Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy

Guns N' Roses' new album, Chinese Democracy, is finally coming out!


This is big news for me. GN'R is my favorite band of all time. Almost 10 years of waiting for this album to see the light of day. Watching band members come and go. (Hell, even some of the newer members have come and gone, lol.) I still remember when I stayed up until early morning hours to hear GN'R play Rock In Rio 3 live in January 2001 (for some reason it was on my local radio even though the show took place in Brazil.) I still remember how excited I was when the Use Your Illusions albums came out in September 1991. My bedroom walls were covered in GN'R pictures when I was younger. The album comes out November 23rd (a Sunday), is an exclusive to Best Buy in the U.S., and you can bet your ass I'll be there DAY 1 to buy that shit.

Being that I have early demos of 11 of the 14 songs that are going to be on the new album (although finished enough to get a righteous feel for the songs), I can say with confidence that this album is going to be a killer. If you like old Guns N' Roses stuff (who doesn't? something for everyone, really), or like to listen to Axl's voice, buy it. You won't be disappointed. He hasn't lost a step whatsoever, and the band, even without the original members, still has more talent than pretty much most bands could dream of.



Guns N' Roses' first single off their new album Chinese Democracy is out (the single is called 'Chinese Democracy' too), and it fucking rocks. I first heard the song seven years ago and the final mix of it is incredible. It's admittedly not the best song ever (especially by GN'R standards), but it's a loud rocker all the same. Kind of song that grows on you after a couple of listens.


You can listen to the song Chinese Democracy online here:
http://www.imeem.com/gunsnroses/music/ZDPz...nese_democracy/

The first single is still doing pretty good in terms of radioplay and so on, but it's clear that putting it out as a first single was just a marketing ploy since it was named after the album. As of this morning, the second single off of Chinese Democracy is now out. It's a song called 'Better'. It's a really good song IMO. If you heard the song Chinese Democracy and thought Axl had lost something, well look no further than this song. I've had a demo of this song for about 2.5 years now but this final album version is so much better quality than those.


You can listen to a stream of the song 'Better' here: (Just click on 'Better')
http://www.q1043.com/pages/news/gunsnroses/


Album's still on track to be released on Sunday, November 23. I've now heard 13 of the 14 songs that are on it (in some form, if not 'finished' form). Album rocks. More complete than any of the single Use Your Illusions albums (which had lots of filler on them tbh).

Since the new album has found its way onto the torrent sites over the past day and a half or so, GN'R decided to go all out and stream THE ENTIRE FUCKING CD on their MySpace page. As someone who has followed these songs in their early demo/live versions over the past 7-8 years, I can safely say that the finished product is incredible. Well worth the wait. These final versions are miles beyond any demo, leak, or live version that I have. MySpace started streaming the songs at midnight EST last night, and overnight (on a weeknight, no less), the songs got over 30,000 plays each (what they are as of this moment). Insane.



Here's a link to the Guns N' Roses MySpace page:

http://www.myspace.com/gunsnroses

You can stream any song you want from the in-site music player. Not sure how long THE ENTIRE FUCKING ALBUM will be up for streaming but I'd say at least the next few days. Maybe longer. Keep in mind that the MySpace streams are only at 128kbps which isn't exactly optimal for heavy music (such as hard rock or metal), as it tends to blur out a lot of the finer details, but it's more than sufficient to hear the songs and how kickass they are.



Check out There Was A Time. The minute-and-a-half solo towards the end of the song was done by Buckethead. I think Slash's guitar parts in Estranged are the only guitar parts in the entire GN'R catalog that I like more. That's saying a lot.

Sorry is another badass song too. Prostitute is a GREAT album closer. If you like the GN'R ballads, try Street Of Dreams and This I Love, the latter which will is no doubt good enough to lure in all the casual November Rain fans. Catcher In The Rye is another cool song. If you want something that sounds like a James Bond theme or something, try out If The World. Buckethead does most of the guitar work on that one too. The rest of the songs are good too, but I don't want to go on and on and on and on and on.



Can't wait for Sunday. Best Buy and my own copy of this shit. Fo' Realz.

Went to Best Buy early this afternoon and got my cd. Fucking fantastic. My Best Buy was selling this shit like hotcakes. In just the short time I was in the store, I saw no less than a dozen people buying it. I'm reading similar kickass stories from others about the experiences at their local Best Buys. Going to be pretty big sales the first week, for sure.

I also signed up for my free Dr Pepper. :D

Congrats, sounds like it was worth the wait.

The album? Yes. The band? No.

For years, the knock on the new GN'R was that they had a band but no album. Ironically enough, now it's the other way around: an album but no band. It's not even possible to go on tour and play this album the way it was produced with GN'R in its current state. The main drummer (Brain) and both lead guitarists (Buckethead & Robin Finck) are gone. Yes - people that came to replace the original bandmembers also need to be replaced now. In the two months since a release date was finally announced, the number of words Axl Rose has said about the album or anything that's going on is zero. ZERO. That's right. Just fucking odd. There's no mention of the band even getting together, let alone getting together to work on a video or do interviews, etc.. There's been absolutely no promotion of this thing from the band itself. Hell, most of the people who worked on this album are currently off doing other things music-related, so the timing is off. All these years to plan a time to put out an album, and it still gets out at a bad time.

Many people are wondering if Axl just decided to say, "fuck it", put the thing out, and be done with it. It's common knowledge that he didn't even want to do the 2002 tour, and apparently not the 2006 tour either. Robin Finck sticks around long enough to basically make sure his parts go on the final record version, then skips off back to Nine Inch Nails, for good apparently. Buckethead, as a solo artist, puts out like 2-3 albums a year. He got bored of waiting for Axl to do something years ago and left the project. His parts are still all over the album (he had a HUGE hand in the final product regardless - that's just how good of a guitarist he really is), but it seems that his days in the band are done. I can deal with the loss of Finck, as IMO he plays too damn slow and sloppy for the type of sound GN'R has, but Buckethead is easily one of the best guitarists alive right now. His parts and solos are nigh impossible to replace. Other than Axl, he's the biggest part of the new GN'R 'sound'. I wish that Axl would do whatever it takes to get him back. Axl Rose himself is pushing 50 years old, and it's more clear than ever that he simply couldn't care less about living a rockstar life anymore. I'm fine with that, but it just seems NOBODY involved with this project even really gives enough of a shit about it other than the die-hard fans who waited all this time.

The way I see it. Things are as tenuous as ever concerning GN'R right now. Oh well. The album is great. Axl said a few years ago that he was planning three albums out of this project (a couple of years apart from each other), and the word is that there's been a lot more recorded than was actually released, so we'll see if anything comes of it in the future. It's not past the point of no-return or anything, but if we get a few weeks into the new year and there's still no word of anything, then hope (probably) starts fading for the new GN'R lineup/project. From that point on, anything goes. Shame too, because IMO it's a really good album, and it would be nice to see the new GN'R lineup get a chance to succeed and thrive. With Velvet Revolver (the band the other old Guns members went and formed) having problems too atm - no lead singer for over a year and their record label dropping them due to the inactivity - one can only wonder if fate is setting the stage for the old Guns to get back together down the road. It's not a personal desire of mine (I couldn't care less), and from the sounds of it not really one of Axl's either, but there are obviously lots of fans who would love to see that happen.


If nothing else is to come of the new GN'R, my only wish is that Buckethead gets enough exposure for his great work on this album and makes a name for himself out of the underground. Seriously, any guitar part on this Chinese Democracy album that sounds out of this world was either performed by him, written in part by him, or originally performed by him and later replaced after he left (in much-inferior fashion). Phenomenal guitarist.