Top 20 Hyped Albums That Utterly Disappointed

[Gibbo27]

1. Guns N' Roses - Chinese Democracy
This album took 10 years to record (1997?2007)

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/news/ug_news/top_20_hyped_albums_that_utterly_disappointed.html?no_takeover

[Spirit]

Interesting to see that many people in the comments section are defending Chinese.

For many years, CD was the go-to ridicule album for everyone, but as time passes I guess the whole "it's not GNR"-shtick gets old and people start judging the album by its content.

[Spirit]

To be perfectly honest though, Chinese does belong on that list. It must've been one of the most hyped album in the history of music and there's no denying that commercially, it failed to deliver.

[D-GenerationX]

Interesting to see that many people in the comments section are defending Chinese.

For many years, CD was the go-to ridicule album for everyone, but as time passes I guess the whole "it's not GNR"-shtick gets old and people start judging the album by its content.

I'm not sure about this on 2 fronts.

For one, how many people in those comments are already GNR fans.  GNR fans pretty much never miss one of these types of lists and then mobilize

Number two, the only one judging it on its content are established GNR fans.  The "it's not GNR" routine is still very real, and people who think that have likely never even heard it.  Go to any comments section of any GNR article (or even their own FB page) and its loaded with sentiment this isn't really GNR.

[D-GenerationX]

To be perfectly honest though, Chinese does belong on that list. It must've been one of the most hyped album in the history of music and there's no denying that commercially, it failed to deliver.

Oh, it absolutely belongs on this list for a number of reasons.

[Thorned Rose]

It is quite simple.

Chinese Democracy is viewed as a let down or overhyped because of the wait in between records.

A lot of people say it was 17 years in the making or something stupid. That is very incorrect. While the album took WAY TOO LONG to come out for sure, it was only in the making for maybe 9-10 years at the very most. Probably around 8 years actually. Which again is ridiculous but half as long as a lot of people act like.

I hear a lot of 15 years to make an album talk because TSI came out in 93. Just bad for the media.

Is it a good album? Of course! It's a great album. Sadly the album is attached to the no matter how you slice it 8 year process. And that is what kills the feel for it.

To me, I look outside that long process of it. For what it is, 14 songs, it is brilliant.

[D-GenerationX]

In truth, once Axl waited a certain amount of time, he was going to be looking at "all that time...for this?" type talk, almost regardless of how it sounded.

In other words, once he took 4 years, I'm not sure it mattered that it took 4 more.  4 years is already pretty ridiculous.  Once that is out there, its not going to change.

Unfortunately, this is really 2 different points that get merged into one gripe, which I think misses the point.

"Art can't be rushed, it takes as long as it takes" is 100% accurate.  Its up to the artist and its up to him or her when it comes out.  That's their call.

Problem is, you are living in a dream world if you think that if you scream that loud enough in defense of your personal favorite act, the rest of the population will then apologize profusely for ever criticizing the delay.  Get real, folks.  That's going to happen, and that's life in the big city. 

Its 2 different conversations.  And the rest of the world, who is under no obligation to put the sunniest side up spin on the matter, is not going to bend over backwards to make excuses and try and justify it.

If I've said it once, I've said it 100 times.  When you get your panties in a twist over criticism GNR takes...take the exact situation in question...and apply it to another band you don't care nearly as much about.  Once you take a step back aren't fueled by emotion, you can get a clearer picture why people are saying what they are saying.

[Princess Leia]

At least CD is number one on something 

Everyone has their own opinions. And some people like it for whatever reason.

For me it was a big let down. Not worthy of the long delay and not the kind of music and lyrics I wanna hear from GN?R

[doooodickiebr]

Lyrically it was a step back. Still love it tho

[D-GenerationX]

Really?  I think the lyric wok is pretty strong on a number of tracks.

[jarmo]

I think the lyric wok

Oooh, I see what you did there.

Wok, Chinese. 

 


/jarmo

[Gman84]

It's ironic that it's described as a "hyped album that disappointed" because for me part of the problem is they (the band at the time) didn't hype it enough.  The marketing/promotion for the whole thing was mess.  No videos or singles to back it up.  I guess at the time people were still surprised it was actually released as you always got the feeling that it was just going to get put back again.

Add the above to several other issues - people not accepting it as a true Guns record because X, Y and Z weren't involved, being inactive that long does drain some of your fan base and makes newer (younger) fans less aware of you and you have a recipe for a troubled legacy.

