The Mosh Pit 12.05.08: Chinese Democracy

Posted by Dan Haggerty on 12.05.2008

You’ve read the reviews and you’ve heard the hype, now the Mosh Pit turns a spotlight onto one of the most expensive albums ever to determine the good, the bad, and the Axl Rose.







Somehow I have gotten into the habit of doing a big old bucket full of analysis and commentary on the major releases for classic bands, so it was with a weary eye I watched the coming reality that was going to be Chinese Democracy. Guns N' Roses is the sort of band whose songs I either really like a lot or not at all. And I'm fairly certain that my opinion in the Illusion twins being a stronger statement that Appetite is easily in the minority. It's one of those subjects that I've just ended up ignoring since it doesn't really do much for me to get into it. Add three good reviews on our site offering the reader every which way in opinion, and I thought I'd just take this album off.

But…

But I listened to the album, and at first I was fairly impressed.

And…

And as the tracks went on I experienced an interesting wave of opinions and thoughts. Before I knew it, I started to make notes on those thoughts… Then type out those thought loosely…

And here we are.

If you want a full album review, you can check out one of the detailed reviews already on the site. With three you can easily pick one you relate to the best. As for quality, they are all good. If you're curious on my opinion, then go with Jeff's - He's the closest to my thought pattern on this. What I'm going to do here is give an ad hoc review while I deconstruct the album and look at the big picture around it, and see if it sheds a light on the net result.

Basically, I can't leave well enough alone. "Why" being one of my favorite questions when writing…


The CD Giveaway

Big time props goes out to Dan Marsicano for winning my CD challenge. Dan, you are indeed The Man^TM. He picked Emperor so we'll get that out in the mail for you, and may your Christmas be white and your metal black!

When sitting down to listen through Guns N' Roses long awaited Chinese Democracy, one is immediately reminded of other classic bands with big releases this year (i.e. Metallica), in that this release comes with a stigma of expectations attached, the release as much a contest against expectations as it is an exercise in its own merits. On an artistic level, that's a shame, but what are you going to do when you need to sell this album to those people. And lets face it, with three presidential terms, enough people to form a second band, and 13 million to think about it, Axl Rose certainly has people lining up in every which way to kick him in the ass or shake his hand.

But hype and hyperbole aside, what is the good, bad, and ugly of Chinese Democracy.


The Good, The Bad, and The Axl Rose


Axl has done a great job in trying to make this a Guns N' Roses album without it sounding like it was written 2 years after Illusion. Some people will take issue with that sentence, since this sounds like an Axl Rose solo album and not something the Guns would have release proper, but I'm talking about tone and texture here – The sounds. Rose is in a no win situation for some people in that if he sounds like GN'R without the classic lineup, he's going to get hell for copying the sounds of the people who are missing, but yet if he deviates to far then it's no longer a GN'R album. In essence, it needs to sound like the Guns without it sounding like the Guns.

Huh?

But that is the balancing act and I think he's actually done that as well as he could. Thanks to his voice and the guitar tone I could nail this as GN'R in a police line-up, and yet the music doesn't make me think it was lifted from a previous recording session either. Some people are going to shit on this for failing to completely do one or another, but from my perspective he really needed to do both to an extent. This has the sound/tone of a GN'R album but also sounds like an evolution of the band. If the band had released six studio albums between Use Your Illusion I & II and this one, you could see the band evolving to this kind of sound. Now HOW that has evolved is another story we will get to in a bit.

Also, I'm finally down with admitting Axl is the mad genius people have hinted at. Genius because there are a ton good ideas running rampant through this thing, the man is obviously working the burnt edges of creative thinking. However, while some parts I thought were flat out great, there were others I just didn't get, but the sum total was indeed a fountainhead of ideas getting tossed at the wall here. You can also see it in the almost obsessive attention to detail in the production. With all of the layers and turn on a dime details on display, this is obvious a man who had a vision and was damn well going to move a mountain to get it.

While the sound of the album is well done (if coated with a little too much production), and there are many great ideas running through these tracks, the actual songs themselves are a more hit and miss affair. Some songs are really good; "If The World" capsizes between the acoustic picking of a trip through the channels of Venice to the out right heavy funk of a 70's drama. This song thumps and grinds, Rose's voice screeching and soaring over the beats and power chords like a mad hatter enjoying the fact you just figured out you should have taken the other pill. It's bold and creative, and a sheer joy to listen to. But on the opposing end you have a track like closer "Prostitute" which just meanders about and is more of an exercise in atmosphere then a musical statement. It would be interesting as an extra, or maybe a hidden track, or even interlude piece, but to close an album from a power rock band? Well that just seems off, and honestly it comes off very weak.

