Chinese Democracy - 7 years today

[ITARocker]

I had several friends fall in love with This I Love.  And I pissed off a lot of people on this forum thinking it should have been featured in one of the TWILIGHT sequels 

That one bombed with my crowd.  From Dad (the first person I played the album for) right on through everyone else.

Heard it all.  Andrew Lloyd Webber arrangement, juvenile lyrics, etc.




Even I, myself, waver on what I think of it.

How were the lyrics "Juvenile" ??

Yes. If you don't care for the song that's ok.  But I don't know how you can call
Such haunting lyrics juvenile.   I think the song was brilliant.  Music of the night meets
November Rain and Estranged. 

I have to disagree about this. This I love is a good song, but far from NR & Estranged. The main reason is that the other 2 songs are more structured: this I Love is basically 4 chords repeated ad libitum (maybe this could be good for a rock song):  piano, orchestra, vocals and even the first part of the solo.... the same melody played over and over.
The lyrics are good but under Axl's standards (our guy can write thousands of words on a 6-7 minutes song). The vocals are not bad, but could have been perfect with a little bit of rasp as he does (or did) during live shows, and without that stupid echo effect put on them. The great part of the song is the break, when the 2nd part of the solo starts.

In the end: To me sounds unfinished (as the whole album, except prostitute and sorry) and the song could have been a lot better.

What stupid echo effect? I find the song to have a haunting and almost otherworldly vibe to it.

girl, it's just my opinion  ..the voice is obviously doubled ("short echo") and i just dont like it. People who worked on Axl's voice did a shitty work imho, and not only on this i love. When i listen to the demos of CD, the voice sounds better... If  u compare both versions (demos and final songs), you can notice they worked too much on it with the autotune thing and other effects when there was no need to do that. I like almost every song on CD, but I just don't like how CD songs were mixed & mastered. For example...I always talk about CITR and how great is that song...but...3 guitars, 2 keyboards, drum & bass and at the end what do you hear? I have a lot of troubles listening to CD mainly because of this sense of "copy and past" thing that makes me feel that sometimes the songs have been put togheter not in a good way, sometimes they lack something, sometimes they are too overproduced just to hide the lack of work behind them. It's a feeling i Have, an after all these years is still there...but maybe it's just me  

[jarmo]

Sounds like they should've spent some time fixing all those faults you list..... See, what some see as too much, another can see as not enough!



/jarmo

[Annie]

I had several friends fall in love with This I Love.  And I pissed off a lot of people on this forum thinking it should have been featured in one of the TWILIGHT sequels 

That one bombed with my crowd.  From Dad (the first person I played the album for) right on through everyone else.

Heard it all.  Andrew Lloyd Webber arrangement, juvenile lyrics, etc.




Even I, myself, waver on what I think of it.

How were the lyrics "Juvenile" ??

Yes. If you don't care for the song that's ok.  But I don't know how you can call
Such haunting lyrics juvenile.   I think the song was brilliant.  Music of the night meets
November Rain and Estranged. 

I have to disagree about this. This I love is a good song, but far from NR & Estranged. The main reason is that the other 2 songs are more structured: this I Love is basically 4 chords repeated ad libitum (maybe this could be good for a rock song):  piano, orchestra, vocals and even the first part of the solo.... the same melody played over and over.
The lyrics are good but under Axl's standards (our guy can write thousands of words on a 6-7 minutes song). The vocals are not bad, but could have been perfect with a little bit of rasp as he does (or did) during live shows, and without that stupid echo effect put on them. The great part of the song is the break, when the 2nd part of the solo starts.

In the end: To me sounds unfinished (as the whole album, except prostitute and sorry) and the song could have been a lot better.