Personally I love it but it does sort of stand alone for me. It is a Guns record and it's got some of the classic Guns hallmarks in there but it's also a lot different sounding in many ways that at times make it feel like something that's not quite Guns. But that's just me. I still listen to it pretty regularly.

[Spirit]

It's ironic that it's described as a "hyped album that disappointed" because for me part of the problem is they (the band at the time) didn't hype it enough.  The marketing/promotion for the whole thing was mess.  No videos or singles to back it up.  I guess at the time people were still surprised it was actually released as you always got the feeling that it was just going to get put back again.

The "hype" they referred to was probably the one throughout the years leading up to the release. But yes, after the release they could've done a much better job marketing.

[Bodhi]

Yeah I know pretty much any list like this seems to include "Chinese Democracy" on it.  I won't even get into the fact that for various reasons so many people hated the record before it came out.  I will address this "commercial failure" thing.  First, debuting at number 3 on the charts is hardly a failure.  That aside, nobody talks about all the streams it got on myspace before it came out.  In 2016 there is a system in place where this gets factored into album sales, back in 2008 GN'R got absolutely nothing for it.  Also a person is more inclined to give a record a chance after they spent money on it to check it out.  They will probably discover they like a song they originally didn't care for after the first listen.  With the myspace stream, (which i thought was a bad idea at the time) people just skimmed over it and never really gave it a chance.


Guns N' Roses' 'Chinese Democracy' breaks MySpace record

Album playback received 25 listens a second
 21ST NOVEMBER 2008

Guns N' Roses' new album 'Chinese Democracy' has broken all records after being streamed on MySpace.

The album received around 25 listens a second up until today (November 21) after being streamed in full on the site yesterday (November 20).

Up until 4pm (GMT) today the title track had been played over 826,000 times, with the total amount of plays all the album tracks have received adding up to over 3 million.

The figures mean an average of 25 people per second were listening to one of the songs on the album at MySpace.com/gunsnroses.

The data means that the streaming of the album, dubbed a "listening party", has attracted the largest amount of listeners for an artist album stream launch on the site to date.

Head to MySpace.com/gunsnroses to hear 'Chinese Democracy' in full, and get the new issue of NME, out now, for a two-page review of the album.

Meanwhile, head to the NME Office Blog now to have your say on 'Chinese Democracy'.

You can also view a special photo gallery devoted to the album's 17-year history.

[Spirit]

Speaking strictly in a commercial sense, opening at #3 is good.

It dropped of rather quickly after that though. More could've been done to keep the momentum going, to maybe even climbing to #1. Myspace was a bad idea yes.

[Princess Leia]

Speaking strictly in a commercial sense, opening at #3 is good.

It dropped of rather quickly after that though. More could've been done to keep the momentum going, to maybe even climbing to #1. Myspace was a bad idea yes.

And a worst idea was Dr Peper. I remember back then there was a lot more talk about that fiasco than about the album itself

[Thorned Rose]

It still 1 mil. copies in the U.S., which is good considering "good" music doesn't really sell well anymore.

What is popular is not good and what is good isn't really popular.

I thought CD would sell more in the US. I was thinking 2-3 mil, but 1 mil is still really good considering the plura of suckage music.

Is this album dropped in 2000 or 2002 it would be getting more and more praise.

[D-GenerationX]

The album made zero impact.  That's the beginning and the end of it for me, when it comes to its legacy.

How over the top can you be with praise for something that no one could tell you a damn thing about?

Its biggest impact was having its title be a handy dandy example for any project (music or otherwise) that sits in development hell forever thanks to a tortured genius at the helm.

[Thorned Rose]

I'm a pretty big nu gn'r dislike person so save all of your BS dude.

I'm very much pro 85-96 gnr. if you read any of my posts that is clear. I do respect nu gnr too though

for as long as he strung it out, and for as little communication that was done over the process 1 million copies in the usa isn't too bad.

if this reunion hits and does well and new music is made it will help CD.

otherwise if its a one and done tour it might just kinda fade away.

who knows

[D-GenerationX]

if this reunion hits and does well and new music is made it will help CD.

Yeah, I don't buy that.

"Man, it was great seeing Slash and Duff tearing it up with Axl again.  Totally awesome.  Now I guess its off to track down that album I never bought 8 years ago, which does not contain Slash or Duff, and composed in an environment when Axl hated them both.  I can't think of a better way to build on this awesome reunion feelgoodery."

What sense does that make?

Makes even less sense when you talk about them making new music.  You would wait for that, no?  Not check out what Robin Finck was up to circa 2001.