China Bans Democracy, Declares War on Guns N' Roses
Guess what's never coming to China? Something that the world has patiently waited to see for years now. Something we all hoped we'd see some day but never really expected ever to see. If you said "Chinese Democracy", you're right. And unfortunately, we're not talking about Chinese people voting, although we'd like to see that too. We're talking about Guns N' Roses' first original studio album in 17 years, Chinese Democracy, released worldwide Monday, everywhere but China.
According to a Wall Street Journal report Sunday, Chinese authorities have outlawed sales of the new GN'R release, citing the title of the album, "Chinese Democracy," as the principal reason. The title, thought up by Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose because he "liked the sound of it," violates rules established by China's Ministry of Culture that prohibit the word "democracy" to be used in the title of any music, book or film within mainland China. One can only assume that if the word "Chinese" precedes "Democracy" in a title, Chinese censors would become even more frightened.
The Global Times, a newspaper run by China's Communist Party, published an article Monday with the headline "American band releases album venomously attacking China," that labels the album part of a Western plot to "grasp and control the world using democracy as a pawn" and that the album "turns its spear point on China." Other than the story in the state newspaper, no Ministry of Culture spokesman has commented on the album.
On the album's title track, Axl Rose, a frequent visitor to China, accuses the Chinese government of scapegoating the Falun Gong, the religious sect perpetually at odds with Beijing. "Blame it on the Falun Gong/They've seen the end and you can't hold on now," Axl sings in "Chinese Democracy," a song said to have been written about religious persecution in China. Axl later sings in the song as if speaking directly to the Chinese authorities, "You think you got it all locked up inside/And if you beat them all up they'll die/Then you'll walk them home for the cells/Then now you'll dig for your road back to hell." To use the Chinese government's favorite buzzword, Axl's words are certainly "sensitive."
Before performing the title track for the first time in 2001 at a Las Vegas New Year's show, Axl Rose, the only original member of Guns N' Roses to contribute to Chinese Democracy, told the crowd that he was inspired to write the song after seeing the Martin Scorsese film Kundun about the Dalai Lama. He went on to say this about the track:
It's not necessarily pro or con about China. Its just that right now China symbolizes one of the strongest, yet most oppressive countries and governments in the world. And we are fortunate to live in a free country. And so in thinking about that it just kind of upset me and so we wrote this little song.
Stores in China that carry new albums will not be allowed to offer Chinese Democracy and fans expect that they will be forbidden to purchase the album on iTunes. China's biggest internet portal, Baidu.com has blocked all internet searches for "Chinese Democracy" and access to the website ChineseDemocracy.com has been blocked within mainland China, according to an AFP report Monday. However, Axl's new album was not completely unobtainable for Chinese GN'R fans. Sunday, Internet users there were able to listen to the album's 14 tracks on MySpace, which was granted permission to release the songs on the Internet one day before Monday's wide release. Furthermore, a search for "Chinese Democracy" on both Google and YouTube within Mainland China returned search results for the new album, according to a source in Shanghai.
The release of Chinese Democracy, an album in the works for nearly 15 years, has taken on somewhat of a mythical status. Axl began writing music for the disc back in 1993, when original members Slash and Duff McKagan were still in the band. Within four years, there was no new album and Slash, Duff and drummer Matt Sorum had all left the band. While Axl rounded up a new lineup and continued to write music for the album, the following decade in the ongoing Chinese Democracy project was punctuated by chronic concert cancellations, more personnel changes and numerous broken promises by Axl as to when the album would come out. People have been waiting for this disc for so long, the term "Chinese Democracy" has become music industry jargon for a highly anticipated album that never gets released.
So when Guns N' Roses announced last month that Chinese Democracy was finished and their label Geffen confirmed the album would be released November 24, GN'R fans finally could believe they would get to hear what '80s rock god Axl Rose had been doing for the last 15 years -- and China is no different. As far as western music goes in China, Guns N' Roses is one of the most well-known, respected and mimicked bands in China. In fact, when Chinese network CCTV ranked the best rock bands of all time last year, GN'R took the #8 spot. Moreover, as the Wall Street Journal points out, the band's legendary 1987 album Appetite for Destructionbecame a massive hit in mainland China during the pro-democracy student movements in China in the late 80s.
Lucky for GN'R fans in China, and there are numerous Chinese websites dedicated to the band, most music listeners in China don't obtain albums in record stores or through legal internet sites anyway. Pirated versions of the album have been available online in China for months and will likely be available on the street in pirated CD and DVD stores. The Wall Street Journal reported that the album can be easily found online in China by searching for "Chinese Democraxy" or "Chi Dem" as the Chinese prefer not to use the album's real name for fear of being monitored by the government. And naturally, when the Chinese government issues a ban on a film or album, especially one with the name "Chinese Democracy," it only serves to create further buzz around the item and usually results in an increase in purchases of pirated copies.