What stupid echo effect? I find the song to have a haunting and almost otherworldly vibe to it.

girl, it's just my opinion  ..the voice is obviously doubled ("short echo") and i just dont like it. People who worked on Axl's voice did a shitty work imho, and not only on this i love. When i listen to the demos of CD, the voice sounds better... If  u compare both versions (demos and final songs), you can notice they worked too much on it with the autotune thing and other effects when there was no need to do that. I like almost every song on CD, but I just don't like how CD songs were mixed & mastered. For example...I always talk about CITR and how great is that song...but...3 guitars, 2 keyboards, drum & bass and at the end what do you hear? I have a lot of troubles listening to CD mainly because of this sense of "copy and past" thing that makes me feel that sometimes the songs have been put togheter not in a good way, sometimes they lack something, sometimes they are too overproduced just to hide the lack of work behind them. It's a feeling i Have, an after all these years is still there...but maybe it's just me  

Since I am not a musician I don't really get into overanalyzing the mixing and mastering. I thought all the songs sounded great. And I have over 900 songs on my iphone.

[D-GenerationX]

girl, it's just my opinion  ..the voice is obviously doubled ("short echo") and i just dont like it. People who worked on Axl's voice did a shitty work imho, and not only on this i love. When i listen to the demos of CD, the voice sounds better... If  u compare both versions (demos and final songs), you can notice they worked too much on it with the autotune thing and other effects when there was no need to do that. I like almost every song on CD, but I just don't like how CD songs were mixed & mastered. For example...I always talk about CITR and how great is that song...but...3 guitars, 2 keyboards, drum & bass and at the end what do you hear? I have a lot of troubles listening to CD mainly because of this sense of "copy and past" thing that makes me feel that sometimes the songs have been put togheter not in a good way, sometimes they lack something, sometimes they are too overproduced just to hide the lack of work behind them.

It's not a terribly organic sounding album.

But, doesn't mean it can't work.  'I.R.S.' is a 10 year old vocal with new guitar flourishes added by Ron 8 years after it was recorded.  And I think it works.  I love it.

CITR does not work, in my opinion, for 2 reasons.

- Who the hell erases Brian May for Ron Thal?

- Does Ron's solo even fit the song?  Its very loud and very busy.  I think the song lost a lot of its charm from demo to finished product.

[jarmo]

CITR does not work, in my opinion, for 2 reasons.

- Who the hell erases Brian May for Ron Thal?

Brian May was probably not available to tour. So in order to avoid the complaints about somebody butchering Brian's solo on the tour, they got one of the band's guitarists to record a solo. Proactive innit!

No, I'm not serious. 




/jarmo

[D-GenerationX]

Brian May was probably not available to tour. So in order to avoid the complaints about somebody butchering Brian's solo on the tour, they got one of the band's guitarists to record a solo. Proactive innit!

No, I'm not serious. 

Pre-emptively butcher it, so people are ready for it at the shows.

That's a good point, actually.

[jarmo]

Always with the negativity!

 



/jarmo

[raindog]

Certainly since 2012 or so, the chance of ever hearing the rest of CD seems to have stopped getting closer and started going the other way. Just seems like Axl lost interest.

Funny, because in the latest interview he's given, he talked about that very subject. That was in 2014.




/jarmo

A. He didn't say CD2 was coming out or that has was doing anything with those sessions. He said that as far as a new album goes he was 'looking seriously what he was doing in that regard', which is essentially a completely meaningless statement that could mean anything from 'I'm going to look through the files and put an album together' to 'I'm going to write new songs with the current band' to 'I'm ultimately going to decide not to bother at all'.

And

B. So what? Even if he had specifically said "I'm putting out the rest of the CD sessions", he alluded to doing the same thing within a year or so back in 2008. So you're saying CD2 is closer than it was when it seemed to be a year away....7 years ago?

Ok dude  Sorry, I was talking about real, visible progress, not the 'one album, tour a year, drop the next one', '2-3 albums', '2-3 new songs on the next tour', 'news in 2-3 months' nonsense that got old years ago. And just to clarify, progress in this context would mean, say, a single. A song played live. Clips. A title. A release date. Half of the people involved in the recordings not having given up and left. That sort of thing.

