Now come the sounds of pain, the sounds of dawning confusion. Sounds of girl-screams more girlish than all those that came previous. Sounds set between two radio stations vying for the same frequency on your radio. Now come the sounds that left behind all that was good before it, and of this I am referring to the fifteen years of silence between albums and not The Spaghetti Incident?. Now comes the crooked punchline in the dark for the joke we forgot was told.
Chinese Democracy is the ruin of all that was left of Axl Rose to ruin. It turns out that everyone was right; there really wasn’t much left of him to ruin. An album created by competent musicians at the pinnacle of incompetence. I cannot imagine another reputable studio allowing the record button to ever be pressed for his benefit again. Not after this holocaust of the senses. This is not a re imagining. This is not a return. This is not even a rehash. It is a cry from a receipt-bearing nation of hopeless hopefuls looking for government bailouts for investing in one man’s clumsy and horrific abortion, a taste of sweaty shit that no amount of free Dr. Peppers can remove from scorched tongues.
It is that. fucking. bad.
Madagascar is among the best of them, if you like rejected bond themes. I dare you to listen to this song and think of anything other than a shitty introduction to a shitty bond movie.
If The World (Would End Today) is a song by Sade, if she spent the last five years touring with Amy Winehouse while gargling on flaming, rancid sperm milked years previous from a mountain gorilla. Again, listen to the track and tell me I’m wrong.
Everything else is just a collection of turds stuck along the gradient flypaper between what is Godawful bad and truly shitty, shitty gag-reflex-bashed-in-by-yak-cock bad. Better, is not. Shackler’s Revenge is a tragedy in that it could have been a great song, but again, no. The Catcher In The Rye (J.D.S.) is what you’d have if The Beatles actively tried to offend their fans.
Keep your Appetite For Destruction album close by, because after you force down the foul-tasting tequila shot of shit water so foul that it would draw a blister on a septic tank, it’ll be the very thing that saves your life to bite down on the refreshing lime wedge of what once was. You have been warned.
Was there ever any doubt that this album wouldn’t suck?
It’s Axl Rose, after all. It’s not even remotely GNR. Velvet Revolver is far closer to the original GNR than Axl Rose. Hate to say it, but the original GNR was a magical moment in time when lightning was trapped in a bottle, and it will never, ever return. (Unless Axl Rose gets therapy – and even that will probably kill the band for good.)
Hell, I knew it was going to suck months ago. Some friends of mine heard tracks from it. They didn’t mention how much it sucked on their blog, but assured me that it sucked hard. They probably avoided mentioning it sucked on their posting because Axl is - A: A fellow Hoosier and, B: The person who bought them many rounds of drinks. But all that is now moot, as the album is out and everyone knows it sucks.
I didn’t know what the Dr Pepper thing was about (check here for the story if you can’t be bothered googling), but I’m sure they’ll be reassessing that piece of marketing genius.
For what it’s worth, which probably isn’t much, Rolling Stone gave it 4 stars. I’m trying to keep an open mind about this and approach it as if it’s from a different band entirely. This isn’t GNR. Velvet Revolver wasn’t either, but I still managed to enjoy some of their stuff.
A band can still retain its identity as long as the lead singer and lead guitarist remain. So for me it was over once Slash officially quit.
My biggest gripe with GNR was that their absence from the Rock & Roll music scene caused a power vacuum which ended up getting filled first by grunge (which actually turned out to be pretty good) but then, ugh, Rap. And then, ugh again, Britney & her clones.
So in a way, Axl Rose caused the complete downfall of 21st century Rock Music.
I’m seriously considering avoiding this album and all that’s on it for as long as I can - the rest of my life, if possible. I LOVE GNR. Love, Love, Love. If I don’t ever hear anything off this album, I can pretend it doesn’t suck, and that it’s just as good as Appetite. If it’s as bad as people say, I really don’t want it clouding up my memory.
I can’t bring myself to listen to it. Regardless of how good or bad it is, I’m going to react to it like I did to Brian Wilson’s Smile–it did much more service to the musical world as a legend than as an actual album.