It is unlikely that when Axl selected the title for the album, he realized the depth of the parallels between Chinese democracy and Chinese Democracy. Like actual Chinese democracy, the new album had come to symbolize a fantasy, an ongoing project with no end, a dream that is never fully realized. That all changes today. With the release of the album, the name takes on an entirely new significance. Chinese Democracy is no longer a phantom, but rather, something that now is very real, something celebrated in the rest of the world but still conspicuously absent in China.
Perhaps, with the release of Chinese Democracy, Axl Rose is showing the world that if you wait long enough for something, one day it will arrive.
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First of Axel this is not GnR. Its Axel and friends. Secondly Axel should be banned from earth. The album is not ground breaking nor is it that good. Just like Metallicas last album while commercially successful is an artist failure of immense proportions. I don't own any GnR because they are too pop metal for me but this album should just be called Axel Rose,
If Axl thinks this will help the people of China, then go for it! Any port in a storm so to speak. If the United States really wanted to support and defend liberty and justice for all, then why are we supporting restrictive governments by buying their products. We should Boycott nations that don't support liberty and justice for their people.
Good luck Axl.
I've never heard anything by Guns N' Roses.
As long as they chose a title like Chinese Democracy, why not George W. Bush's Intelligence and Integrity?
Strange how more people on here are bashing Axl Rose more than the Chinese Government. The comments on this post have spent more time discussing whether or not you like the music, rather than discussing the fact that the Chinese government is fascist. There is definitely some brain drain going on in here.
The struggle does exist, whatever the apologists of capital may say to the contrary. It will exist so long as a reduction of wages remains the safest and readiest means of raising profits...
The very existence of Trades Unions is proof sufficient of the fact; if they are not made to fight against the encroachments of capital what are they made for?
No milksop words can hide the ugly fact that present society is mainly divided into two great antagonistic classes: capitalists, the owners of all the means for the employment and working men.
Each class tries to get as large a share as possible; and it is the most curious aspect of this struggle that the working class, while fighting to obtain a share only of its own produce, is often enough accused of actually robbing the capitalist!
K. Marx, June 4, 1881
I heard some of it the other day, and it should be banned here too.
Agreed. It should be a crime to record crap.
Guns and Roses are pure genius! They figured out how to keep the Chinese from pirating thier albums.
They've ovbiously heard the album. They were doing their countrymen a favor. It is godawful!
Hilarious. I agree with you 100%...it is crappociously bad!!!
I wonder if China is running an Internet campaign using KGB agents posing as Americans who hate the album. That would be the logical thing for them to do.
I don't know why anybody even cares what over-produced crap that diva Axl Rose puts out anyway. Somebody needs to tell him it's 2008, and his music just sounds incredibly dated and old. Use Your Illusion I & II=groundbreaking. Chinese Democracy=hillarious Joke. Not to mention that he spent waaaayyyyyy too much time playing around with the Pro Tools. It's like he thinks he's Phil Specter or something.
G&R was great for one simple reason: Izzy Stradlin wrote amazing songs. Without him, and Slashe's lead guitar, there's really no point anymore.
As for the album only being for sale at Best Buy, you mean to tell me anybody here actually still buys music? I haven't picked up a CD in at least 5 years. I choose to support my favorite bands by seeing them live, since that's the way they really make their money. But I'd much rather rip off the suits at all the labels. It's those scumbags along with commercial radio that have destroyed music as a whole anyway.
i will say about 85% of the comments on here are from people who have not and will not 'ever' listen to the album, or would like to vote to ban it here.
i love liberal poseurs.
no matter how good or bad anything is the choice to buy/listen/ect. should always be on the individual.
this is were i should also say something about being informed about something before you talk about it, but who has the time? talk about GOP bigots and hate mongers when the basis for there tools are little different then your own.
Huh?
oh yeah, because Guns 'N' Roses fans must be right-wing Christian conservative Repubs, eh?
Or is it more likely that Repubs listen to Perry Como rather than Axl, Izzy, and Slash? ;-)
I've been a G&R fan since the beginning. They lost me after the 1990's. I just don't happen to like the new/fake G&R. But truly, I will defend your right to listen to crap. Because this is America goshdarnit.
aw, that's so original and thoughtful of you.
i bet it helps you sleep at night to utter that, doesn't it?
I've listened to it and it can best be described as mediocre. It doesn't totally suck, but there really aren't any memorable songs and it certainly wasn't worth waiting 15 years for.
Nothing worse then being Brasted by the Chinese govt'.
It ROCKS. Period. End of Story. Best Album since Nevermind!
Thanks to GN'R's exclusive licensing agreement with Wal-Mart (that other exploiter of Chinese labor and its lack of Democracy) you won't be able to go pick up this CD at your local CD store either. Since I don't shop at Wal-Mart and think that hair metal retread is one of the greatest tragedies to hit Rock and Roll, I'm leaving this one on the shelf.
correction: best buy.
but i get your point, it will be available in 6 weeks or 6 months (i can't remember) at local stores. fyi.
You're right, it was the Eagles and AC/DC with Wally World, you win the cupie doll. You can't blame me if I get corporate dinosaur rock bands confused.
I've already heard a few tracks off Chinese Democracy, I'm definitely leaving it on the shelf.
I say we vote to ban the album here.
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