Classic Rock review

[Anywaythewindblows]

So here it is... http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/page/classicrock?entry=guns_n_roses_chinese_democracy


Guns N’ Roses
Chinese Democracy
Released November 24 (UK)

In 1966, Beach Boy Brian Wilson took part in 17 recording sessions at four different recording studios, using over 90 hours of tape and dozens of session musicians to create a song that was to be known as Good Vibrations. With an eventual cost of $50,000 it was rumoured to be the most expensive record ever made. If the record industry, music critics and Wilson’s teenage fanclub were sceptical, when they heard the finished single it all made sense. The song was aural perfection: a multi-part mini-symphony filled with gorgeous harmony singing, a beautifully mournful middle section, and a chorus that just would not leave your head.

The song became the band’s first million-selling hit. It was, everyone agreed, time well spent.

Has the 15 year gap since the last release from Guns N’ Roses (The Spaghetti Incident?) produced similar results? Has Axl been holed up in the studio demanding nothing less than perfection from his ever-revolving cast of Gunners? Has he made the rock equivalent of Good Vibrations?

Er, no.

But he’s been trying.

That we all know the length of time it’s taken to produce Chinese Democracy is one of the Achilles heels of the project. Such a long gestation has created two things: 1) Impossibly high expectations or 2) Intense scepticism. The finished product is not quite great enough to resist being overwhelmed by either mindset.

In short, those with high expectations will be disappointed – particularly if they have heard the leaked tracks and are eagerly waiting to hear what other tricks Axl has up his sleeve (the three tracks that haven’t been released in any form – Scraped, Sorry and This I Love – are possibly the biggest disappointments on the album).

And those with a sceptical mind will find plenty to seize upon: the album is ‘over-produced’, at times ridiculously overblown and cannot overcome one point: in the 70s, Axl’s heroes (Queen, Zep, Elton John, David Bowie) used to churn out albums better than this on a yearly basis, recording them sometimes in just weeks.

And yet… We loved the leaked tracks we heard last year and those songs are still as good today: epic, ambitious, thrilling rock music with some great lyrics, amazing singing and some of the craziest, sickest guitar playing around.

So here is our quick appraisal of Chinese Democracy: for our full considered review, see our next issue, onsale December 10th, and featuring a free GN’R supplement detailing the making of this extraordinary album.


So there you have it – our first impressions. For a fuller and more considered review, get the mag on December 10th, with free GN’R supplement detailing the extraordinary story behind the making of the album.



I'm quite dissapointed, I was expecting for something different, a better review... It isn't extremely bad, there are some good points in it, but after reading it I have sort of a non positive feeling. What do you think? They say they'll have a fuller and more considered review on the next Classic Rock... we'll see.

Edit: I posted every song review initially, but I thought that maybe some people don't want to read about it.

[mcmurray]

Pretty crappy review, but I'm looking foward to this;

with free GN?R supplement detailing the extraordinary story behind the making of the album.

[SPUNKY]

wot we got 2 rem is that they all have only listin 2 the ablum once!

I fill great albums grow on you so give it time

end of the day it ant going 2 be every1's cuppa!

[mrlee]

Classic Rock gave the new Oasis album almost full rating, minus 2.

Same with Metallicas most recent effort.

It really depends on who is reviewing.

Sometimes they do great reviews. Other times ive found myself shouting "WTF is this shit. Thats totally incorrect"

[Giant_Robot]

I really don't understand why they do these one listen reviews, there is no way you can understand any album afther one listen.

I reckon they didn't like Sorry and This I Love because they hadn't leaked before so they couldnt get there head around the tracks or understand them like the other tracks that had leaked, also putting down catcher because it hasen't got brain may work on it.... is very annoying, i wounder if they would of liked if they hadn't heard the demo.... if so then you can't really blame axl for that !

 

[RancidPunx]

I am sure this review will vanish shortly. Not everyone is going to love this album like we do.All we can ask is that they listen. Reviewers usually  don't have time to listen to albums more than once before reviewing them.