Half the members have left? I didn't know gnr has only 4 members. If he said a release date, it most likely wouldn't be accurate, but when he does give one I'm sure it will be close to the time they announce it. Although, I do agree, they should've played something live in 2014, but knowing Bumblefoot would be leaving, what's the point? Nobody wants to watch some dude who's about to leave play a solo that will be played by someone else soon.

Buckethead and Finck played on CD sessions. Presumably Paul Huge did too. We are told Ron and DJ added stuff. Tommy seems to has left and has been there for the majority if not all CD era sessions. Brain, likewise.

That makes 5-7 members who participated in the recordings that have left. I have absolutely no idea where you're getting your figures from.

[EmilyGNR]

Certainly since 2012 or so, the chance of ever hearing the rest of CD seems to have stopped getting closer and started going the other way. Just seems like Axl lost interest.

Funny, because in the latest interview he's given, he talked about that very subject. That was in 2014.




/jarmo

A. He didn't say CD2 was coming out or that has was doing anything with those sessions. He said that as far as a new album goes he was 'looking seriously what he was doing in that regard', which is essentially a completely meaningless statement that could mean anything from 'I'm going to look through the files and put an album together' to 'I'm going to write new songs with the current band' to 'I'm ultimately going to decide not to bother at all'.

And

B. So what? Even if he had specifically said "I'm putting out the rest of the CD sessions", he alluded to doing the same thing within a year or so back in 2008. So you're saying CD2 is closer than it was when it seemed to be a year away....7 years ago?

Ok dude  Sorry, I was talking about real, visible progress, not the 'one album, tour a year, drop the next one', '2-3 albums', '2-3 new songs on the next tour', 'news in 2-3 months' nonsense that got old years ago. And just to clarify, progress in this context would mean, say, a single. A song played live. Clips. A title. A release date. Half of the people involved in the recordings not having given up and left. That sort of thing.

Half the members have left? I didn't know gnr has only 4 members. If he said a release date, it most likely wouldn't be accurate, but when he does give one I'm sure it will be close to the time they announce it. Although, I do agree, they should've played something live in 2014, but knowing Bumblefoot would be leaving, what's the point? Nobody wants to watch some dude who's about to leave play a solo that will be played by someone else soon.

Buckethead and Finck played on CD sessions. Presumably Paul Huge did too. We are told Ron and DJ added stuff. Tommy seems to has left and has been there for the majority if not all CD era sessions. Brain, likewise.

That makes 5-7 members who participated in the recordings that have left. I have absolutely no idea where you're getting your figures from.

Where is the statement about Ashba adding to the CD sessions? I thought he was simply writing new things and submitting them-

[raindog]

Certainly since 2012 or so, the chance of ever hearing the rest of CD seems to have stopped getting closer and started going the other way. Just seems like Axl lost interest.

Funny, because in the latest interview he's given, he talked about that very subject. That was in 2014.




/jarmo

A. He didn't say CD2 was coming out or that has was doing anything with those sessions. He said that as far as a new album goes he was 'looking seriously what he was doing in that regard', which is essentially a completely meaningless statement that could mean anything from 'I'm going to look through the files and put an album together' to 'I'm going to write new songs with the current band' to 'I'm ultimately going to decide not to bother at all'.

And

B. So what? Even if he had specifically said "I'm putting out the rest of the CD sessions", he alluded to doing the same thing within a year or so back in 2008. So you're saying CD2 is closer than it was when it seemed to be a year away....7 years ago?

Ok dude  Sorry, I was talking about real, visible progress, not the 'one album, tour a year, drop the next one', '2-3 albums', '2-3 new songs on the next tour', 'news in 2-3 months' nonsense that got old years ago. And just to clarify, progress in this context would mean, say, a single. A song played live. Clips. A title. A release date. Half of the people involved in the recordings not having given up and left. That sort of thing.

