lot of people associate the time it took to release it which was about 10 years in total from the time of recording until release.

And to put fans through that, to take 10 years... expectations were over the moon. And no album by any person or band could exceed that.

We did get a 3.5/5 star album. And it's good. On it's own it's probably as good as the worth 14 tracks on UYI albums. And that's a good thing.

I literally just listened to this album after a long hiatus.  So much good on that album. I know many here prefer Slash and don’t get me wrong, he’s great.  With that said however, the guitars on Chinese Democracy are fantastic….and Bucketheads solo on There Was A Time is f’ing brilliant. Some of the best guitar playing (maybe the best) of any GNR song. Period

Said many Times… good album but overproduced, songs are just cut & copy of pieces recorded trough many years, you hold a band name but at the end of the day the product doesn’t sound like it comes a frond a band. It’s a one man studio project. Many songs could have sounded way better.

My only issue with this is lets say this album had been released with Slash & Duff then people might be saying this is up there with UYI albums classic which i think is unfair to the guys who all contributed too the brilliant album this is. I feel like Robin Finke's contribution too this album is sorely underappreciated.

Very valid point

We got an album that is on the same level as an UYI mix…but very different: lucky us ❤️

But forever will the 10 years wait on it to come out be attached.

And the infamous super suprising VMA performance in late 2002... where Axl said... "soon, I don't know if soon is the word..."

Something like that. And man. I thought it would be maybe another year or two.

It was over 6 years from that VMA performance and interview. 6 years. Just insane. But you could tell around 2006 things were rolling for sure finally. With those Hammerstein shows in May of 2006... I could smell the album coming, but even then... it was over 2 years off.

The damn album just took too long. Simple and that will always be attached to it's legacy. Sadly. Like I've said several times over the years here. It should of dropped around 2002 to 2004. Just put out what you had man.

The leaks prove it wasn't a whole lot different and still good stuff.

Its a tough one with CD. Personally I think its a great album and listen to most of it at least one or twice a month. Better is on my workout playlist along with CD and TWAT. Because it took so long to release it, it becomes difficult to assess properly, people have it down as this mythical album and we argue about whether it should even have the GnR name on the front. Personally I think its a great album by the collective people who created it. I do think it ended up been way over produced and some songs needs space to breath a bit more. I also think if Better had been the lead single it would have gotten more airplay.

I think with both Absurd and HardSkool, as soon as you add Slash on to it, it sounds like Guns n Roses again. Thats just the truth, Slash's guitar is as much a part of the GnR sound as Axls voice. So when Slash is missing from CD it doesn't sound like GnR anymore, some of it still sounds awesome but just not like GnR.

I wish firstly that what seems like a small agrument didn't rob us all of these guys working together for so long. I also wish Axl would have just done solo records without feeling like he had to add to the GnR legacy on his own, something which clearly burdened him for many years.

Guns n Roses have been my favourite band for over 30 years now and I moving forward I hope they can release even more new music together and be at peace with each other and their legacy.

I just wish it had fewer songs. If The World, Scraped, Shackler's Revenge and Riad N' The Bedouins aren't as good as the rest of the songs. If they had taken those out, the album would have 10 songs and it surely would be a classic.

That seems to be the problem with a lot of bands nowadays anyways. They choose to release longer albuns, and this results in good albuns instead of classics.

The new Greta Van Fleet is an example. Had they chose like 8 songs, it would be killer. Instead, we got a mediocre album with some fillers.

In the 70's and 80's a lot of the classic albums we know (Master of Puppets, Rocks, Toys in the Attic, Led Zeppelin IV, etc.) has fewer songs and all of them are absolute classics.

problem is, *your* perfect tracking list is not mine, and mine wouldnt please everybody neither.

for example Shackler's Revenge is one of my favorite track on the album, and one of the most catchy song of the CD. in a manager position, I would have chose it as first single to launch the album.

I agree, there's a problem on the tracking list of this album, but from my perspective it's not a question of "how many tracks", it's a question of the nature of the songs themselves, and how
they work together.

I would probably have kept Chinese Democracy, Shackler's Revenge, Better, There Was a Time, Scraped, Sorry This I Love and Prostitute, and I would have added Hard Skool and another song from the sessions who would have completed these ones.

It's a very good album, but a little wobbly

It really isn't though. The final line-up of the "classic era" GNR was Axl, Slash, Duff, Dizzy, Matt and Paul. Half of that line-up went on to write and record Chinese Democracy, with the others replaced along the way. The narrative that Axl went solo simply isn't true. Paul and Dizzy did a lot of the writing.

