Axl Rose Brings ‘G n R’ Into The 21st Century With ‘Chinese Democracy’

First the bad news: Chinese Democracy is not the heavy metal sonic assault suggested by the early release of the title track. On the other hand, it very well may be the best album of the year.

Once a rock band reaches a certain level of success, they just cant win. If they try to keep growing as artists by exploring different sounds, influences or whatever they’ll hear people whining about wanting things the way they used to be. A lot of purists hated it when KISS took off their makeup, but they deserved respect for doing something different and trying to forge a new artistic path. On the other hand, if a band *doesn’t* do anything new and keeps playing their old stuff in the same way ad nausium they’re branded as a nostalgia act. Think KISS now”Gene Simmons eventually made the calculated, slightly cynical decision that commerce trumped art. Hes now content with giving fans the best representation of the KISS that their nostalgic desires long for”to the extent of dressing a new guitarist and drummer up like Ace Frehley and Peter Criss. Hes not breaking new ground as an artist, but he is backing a Brinks truck up to the Simmons household every night.

Axl Rose could have taken the same route with Guns n Roses. With all due respect to Duff McKegan, and the rest of the original band the casual fan thinks of vintage GnR as Axl and Slash anyway, so all he needed to do was make nice with the top hat wearing guitarist and the two of them and whatever supporting players they deemed necessary could have toured forever just like KISS. Pretend that its 1988 all over again, play the old songs in the old way and back up the Brinks Truck every night. To some extent, Slash has chosen this route with his band Velvet Revolver. Play similar blues based hard rock to vintage GnR, bring in former Stone Temple Pilots vocalist Scott Weiland on vocals and to the fans who are looking for a nostalgia fix of old Guns itll suffice. Never mind the fact that everything Velvet Revolver has ever recorded sounds the same, or that the band members are all well in their 40s and a little old to be doing the rock n roll gypsy routine of the late 1980s.

Axl refused to play the nostalgia game. Hes a very talented guy, but he doesn’t have much of a knack for self promotion or media spin. While he worked on putting together a new version of the band and recording Chinese Democracy he let a variety of interests”not the least of which were his old bandmates”control the media spin. For that reason, there are plenty of people including media and critics that have predisposed to hating this album before it was released or even having heard any of it.

Many albums are fairly straightforward and are easy to figure out with a couple of listens. They fit a certain formula, with a power ballad, a hit single, a filler song, etc. Others evolve and change with repeated listening”different songs become your favorites, you notice new things about ones you thought you knew well and most significantly songs that you glossed over the first time around start to grow on you.

On Chinese Democracy that’s definitely the case”the best example being the song Better. It doesn’t really impress on first listen, but quickly becomes a favorite. Axl claims that he doesn’t try to write hit singles and that’s probably the case, but in addition to being an impressive tour de force for Robin Finck on guitar it may be the catchiest pop song since The Killers first album.

One of the real triumphs of Chinese Democracy is the difficulty that a listener has in pigeonholing the songs”with the overall observation that there’s a lot of the Elton John inspired piano stuff first heard on the Illusion albums its clear that the band is going in a new musical direction and one that is somewhat unpredictable but very exciting.

Unfortunately, ‘Chinese Democracy’ is occasionally plagued by overproduction”biggest case in point Madagascar which the band has been playing live for the better part of this decade. The album version doesnt quite have the edge or raw emotion that was on display when played live. This really isn’t surprising for an album that has taken so long to make and has gone through a number of producers.

Still, that’s a very minor caveat about what is overall an amazing piece of work. Hopefully those who have bought in to all of the negative media hype can put their prejudices aside and give ‘Chinese Democracy’ about it. They’ll hear the powerful sound of a great band charting new musical frontiers which is what rock music is supposed to be about.

Ross Everett is a experienced freelance writer who covers travel, poker and sports handicapping. He is a staff handicapper for Anatta Sports where he is responsible for providing daily free sports picks. In his spare time he enjoys fine dining, fencing and scuba diving. He lives in Las Vegas with four dogs and a pet coyote.