[CheapJon]

IRS is such a ballad, this guy knows his stuff

[Olorin]

Disapointing review, at least some of the songs got positive feedback all the same. It will be interesting to see their fuller review, by that time a lot of dust will have settled.

[jarmo]

Sounds more like advertisement for their magazine than a review.

So I guess it's ok to review unfinished songs and be "cool" by saying it's the album of the year, but once the actual album is out, you're back to being yourself again...






/jarmo

[overmatik]

There's one aspect that will be constantly mentioned in all reviews, overproduction, some songs in the album have too much of everything, and sometimes less is better.

[jarmo]

There's one aspect that will be constantly mentioned in all reviews, overproduction, some songs in the album have too much of everything, and sometimes less is better.

"No one else on the planet is making music like this at the moment"

The Sun


That's why.

People are not used to something like that.





/jarmo

[Anywaythewindblows]

There's one aspect that will be constantly mentioned in all reviews, overproduction, some songs in the album have too much of everything, and sometimes less is better.

And remember that David Fricke pointed this and said that it wasn't bad, that everything just fit perfectly. So it might depend on how much the reviewer loves or hates Axl or any other personal reasons like envy or a corrupt predisposition.

[overmatik]

The good side of it is that the album doesn't follow a formula, I mean, every song has a different taste. It would be easy to do a hard rock album with party anthems all over it.

[TomFriend]

There's one aspect that will be constantly mentioned in all reviews, overproduction, some songs in the album have too much of everything, and sometimes less is better.

Doesn't bother me, I'm a Meat Loaf fan.  Less isn't more. More is more.

[BlowUpYourVideo]

Couple of things:

1) This isn't the actual review. They say they will deliver "a fuller and more considered review" in the magazine. I'm sure for an album with the history of CD, they're going to have a fairly well-written review of it.

2) If it is negative, at least there's not some pointless "it sounds different from the original band" comments.

[Olorin]

Most of the songs are actually praised, only Catcher, This I Love, Sorry and If The World seem to be given the thumbs down.

Its hard to tell because this review seems a bit tongue in cheek. They obviously just wanting to get some kind of responce out straight away because their latest edition just came out this week and they wont be able to have their Chinese Democracy issue till mid December, old news by then.

[Ali]

I noticed some blatant contradictions in their review. They said all the leaked songs they had heard before they still loved. Well, they were quite positive about the "If The World" leak and yet somehow they diss it here. Second, the three unheard songs are the weakest according to them, yet they praise "Scraped". They also loved "Catcher In The Rye" in demo form, yet they diss it a little here.

In that sense, the review was disappointing. It seemed to contradict itself.

Ali

[Olorin]

What he said of Scraped was  "After one listen, it?s hard to make a judgement.", thats not praise. It sounded like he doesnt rate it at all, but its an odd song that might need a few listens to grasp.

Mabye If The World and Catcher are different to the leaked demos and are just not as good??

[Ali]

What he said of Scraped was  "After one listen, it?s hard to make a judgement.", thats not praise. It sounded like he doesnt rate it at all, but its an odd song that might need a few listens to grasp.

Mabye If The World and Catcher are different to the leaked demos and are just not as good??

Scraped has a ferocious riff with weird vocoder-ish melody at the beginning. Axl alternates between falsetto and his regular voice. Full-on GN?R, it?s little bit reminiscent of ?Jungle

That sounds positive to me.  I highly doubt "If The World" and CITR are that different.  Anyway it doesn't matter.  At the beginning they say love all the leaks they heard before, but then the criticize two of them they allegedly love.  They also call "I.R.S." a ballad.  Somethings off.

Ali

[younggunner]

Corny review...


Axl NEEDS to come out an say that he wasnt just working on Chinese Democracy all of these years. I dont care if he doesnt say anything else. But he needs to tell these clowns that yes, its been a long time, but it wasnt all for one album. That will take some heat off the idea that he just was tinkering with CD for 14 yrs.