It's a good album but definitely to me it's only a Guns n' Roses album in its name. To me is Axl's solo album
I have three main problems with the album:

- Guitars: in general they sound too industrial-metal

- Drums: the hip-hop/nu-metal beats kinda groove is too repetitive and all over the album. I miss the vibe of rock drummin'. The only more or less rock drummer there was Josh Freese. Neither Brain nor Frank are natural rock drummers in my opinion

- Production: it's way overproduced

I'm glad to see the hard-rock guitar driven sound back with Slash and Duff. Hardskool is the sound of Guns we all fell in love and even a song like Absurd, wich sounds more like the CD album, sounds better and rocker, like a modern Inmigrant Song


Anyway it's a good album with some great work. To me the best ones are: CD; Better; Street of Dreams; There was a time; Catcher; IRS; Prostitute

Problem is, you will never hear anyone but a GNR diehard praise this as some masterpiece.

Bear with me here.

Take some other band.  One you know of, perhaps like some of their stuff.  At the very least, you know what they are about.

Now, when a new album comes out, factor in :

- the singer is the only one left
- the original replacement band that he recruited to play on it have mostly since been replaced again by the time of release
- the songs sound very little like what you know of the past work of the band
- it took the singer literally 10 years to get this all together

Now, and be honest, if faced with all that, and you are assured by a superfan of that band that it's just genius...what do you think?

Option A : This guy nails it.

Option B : This guy is a superfan and not the least bit objective.  And I have to think he would not give other bands such an incredible benefit of the doubt with all these factors.

I am Option B.  I make no bones about this.  I also think 99% of the planet would be with me on Option B.

I have an incredibly hard time...nah, scratch that.  I have an absolute *impossible time* seeing anyone around here lavishing such praise on a "Metallica" album that was James Hetfield and a bunch of dudes.  Or a "Pearl Jam" album that was Eddie Vedder and a bunch of randos.

I think, at best, you say..."it has its moments, sure, but it's not really Metallica / Pearl Jam, let's be real."

- the singer is the only one left
- the original replacement band that he recruited to play on it have mostly since been replaced again by the time of release
- the songs sound very little like what you know of the past work of the band
- it took the singer literally 10 years to get this all together

Well, none of theese factors are objective. I think option B is the least objective one.

My subjective opinion: Chinese Democracy is superb, and in 2010 I considered the line-up real Gn'R. Great band!

Really?  Let's go down the list.

- Only possible retort is to come back at me with Dizzy Reed.  I'd be as embarrassed hearing that as I'd hope you would be trying to run that up the flagpole.  C'mon, huh?

- By time of release : Buckethead - GONE.  Robin Finck - GONE.  Paul Tobias - GONE.  Josh Freese - GONE.  That's not the majority of the band?  Did you fail fractions as a lad?

- Not a one of these songs would fit on AFD.  Maybe 4 would fit on UYI (Street Of Dreams, Catcher In The Rye, IRS, This I Love).  4 out of 14. 

- Axl started this misadventure in 1998 and the album came out in 2008.  Few things more objective than raw numbers and math.

I have my criticisms of the album as a whole, but they are just my opinions. In November of 2008 I was happy to get what I got, it was a long time coming.

The album we got in 2008 was what they were able to release based on a variety of circumstances. I would at some point like Axl's version of "Let it Be: Naked" where it is a stripped down version with the bare minimum instrumentation and engineering to get the "essence" of the songs out, but without layered snippets of guitar from every person in the band since 1997 and bloated 1 minute long intro's like the title track. It would be nice if it retained the core of the CD lineup... I wouldn't mind hearing the current lineups take on songs, BUT I really want to hear what Axl wanted out of the 1997-2001 version of the band.

While Slash is working with Myles in the bands down time, get together with Caram, Brain, and anyone who can make this happen and get it out.

I will admit that when that storage locker of leaks was unearthed, I did find myself digging the rawer version of the songs more than the overproduced ones we got.

Probably no bigger examples than the title track and the (at the time) 'The Blues'.

If The World is one of the best songs on the album. That funky '70s cop movie jam is my shit. Reminds me of playing classic Driver videogames.

It's also easy to pick out short classic albums and ignore crummy short albums. The length of the album has no bearing on the quality. The number of good songs you have is the number you have.


I rarely see anyone specify how exactly it's "overproduced". I don't find the soundscape terribly cluttered, most of the extra layers are buried in the mix anyway.


The problem is that you can't imagine anyone else being less closed-minded than you. A lot of AC/DC fans straight up HATE Axl having worked with them, to this day. I however, would have loved nothing more than to hear what a collaborative writing project between them would sound like.

In fact, I was more open to the industrial style BECAUSE it was Axl doing it. To this day, I've never really listened to NIN and don't really have much urge to, but I really dig CD.

