Chinese Democracy Review Thread

[anythinggoes II]

You think this review will find it's way to the web?

Video should be uploaded soon. Source - anythinggoes78 @ cd.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXFA8gA8LRA

i did as i promised, but seems the BBC beat me to hosting it 

[Buddha_Master]

Oh man so awesome. Thank you for posting the youtube link of this review. I want to share this with so many once I get back into the office Tuesday.

[wight gunner]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00frm1k/Newsnight_Review_21112008/

I saw this last night and they did a 10 minute review of Guns n Roses and Chinese Democracy. It's an arty programme with an extremely educated panel of reviewers, they admitted to getting a single shot to review the album, but thought it was a classic.

To get a review of an album to start with is an achievement in itself, to do a metal one is even better. Axl comes out well in this and one point that they mention that this point in time, he shows his genius.

I don't know how to rip to youtube, but the review is in the last 10 minutes, being available on BBc i-player, I'm not sure its available outsidethe UK.

[wight gunner]

now theres a suprise,
the album might not be available in china....

they could always get it off itunes though right?

I wouldn't bank on it, even Google has had to include censorship blocking measures around certain sites to avoid being accessed in China. The media had issues at the recent Olympic games for their reporting, the BBC did for sure.

[Dickeye]

Thanks for the link, nice to see people "getting" Axl 

[wight gunner]

Thanks for the link, nice to see people "getting" Axl 

and not your "average" gunners either.....

[axlroselegend]

its not a huge surprise the world in which we live is not a perfect one
The album will not be heard by the masses under this communist leadership unfortunately cause it'd be great for the to see their regime openly criticized in the public domain
I'm sure gnr fans wil get cd in ebay etc though

[Where is Hassan Nasrallah ?]

its not a huge surprise the world in which we live is not a perfect one
The album will not be heard by the masses under this communist leadership unfortunately cause it'd be great for the to see their regime openly criticized in the public domain
I'm sure gnr fans wil get cd in ebay etc though

capitalistic dictatorship, my friend.
communism has NOTHING to do with the modern china.

[demo23nz]

they could always get it off itunes though right?

iTunes is done country by country... Like, with my New Zealand credit-card, I can use the NZ iTunes store... When there was no NZ iTunes store I couldn't use the US one. So, if it's not allowed for sale in china they won't be able to get it on iTunes.


Also, while not defending either Communism or China in the slightest, it is indeed correct to say that modern China has very little to do with Communism anymore.

[willow]

its not a huge surprise the world in which we live is not a perfect one
The album will not be heard by the masses under this communist leadership unfortunately cause it'd be great for the to see their regime openly criticized in the public domain
I'm sure gnr fans wil get cd in ebay etc though

capitalistic dictatorship, my friend.
communism has NOTHING to do with the modern china.

not much of a difference in my book. Sorry.
Not a surprize to me either.

[Ines_rocks!]

its not a huge surprise the world in which we live is not a perfect one
The album will not be heard by the masses under this communist leadership unfortunately cause it'd be great for the to see their regime openly criticized in the public domain
I'm sure gnr fans wil get cd in ebay etc though

capitalistic dictatorship, my friend.
communism has NOTHING to do with the modern china.

well China is a two-sistem country... whereas its economics (meaning the special coast zones) are rulled under a capitalist douctrine (free market, exportations, investment...) the main part of China, especially its North and Center, are still rulled under the communist regime with the Party deciding on every matter of the chinese life.

[Where is Hassan Nasrallah ?]

its not a huge surprise the world in which we live is not a perfect one
The album will not be heard by the masses under this communist leadership unfortunately cause it'd be great for the to see their regime openly criticized in the public domain
I'm sure gnr fans wil get cd in ebay etc though

capitalistic dictatorship, my friend.
communism has NOTHING to do with the modern china.

well China is a two-sistem country... whereas its economics (meaning the special coast zones) are rulled under a capitalist douctrine (free market, exportations, investment...) the main part of China, especially its North and Center, are still rulled under the communist regime with the Party deciding on every matter of the chinese life.

this is dictatorship.
communism : a theory advocating elimination of private property b: a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed.
Nothing about "a party ruling your everyday life".
Do not use Stalin as a reference, he betrayed us.