In the middle are strong tracks like the title track, with its epic opening that slides into a glossy rocker. It's good but I thought the last half was a little safer than the edge of the opening. The song starts out screaming EPIC like the years we've been waiting, but then just slides back into a pretty standard radio rocker. That's opposed by a song like "Streets Of Dreams", which I liked the last two minutes and it's long solo over the ballad thing going (I'm a sucker for a bombastic and dramatic solo), but I find myself losing attention while waiting for the song to get there.

And while I'm one the subject of solos, there are a lot of them and they're the one real bright highlight of the album; Axl has picked up some damn good axe men. I just wish they had better songs built around them, or more to the truth the songs and production were scaled back so these guys could just go to town. Guitar work needs to breathe, and the mountains of ideas and piles of multi-track production tend to bury the guitars at times. That's a shame, because these dudes put on a hell of a show and I bet they burn up the stage live.

Back on track, like I said there is a lot of good here but it seems to be fired like buck shot all over the place. Even different ideas piled up in one song! When it's good, it's really good, otherwise I'm torn between moments of losing interest to a few "What the Christ?" moments.

And therein lays the problem that I find infecting these statements of compulsive obsessive thinking, the man has had that money and time thrown at this project and it shows, but not in the way most people will think. This isn't a case of "He should have done a better job with all of that time and money" that most people will talk about. In fact, the problem is several degrees of the exact opposite:

1. Chinese Democracy is an album that is a very busy overload of ideas that are drenched in enough high gloss production to insure its fossils are found by future civilizations. Someone needed to tell the man to cut out a few things to give the songs some room to work, and lighten up with the knobs to allow them to move about. Less would have been more.

2. Second related issue is that Rose has obviously added ideas over the last decade and a half to this thing, some are trends killed by lesser bands when they were new. If you're going to do industrial or sampling (movie quotes again?), then you better damn well make a statement out of it. That is not the case.

3. The final issue is that he's been given a song per year (?!) to work on it, and as a result it's almost like he's not aware of the tempo or spacing of the songs on the album. Four ballads in a row? Again, who was asleep at the controls when it came time to sort out these ideas?

These points show what the real problem is, and that is all three issues could have been shut down by simple feedback, or at least reworked before they hit the point of mastering. But there is no one here to do that. In a band, each member works as a unit through this creative process, but Axl drove away the band and is for all intent and purposes the Rose Solo Experience with hired guns working for him. But even then, when you're a solo artists you still have a producer and/or manager that serves that function. Axl is in the same boat of another musical genius surrounded by yes men – Michael Jackson. Jackson was at his best when he had Quincy Jones managing him and capable of sorting out his ideas and focusing on what worked for each song. Axl Rose is in the same situation as he needs someone to balance his ideas into a final product.

Hell, even most artists are finally limited by schedules and money, but even that isn't an issue here, Chinese Democracy became an urban legend precisely because of that. Rose has had no limits put on him and as such he's run amok.

This is the point many old Guns fans are going to want to talk about Slash or Izzy, and on a level that is understandable. Not only did they play part in the chemistry of the band, but obviously the band as a unit was essential to the balance of the songs themselves. But that is not going to happen. The volatile mix that was the greater GN'R dynamic was combustible no matter whom you want to praise or blame, so an original line-up is likely not to happen. It could, band members generally mellow over the years and getting back to basics may very well replace old problems (i.e. The Eagles, The Police, and even Triumph). In this case, I don't even think its egos as much as the effect of personality types. But the real point is that Rose should be part of a team that works together, and tour together, so that group dynamic can exist and offset his ideas. As much as everyone would love it to be the original group, that's unlikely so it should be a new group. And by group, I mean a real band working together and not a bunch of guys he's hired. The guys he has are good, but let's face it they're working for him.

Someone needed to ask if running four ballads in a row was a good idea. Someone needed to ask if the album could have closed on a better song. Someone needed to scale back or streamline some of the songs themselves. In fact, someone needed to ask if several songs should have been cut and put on CD singles. None of that happened, and it shows.



The Care And Feeding Of Famous Singers

The question to follow up my line of thinking, and I know someone is waiting to bust it out: "Well Madonna or Britney" doesn't need a "band" to balance them. And to that, you're right. They don't need a band. In fact they have a personality where they need to be the center of attention. They are the show. There is no way a band as a real unit would survive under those circumstances.

Sound familiar?