Also, since when is the "objective" frame of reference for music the mainstream listener? Mainstream listeners have just as many biases as fans do, they're simply different biases. Industrial metal was never all that big in the mainstream, and by the time CD came out, it's moment in the sun was largely over.

Chinese Democracy was written and recorded by half of the '94 GNR line-up.

Im not talking about that, i'm talking about that it doesn't sound a "band" product at all... You can hear it's a meltin pots of sounds, cut copy past of solos pieces of music etc where the maestro has the last word on everything... Plus it's overproduced cause they had so many tracks that they didnt want to leave out so you have this big wall of sound and at the end of the days you can mainly listen to axl's voice (which sounds better in the demos in any case) and the drums. Listen to hard school and absurd now, how the tracks sound tight (apart from axl's voice in absurd, but it's a choice) when they are fully reworked by the same people. It's all another animal.

Is Use Your Illusion overproduced" compared to GN'R Lies? Is Appetite For destruction overproduced compared to Live Like A Suicide?

Overproduced is like an empty word people throw out when they can't think of anything else.


Too many guitar players makes it overproduced? So having one guy play all guitar parts would've made it... not overproduced?
Too industrial? Doesn't sound like Ministry to me...

I get that it's not for everyone, just like Absurd, but looking for faults.... Either you like it or you don't. Not liking it because "it's not GN'R" seems like a lame excuse.





/jarmo

Lies Afd and UYI are not overproduced at all. Simple tracks thought and played by 6 people only. You can say uyi it's a little bit pompous because of NR and estranged but that's it. It's just a change of the musical direction. When u have 5000 people involved in the writing - playing - mixing  process well you can say it's a little bit overproduced.  Listenin to the tracks  if u are a composer or a musician you can hear it.  But you know we already talked about this many times so i stop here.

Six people? People who weren't in the band played and sang on those albums. There's synthesizers on AFD, there's sound effects on UYI.

UYI sounds different to AFD, which sounds different to CD.

Basically, they all sound like they are supposed to sound. You prefer something basic, something simpler. That's fine.

Overproduced is just one of those meaningless words people like to throw around because they like a plain cheese pizza instead of one with four cheeses... Doesn't mean the latter one is overproduced... :hihi:






/jarmo

reminds me Axl & Duff interviewed about the reunion, talking a bit
about Chinese Democracy where Axl said in a laugh "a lot of layers..."  :hihi:

Damn, you can hear who has the last word on everything? Impressive.

The placebo effect and groupthink are strong effects. Nobody would call Paradise City "bloated" because it has multiple layered vocals, a synth and a long intro. But because CD has an electronic intro, that somehow makes it "bloated". Give me a break.

People rave over the demos, but in most cases they really aren't very different from the final product. The demos have lots of layers of instrumentation as well.

Holy schnikes, SIX people?!?!?! Any band bigger than a four-piece is just a bloated rotting whale carcass about to burst!  ::)

I love the arbitrary distinctions for when something becomes "overproduced" or "bloated". Funny, nobody ever accused Lynyrd Skynyrd of being bloated despite having a busload of people onstage at once... nor Bob Marley...


Writing and playing have nothing to do with production. Pretty comical that you attempt to claim authority by being a musician after saying that...

It’s my second favorite GNR album.

And I think I can say I come at this not as a diehard gnr fan, because for me UYI should’ve been one album because half of it is filler. (You can hear the compromises made to get every members favorite songs on there)

CD has some epic songs, it’s not a front to back masterpiece, there’s two or three songs I probably skip over now, but there’s a ton of great emotional hooks in there. I don’t want a band to just put out continuous albums of  ‘stones style blues rock, and I’m totally fine with experimenting in different sand boxes.

If I had two critiques I’d say sometimes a change in a song comes out of left field and there might be a couple too many vocal harmonies layered in, but who am I to complain, someone created theyre art and sent out into the wild, if I have a problem with it I could always ignore it, or make my own damn album.

Sometimes I think that Jarmo is only a character and he is in fact Axl himself  :hihi: ;D

Take it easy man

At least someone gets it.

Agreed. Its just a matter of taste.
Take Let It Be for example. The popular opinion is that its overproduced by Phil Spector. But still the original ''overproduced'' Let It Be mix is way more popular than the Let It Be Naked version that is a more stripped down version.

What "over produced" as it relates to this album means to me is: Axl for the most part with Josh Freese, Paul, and a few others into the Fink, Brain,  and Buckethead time frame had essentially written "as Axl stated" 3 albums worth of material. Most of it had at a minimum been recorded instrumentally based on stories by Brain and the recent podcast appearance by Josh. They began shopping or trying out several engineers/producers for the project. They (if you believe the stories) would present the material to the label and the results whether in the mind of Axl or the Label weren't good enough. Members continue to enter and exit the band, producers as well. BUT random contributions are left behind and spliced in.

