Chinese Democracy: Your Thoughts

[Alex]

Forget for a moment that Guns N Roses have gone through a revolving line up, forget that Slash, Duff, Izzy, Steven, Matt (or Gilby) are not on the album and its just Axl (and Dizzy), forget that it took fifteen years to release.

Is Chinese Democracy a good album in you opinion.

I'm going to say yes it is. Musically I feel it is a good album. The guitar work is excellent with some great riffs and solos. The lyrics are also impressive. I think any modern would kill to release something like it.

 

[HKnux5112]

I was open to it, despite not having Slash in it, just like I gave the new Alice In Chains album a chance.

Surprisingly, both albums were great in my opinion. Just wish Axl didn't look like a scumbag nowadays, ya know?

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

I thought it was ok.

There were some good tracks on there. The title track, once it kicked in after what seemed like a decade was a decent rock song, "There Was A Time" is phenomenal and one of my favourite G'n'R tracks- definitely the album highlight, "Shackler's Revenge", "I.R.S" were pretty good tracks too, although some of the other songs let the album down.

It was very overproduced, and as it took so long to release some of the tracks already sounded dated when it came out, but I wouldn't call it a bad album.

Infact, I probably wouldn't even call it a Guns album, more like a debut solo release from Axl Rose. That album really is his musical vision, its nothing like old school Guns were, it's like a Use Your Illusion 3, not an Appetite For Destruction 2.

I think it got more criticised than it should, mainly because Axl took so damm long in releasing it, and because it is classed as a G'n'R album people were expecting more- me included. A modern day rock band would be happy to release this quality of music though, but it wasn't anything really special- other than "There Was A Time".

I would give it 6.5/10.

 

[Matth3w]

Ah yes, the "17 years in the making, $34 million produced, so called Axl Rose solo album."

I'm a Gunners fan. I won't lie. So maybe my opinion is a tad biased, but the album was definately worth me parting my hard earned cash with. Chinese Democracy, Shacklers Revenge, and Better were worth it alone. Terrific rock songs. There Was A Time, as mentioned, is all sorts of epic.

Buckethead and Bumblefoot more than made up for lack of Slash I thought anyway.

Anything overhyped usually isn't worth the wait anyway. So I find it annoying when people bash the album saying "It took 17 years to create....this?". Regardless, Axl made the Dr. Pepper site crash - that's an achievement in and of itself I thought.

8.5/10.

 

[Launch Pad Mac - Quack!]

I don't believe that it will be on some "Top 500 Albums Of All Time" Countdown in the future - unless it is VH1{such a bad channel} but with that said I believe it is a decent album. IMO Axl is GNR' and he took the band in a different direction with this album - something that I support. I also cannot stand Slash and find his absence from the album refreshing - lets behonest, all of his material sounds the same {lesson to his recent album} and I find his style dated.

 

[Hollywood Naitch]

I also cannot stand Slash and find his absence from the album refreshing - lets behonest, all of his material sounds the same {lesson to his recent album} and I find his style dated.

Slash's material DOES NOT all sound the same. Yes he has a distinctive style, as to all guitarists. Look at Tom Morello for example, you can tell it's him on guitar when you hear one of his songs. Even someone like Carlos Santana is completely recognisable when he plays. If you do not like Slash then fair enough, but please give the man the respect he deserves. He is a phenomenal guitarist.

His latest album shows just how good he is, as he plays in a very wide array of styles, suited to the vocallist on the track.

 

[THK1138]

Personally, I love the album and would put it as one of my favorites.

I've been a GN'R fan since ~2003 when a friend gave me (the terrible) Use Your Illusion compilation from Wal Mart/KMart with six songs from UYI I and UYI II.

I bought both Illusions and Appetite shortly thereafter and learned via the Internet that the band were still around and had toured with new songs in 2001/2002 and I started following the Chinese Democracy story from that point on.

I find this album to actually be underrated. I think a lot of people either didn't listen to it because Slash was gone or they had it in their mind they would hate it because Slash is gone. I downloaded every leak of demos and bought two or three copies over the years.

I was fortunate enough to get to see them live when they came through town on tour last fall. It was easily the best concert I'd been to. My only complaint was that they didn't play "Better" or "Shackler's Revenge", but I got "Estranged" and the less common "Don't Cry".