But they also don't handle the writing and production either. They have people that help them with that. Madonna, whether you like her or not you have to admit she's one of the smartest performers in rock history. She stays topical and on the current pop scene by working with the right people and collaborating when needed with industry hot shots. She's a decent dancer, but hires people to work out the best dance moves for her show. She's an average singer, but she gets the best writers and producers to insure she's in top form and current. The point is she hires people to get ideas from; probably a lot of ideas that get vetoed and never see the light of day.

"What? How can you compare Axl Rose to Madonna? Rose actually has good ideas and talent!"

You would be correct, especially when compared to the pop princess. The Madonna's of the world are more business than artist, and it shows in their industry savvy. Axl is, for better and worse, the exact opposite of those people. He's a very talented and creative person who obviously lacks that industry savvy. And no, threatening Doctor Pepper (he obviously looked to Gene Simmons^TM for that brilliant idea) or getting people to invest tons of money in your band's name isn't a sign of good business. It just means he knows how to capitalize on an existing name that already has existing market value (again, see Simmons^TM).

Axl Rose can be praised for actually trying to be a real artist and bring his ideas to reality. But he's also his worst enemy and needs someone to balance against himself. Very few people in the whole history of music could do it alone. As much as I can respect the man for wanting to do it alone, at the end of the day Chinese Democracy suffers as a complete album due to him not getting someone to help him work through his ideas, streamline them, or at best offer alternatives. Lesser artists have done better simply because they know this, and someone of Axl's caliber suffers because he refuses it.


The 411

Chinese Democracy is a great album still waiting to happen, but do to an eclectic mix of ideas tossed at the wall, is ultimately an average album with a good EP hiding in it. I will be burning myself an EP in fact, because I really do like a few songs (The CD EP?). But for a full length that gets lost between tracks that range from poor to average to good, sometimes all in the same song, and frankly filler suited for life later as extras in a box set. The hired guns sound great, and without the production in a live environment will rock the house down. The sad fact being people will be more interested in his band playing the groups classics than what is on this album, and in five years people will still be talking about those classic songs and Chinese Democracy will be remembered for the wait and not its worth.

"He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot." - Groucho Marx

"If you guys are going to be throwing beer bottles at us, at least make sure they're full." - Dave Mustaine

The Set List
What's Playing In My Head Phones

1. Uriah Heep - Wake The Sleeper: Two weeks in a row? I real am the old school dude around here.

2. AC/DC - Burnt Ice: Speaking of old school… but damn this album is infectious. Plus it beat GN'R by 500K so I'm jazzed for the aussies!

3. Bloodbath - The Fathomless Mastery : I liked this album, but thought nothing much about it. But it keeps making it back into the player. God bless traditional death metal.

4. Guns N' Roses - Chinese Democracy: I've listened to it several times again for this column, now I'll likely burn an EP out of it and likely never play it again.

Music Trivia

A small 70's traditional metal band from England by the name of Necromandus struggled hard, but ended up scoring some dates with Black Sabbath on the bands Masters of Reality tour. Tomi Iommi took the band "under his wing" to support them. After the band failed to get an album recorded in 72, he worked with them to release an album proper. Toni Iommi ended up playing on a few tracks and he even got Ozzy to sing a few songs un-credited to help the band out. But the bands luck didn't hold (do to various business reasons, that album, Orexis of Death, ended up not seeing the light of day till 1999!) and despite supporting Black Sabbath on several tours the band went no where and split up mid 70's.

Then Ozzy left Sabbath for the first time after Technical Ecstasy in 77 and decided to start a new band. He got the members of Necromandus together to be that band, and they worked under the title "Blizzard of Ozz". That project got shelved when Ozzy returned to Sabbath for another go with Never Say Die, but after that brief reunion blew apart he return to the "Blizzard of Ozz" project with support of new manager and wife Sharon Osbourne. However, the band was not fully available so with the support of his new manager picked up some up and coming names from in the industry:

Randy Rhoads – guitars – Formerly of Quiet Riot
Bob Daisley – bass – Formerly of Rainbow (ironically the band Sabbath took a member from)
Lee Kerslake – drums – Formerly of Uriah Heep

And a sometimes unrecognized:

Don Airey – keyboards – Also from Rainbow.

When it came to record an album proper, the label made one change to Blizzard of Ozz, deciding that the groups name should just be the name of the album instead and credited it to Ozzy himself.

I think everyone knows the story from there.

And with that we're calling it a weekend. And as always my friends, keep it real and play what you love, even if it took a year per song to see the light of day. If someone bitches, turn it up to 10 and tell them I said Hi.