I truly believe that there was a point in that 1997-2001 time frame where Axl was happy with what he had, but the label wasn't and sent him back to the drawing board, so from that point forward I think the tracks that we've heard since 2001-2005 were Axl's vision, what we got were "tweaked" because he was forced to create a product that the label thought they could sell, then eventually just try and recoup some money.

So while I think "guitar parts" in general do not make a song cluttered, there are points where on CD to my ear there are layers that are lost or muddy portions of the song. I think it even carried over to how Absurd was released... there is a cut and paste feel to it, and that I think goes to the "Over Engineering" because they are trying to deconstruct a song, then piece is back together with new tracks and retaining old tracks. Then splicing in parts of the already recorded vocals... that is very clear in the transition from "more than you deserve" to "Screaming fucking banshee" you literally cannot sing that, he is saying screaming before deserve is over.

So going back to CD...  think that fact that so many hand touched these tracks from say 1997-2008 there were parts removed, parts added, players removed, players added, etc... it isn't always smooth... having said all that I was happy that I got it in 2008, and I am ecstatic I got Absurd and Harskool in 2021... With CD I just feel there is a version somewhere in all of those changes that was Axl's real vision and I think it got steamrolled by "the industry". I really love the fact that the surviving Beatles were able to remove the "wall of sound" from Let it Be and got back to the original intent of the songs, and would Axl's version of that...

Me too.  But we are huge Axl fans.

And besides, that is *their* band.  How jazzed would we be to hear someone else singing with GNR?

I never even knew there was more than one version of Let It Be.

I was an AC/DC fan before I was a GNR fan.

How jazzed I would be would depend on who it is. If Axl were in Brian's shoes and lost his hearing, I'd have no problem if some talented singer from another legendary rock band stepped in. I'd think that's a once in a lifetime chance to see.

The point is, I'd argue that the general public is more open to bands changing than the diehard fans. It's the diehards who will even write off the coming new material because Izzy wasn't involved. Anything short of a full AFD reunion isn't good enough for some. But the majority of the public don't care.

I understand what you're saying, but I don't know if I agree that it somehow makes it "overproduced".

If you like your steak well done, and someone else likes theirs medium. Is yours overproduced? ;)

Of course not.... 


In the case of the album, I think they used the best tracks they had to make the songs sound like they were supposed to. It just happened to be multiple musicians who had contributed those tracks. Not just one or two guitar players like GN'R fans were used to.




/jarmo

Exactly. A very banal example for a very banal guitar part: think about the guitar slide down during the break in better,,, Attached after years, it doesnt add anything to the song and u can hear it's completely out of the mix (And i remember bumble laughing at the fact that the leaked version of better would have been the final track..."never played on that track"...So his guitar slide down was probably taken from another "better" track where he probably plays a different guitar too). You can hear  a lot of this  things.

I like almost all the songs in it, but the only final recorded version i like is sorry

The steak would be over cooked! 😂

That's a different discussion.  :hihi:


Everything's down to personal opinion. If you're creating something, until it's the way you want it to be, it's "underproduced", or unfinished.






/jarmo

YES... There is no valid opinion with steak that includes well done. Opinions can be wrong and well done steak is not just wrong it should be a crime. :rofl:

Having said that... I think my very rambling point is "over produced" is a term that has been applied to this album that means different things to different people. You're steak analogy is probably the closest to what I'm trying to say. It's not that it's "overcooked", I think it's unnecessarily over seasoned. That doesn't mean it's inedible... BUT instead of a rub, a glaze, and a sauce... it would have shined on it's own with a just some salt, pepper, and a little butter (medium rare at most). I think Axl originally wanted salt pepper and butter, but then the label (or new members, or new producers) said well what about onion salt, and garlic powder... maybe some paprika... and on and on, etc...

I'm trying to remember when CD got announced that it was being released.  As I recall it wasn't very long between the media announcement and the release.  And then it was moved up from Tuesday to Sunday.  Behind the boards knew about 2 to 3 weeks in advance of the official announcement.  That's if I'm remembering correctly, 2008 was a long time ago.  :hihi:  Just thinking we are coming up on November and if history will repeat itself.

er, you folks stay away from my steak.  I'll cook it.  :D

Well, what i meant was: None of these factors are objective in the sense of being factors of whether Chinese Democracy is a masterpiece or not. To consider who's in the line-up, original members and when the songs were written and stuff like that, don't have anything to say regarding the album being a masterpiece or not. Sound, production, lyrics, flow, rhymes etc., might be more objective, but still most subjective.