Guns N' Roses Album "A Shipwreck" And "A Loud Last Gasp"

New York Times:

"Chinese Democracy" (Geffen) is the Titanic of rock albums: the ship, not the movie, although like the film it's a monumental studio production. It's outsize, lavish, obsessive, technologically advanced and, all too clearly, the end of an era. It's also a shipwreck, capsized by pretensions and top-heavy production. In its 14 songs there are glimpses of heartfelt ferocity and despair, along with bursts of remarkable musicianship. But they are overwhelmed by countless layers of studio diddling and a tone of curdled self-pity. The album concludes with five bombastic power ballads in a row.

"Chinese Democracy" sounds like a loud last gasp from the reign of the indulged pop star: the kind of musician whose blockbuster early success could once assure loyal audiences, bountiful royalties, escalating ambitions and dangerously open-ended deadlines. The leaner, leakier 21st-century recording business is far less likely to nurture such erratic perfectionists. (Mr. Rose did manage to outpace Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine, which re-emerged on tour this year but hasn't yet released a successor to its 1991 masterpiece, "Loveless.") The new rock paradigm, a throwback to the 1950s and early 1960s, is to record faster, more cheaply and more often, then head out on tour before the next YouTube sensation distracts potential fans.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[Budokan]

Their time is long past. Some people don't know when to hang it up.

[kburlz]

HIS time is long past.

[raymondjiii]

I was looking forward to this CD but it is definitely their worst album, not a total disaster but nothing compared to their others.

[snruB]

This is exactly what I thought when I heard a couple songs off the album, especially the studio doddling part. It sounds like some very mediocre songs that took a short time to write and record....that were mangled by Axl who sat around in a studio for over a decade just looking for bells and whistles to occupy his time. It totally sucks

[RedDogBear]

I agree that the state of pop/rock music is pretty abysmal. But I don't see the sense in reading too much about it from this album. Chinese Democracy is a result of one talented but f*ed up guy Axel Rose, who went from being a nobody midwestern punk to a superstar over night and never really knew how to handle it. He pissed off the rest of the REAL GnR band a long time ago. He is the only person from the original line up on CD. He must have had a good lawyer though as he managed to get sole ownership of the band name. He's been working and re-working this thing for years, I would be amazed if it turns out to be anything less than a mess. Hopefully still an interesting mess.

[ROBOT8]

THE GUY IS DELUSIONAL!!!!!!!!!!!!! BO DEREK HAIR AND MAYBE HE'LL GET A JOB ON A COP SHOW LIKE ICE T.......OR DO INFOMERTIALS WITH TED POPEIL???????

[berryessence]

NO IT'S NOT

GO SEE THEM IN CONCERT....U WILL HAVE YOUR REAL BAND...

SWITCH TO NEO-SOUL

[Braised Cod]

"Real" bands like the Beatles and Led Zeppelin made their first albums in 12 hours. Those that spend months even years in the studio "perfecting" rock music are the antithesis of real. If you can't play your music in the first couple of takes without using Auto-Tune, you AIN'T REAL.

[spiderbucket]

Sad. But this is truly the death of Rock music. Everything will be re-hashed and re-packaged but the days of real BANDS is over.

[Info08]

Music has this incredible way of dying and resurrecting itself.

The last band that I took seriously was Oasis and they became alcoholic vampires.

[DocManhattan]

Jeez, that's only about the 300 millionth time someone has declared that 'rock is dead', and they've been wrong every time. But it's OK: if you keep saying it, it'll probably be true someday. Today, however, is not that day. Axl taking 17 years to issue a disappointing POS album is not news to anybody and nobody's going to hang up their guitar over it.

The music industry's changed beyond recognition, and the money to promote new bands isn't there like it used to be. But we do have the internet, and there are still a lot of great musicians out there if you'd just pay attention.

[spiderbucket]

Name ONE BAND who has any sort of catalog as good as the 'classics.' Even bands that I like such as Radiohead, who have decent catalogs just cannot compete with Queen, Aerosmith, The Who, R.E.M., Sabbath, Floyd, Stones, Beatles, etc. Hell, I love the Decemberists but I don't think they made 3 albums before they ran out of ideas.