Anyway, hope that our chinese friends get to hear cd somehow.

[TWT]

I watched this last night. I was expecting a complete drubbing from the BBC's most highbrow of discussion shows, so when two of the panelists described it as 'a masterpiece' I felt that Axl could stand defiant in the face of all the shitty reviews he's gotten elsewhere from the British press. Not a single mention of Slash. These people understood exactly what Chinese Democracy is and where it stands in the story of GNR.

That ["A masterpiece" - Newsnight Review] quote will look very nice on the advertisements 

[Gunner_Rose]

It's the best GN'R album EVER, thanks Axl and the band for the music.

[kaasupoltin]

Even better than I expected. That's all I can say. There Was A Time, Sorry, Scraped and This I Love are my favourites at the moment. Goddamn!

[cineater]

Beautiful

[GeraldFord]

Don't think this is his review, but an article:

Guns N? Roses - Chinese Democracy
November 21st, 2008 | 6:10 pm est | Stephen Thomas Erlewine

   
To put Chinese Democracy in some perspective: it arrives 17 years after the twin Use Your Illusions, the last set of original music by Guns N? Roses. Seventeen years prior to the Illusions, it was 1974, back before the Ramones and Sex Pistols, back before Aerosmith had Rocks and Toys in the Attic, back before Queen had A Night at the Opera ? back before almost anything that Axl Rose worships even existed. Generations have passed in these 17 years but not for Axl. He cut himself off from the world following the trouble-ridden Illusion tour, retreating to the Hollywood Hills, swapping every original GNR member in favor for contract players culled from his mid-?90s musical obsessions ? Tommy Stinson from the Replacements, Robin Finck from Nine Inch Nails, Buckethead from guitar magazines ? as he turned into rock?s Charles Foster Kane, a genius in self-imposed exile spending millions to make his own Xanadu, Chinese Democracy.

Like Xanadu, Chinese Democracy is a monument to man?s might, but where Kane sought to bring the world underneath his roof, Axl labored to create an ideal version of his inner world, working endlessly on a set of songs about his heartbreak, persecution and paranoia, topics well-mined on the Illusions. Using the pompous ten-minute epics ?Estranged? and ?November Rain? as his foundation, Axl strips away all remnants of the old, snake-dancing GNR, shedding the black humor and blues, replacing any good times with vindictive spleen in the vein of ?You Could Be Mine.? All this melodrama and malevolence feels familiar and, surprisingly, so does much of Chinese Democracy, even for those listeners that didn?t hear the portions of the record as leaked demos and live tracks. Despite a few surface flourishes - all the endless, evident hours spent on ProTools, a hip-hop loop here, a Spanish six-string there, absurd elastic guitar effects - this is an album unconcerned with the future of rock & roll. One listen and it?s abundantly clear that Axl spent the decade-plus in the studio refining, not reinventing, obsessing over a handful of tracks, spending an inordinate amount of timing chasing the sound his head - that?s it, no more, no less.

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 Illusions, Chinese Democracy feels strangely modest, but that?s because it?s a single polished album, not a double album so over-stuffed 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 that don?t trust him, whether it?s failed friends, lapsed fans, ex-lovers, former managers, fired band mates 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 dense, immaculate wall of god knows how many guitars, synthesizers, vocals and strings.

The production is so dense 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 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, 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 not 2008, and the album does give up some terrific music - music that is overblown but not overdone. True, those good moments are the song 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, 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, 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.

http://blog.allmusic.com/2008/11/21/guns-n-roses-chinese-democracy/

[Is he struggling?]

I tlooks like 'ordinary' music listeners like CD more than the critics. For example, take a look at this thread on a Prince message board:

http://prince.org/msg/8/289455

[GeraldFord]

I tlooks like 'ordinary' music listeners like CD more than the critics. For example, take a look at this thread on a Prince message board:

http://prince.org/msg/8/289455

Check out what the assholes over at the velvetrope are saying....

If you hate GN'R, why make post after post in the GN'R thread?

[GeraldFord]

http://www.sundaymercury.net/entertainment-news/celebrity-news/2008/11/21/guns-n-roses-chinese-democracy-a-convoluted-album-of-genius-66331-22311668/