Half the members have left? I didn't know gnr has only 4 members. If he said a release date, it most likely wouldn't be accurate, but when he does give one I'm sure it will be close to the time they announce it. Although, I do agree, they should've played something live in 2014, but knowing Bumblefoot would be leaving, what's the point? Nobody wants to watch some dude who's about to leave play a solo that will be played by someone else soon.

Buckethead and Finck played on CD sessions. Presumably Paul Huge did too. We are told Ron and DJ added stuff. Tommy seems to has left and has been there for the majority if not all CD era sessions. Brain, likewise.

That makes 5-7 members who participated in the recordings that have left. I have absolutely no idea where you're getting your figures from.

Where is the statement about Ashba adding to the CD sessions? I thought he was simply writing new things and submitting them-

You may well be right, IDK. I won't pretend to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of this stuff. The rest of my point stands, but yeah, Ashba having worked on additions to CD stuff? Either something was said by DJ at some point to make me think that or I may have just guessed so given that's what happened with Ron (and Frank, if I recall correctly). Either way it doesn't seem unlikely that he may have.

[D-GenerationX]

Whether DJ or Ron contributed anything to the CD sessions seemed to change by the day and was dependent on the argument being made.

While they were still in the band, it was dangerous and treasonous to suggest they hadn't done anything.  The fact both men said that, flat out?  Nevermind that.  We weren't in that studio, we don't know.

Oh, right, you don't need a studio to record an album.  It can be done via e-mail and carrier pigeon.  And since we were out of the e-mail and carrier pigeon loop, let's not assume these men are not lying to our faces, and they contributed a great deal.

The second they are gone, and people don't have to keep pretending they care about them...well, they never contributed anything anyway.  So, no great loss.

[jarmo]

Richard and Dj did work on something, according to Richard. No idea what it was for and if it will be used.

Also, since Axl said "We recorded a lot of things before Chinese was out. We've worked more on some of those things and we've written a few new things", it could mean Dj was included in the "we".



/jarmo

[raindog]

Makes sense. What you could consider the CD-era sessions takes on such a broad scope, so many years and so many people it gets to the point even some of the participants could probably debate whether they were actually a part of it.

Thinking back, what I took from DJs interviews was always more that he was bringing new song ideas forward rather than adding to work in progress stuff. I don't remember him ever specifically  saying he worked on any of these kinda mythical CD2 numbers like Ron did.

Again, going from a patchy memory but weren't Ron's additions to CD pretty much the last work done on the music before it came out? Maybe any DJ additions to CD2 would have been done at a similarly late stage, and since that late stage presumably wasn't reached while he was in the band, maybe not.

[jarmo]

Again, going from a patchy memory but weren't Ron's additions to CD pretty much the last work done on the music before it came out? Maybe any DJ additions to CD2 would have been done at a similarly late stage, and since that late stage presumably wasn't reached while he was in the band, maybe not.

Possibly, his and Frank's parts.



/jarmo

[Spirit]

Dj also said in an interview he wanted to put his stamp on the already recorded material. By this statement it would seem like he hadn't recorded anything for the existing material, but wished to do so.

I think this was a little over a year ago..

[jarmo]

We've been through this before.

Some assume that if the band didn't write and record stuff together in the same place at the same time, that nothing could've been done.
That was what Ron kept saying. That they didn't sit down together and work.

The others mentioned them going in and doing something.





/jarmo

[Spirit]

I was just referring to CD-era material. Dj himself did confirm that he wrote and recorded brand new songs, right?

[jarmo]

Sorry, it wasn't meant as an attack on you.


Yeah, I think he spoke of song ideas and presenting them to Axl at some point?



/jarmo

[Spirit]

Yeah, I think he spoke of song ideas and presenting them to Axl at some point?

Yes, the might not have been developed further than the demo stage.