I.R.S. discussion

[BlackAces]

IRS is brilliant. 2nd best song on CD (after This I love).
10/10.

[D]

Still have never been able to really get into this song. This and Riad are my 2 least favorites on the album

[Halo69]

to me CD lacks of good rocker songs and thats why the album didnt get the attention it deserved.
The album was destined to fail due to all the critics and the media around it and all the years it took to release it, and all the people that wanted to basically screw Axl to make him reunite with the old members, but i think Axl could have still had a better album, if he had left out IRS and replaced it with Oh My God and another rocker.

Also i always thought of Chinese Democracy as a concept album, i think the name of the album screams concept album by itself. He shouldnt have made so much ballads, and he should have opted for less orchestra in the songs.

If he had another hit like Better and Chinese Democracy this album would have been great!
 
IRS should have been left out

I think the melting pot idea was wrong as well, the album looks like a compilation of songs from different eras, and in fact it is what the album is.

Imagine if CD was an industrial concept album, that would have been awesome, if they didnt have changed the songs to a more traditional style, we would have gotten a great album! I think the mistake was to go back a little to a more traditional style.
The earlier demos really sound more like what CD should have been!

[Voodoochild]

Lots of "should" there. Maybe you should look elsewhere to find what you want, because many (and I mean it, as 3+ million consumers is hardly a failure) disagree.

[Halo69]

Lots of "should" there. Maybe you should look elsewhere to find what you want, because many (and I mean it, as 3+ million consumers is hardly a failure) disagree.

Well as a fan myself i obviously like the album... i mean its Axl! What else could you ask? and no i dont have to look elsewhere, i like the band and the album on a gnr fan perspective, but i know that the album was a failure generally, but the album wasnt allowed to grow anyways

[wight gunner]

Lots of "should" there. Maybe you should look elsewhere to find what you want, because many (and I mean it, as 3+ million consumers is hardly a failure) disagree.

Well as a fan myself i obviously like the album... i mean its Axl! What else could you ask? and no i dont have to look elsewhere, i like the band and the album on a gnr fan perspective, but i know that the album was a failure generally, but the album wasnt allowed to grow anyways

In your world perhaps but not generally, Its outsold many up and coming acts several times over.  In GnR past album sales terms then sales no doubt are lower than hoped, but with piracy and the constant ability to make flawless copies on even the most basic of PC's the sales figures of all albums are gonna be hit. The casual (fan) consumer isn't interested in the booklet etc and just want a copy on their iPod and find ways of cheaply (free) getting downloads done on the numerous P2P  sites will always affect the number of sales made. Its only fans who want to see the paraphernalia of who wrote what, who plays on track X and where its recorded , and not many percentage of them either.

I know the Axl says it wasn't promoted properly, and I'd agree, but not allowed to grow???  This is a 200+ tour date promotion. Its reached a level that will continue to grow, but is passed its peak sales, unless a second CD album drops with a media whoring promotional push. Its new music that isn't leaked, written by the current line-up that people other than the fans that will state any legitimacy to and will buy on its merit as a group.  The Axl's hired hands tag is somehow a  bar into objective opinion when it comes to Gnf'R.  The doubters, aided by the media have to some degree won their argument but what does that matter, I'm like 3,000,000 others are enjoying a great album, and that's what its all about.

[Halo69]

Im not saying i didnt enjoy it, i did actually, i still listen to the album like crazy, i just thought it was a very "smooth" album, a very "smooth" statement from Axl if you ask me...after all the shit he went through, i expected an album with more anger, an album with more fire, theres way too many soft songs on there in my opinion, and im pretty sure im not the only one who thinks that.
Also, some of the songs were kinda destroyed in its own way on the album versions in my opinion, "Better" being the one i show more concern about it! There's also a lot of people who agree with that.

I dont care about tags... hell i bought the album 2 times, the original version of the album, and the SHM-CD. I honestly think Axl could have done much much better, and i think there are probably songs that they recorded that they left out that most certainly are better than some of the songs on Chinese Democracy!

About the album not being let to grow, i was referring to the people in Universal, and the headaches they probably gave Axl. Axl stated himself this was the version of the album that they let it pass to the stores, which gives the idea, that the finish product would have been different if it wasnt for the management and all the people he had to deal with, during the Chinese Democracy era.

[wight gunner]

So are you of the opinion that Axl's holding onto the stuff that he has a vision of that's not for compromise?

I can see that Ax's p1$$ed at the record company and the then management who were pushing for the release, but is this a "will do for now"album and better to come when the legal stuff with Azoff is dealt with?

I'm not sure it is myself, but then I've been wrong before  and all I can do is go with gut feelings...As do most of us.

[Halo69]

Well, what im saying is that i think Axl saved some of the songs that were supposed to come out in Chinese Democracy for another album.
I think the management had something to do with the track picks for the album as well

[gnrjanus]

that was the rumour a few months ago or in 2009.
that the band picked some songs and management just filled the rest with fillers or songs that were put in the trash or something like that.

[NicoRourke]

Axl / the band can't pick songs on their own album ? I highly doubt that ...

[Halo69]

Axl / the band can't pick songs on their own album ? I highly doubt that ...

Im not saying that but i think part of the process that the management wasnt accepting the album and was holding Axl up, was probably because of the tracks and the way the songs were produced and made.

If you notice, they changed Cd,Better, TWAT, Catcher, Irs, Street Of Dreams drastically over the years until it got released!
Now you can all say that that was because the new musicians brought a new vibe and new ideas bla bla bla... but i also think it was because management wanted a more traditional album, and since they didnt got that, they wanted to transform this songs to a more traditional feel.
Axl himself stated this was the album that passed in the red light to us.
I think management definitely had hands on the song picks and on the way the songs sound!

[BlackAces]

I strongly think that during the current successfull world tour the Chinese Democracy album has been gaining popularity.
Massive amounts of people have been/are seeing GNR in concerts on the very top of their game. And, in spite of the media`s efforts, the general "word of mouth" must be, and also seems to be, very good. 
This surely leads to pretty good CD record sales and (because it is a VERY good music album) thus generates a good word of mouth about the CD album itself => even more people buy/listen to CD => the loop continues.

This, of course, is what happens to any successfull record/movie etc., but initially a combination of a few things hurt CD so that the "ball" got moving relatively slowly (altough still selling millions of copies):
The 1) lack of proper promotion, 2) the (unfair) negative reviews and 3) the lack of an aggressive and instantly grapping "top hit kind of" rock song (like Nightrain or You could be mine) on the album must have hurt CD record sales initially.
BUT....(and this is my main point here): Chinese Democracy is STILL selling pretty good, 2 years after it was released. (ITunes Finland best selling rock albums 3.10.2010: GNR: Greatest hits No 10, Chinese Democracy No 16...and for reference IronMaiden: Final frontier (released 8/2010) No 27.

It probably STILL is way too early to evaluate the success of Chinese Democracy.

[AXL DEMOCRACY]

"Feelin' like I'm done way more than wrong..."

Man, I love that line.

[Voodoochild]

What I love the most in this song is the ryhthm guitar work. Ron did an amazing job, so did Robin in those "slow" interludes through out the track. Funny is that people overlook this amazing job and just see a regular power chord progression - pretty much like Better.

Also I might add that the little drum samples fills adds a very nice texture. Kudos to whoever put that in (Brain, I guess).