Chinese Democracy
- Guns n Roses
- Band Name: Guns n Roses
- Record Label: Interscope
- Release Date: Nov 23, 2008
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Here are the simple things about Chinese Democracy: Three of the songs are astonishing. Four or five others are very good. The vocals are brilliantly recorded, and the guitar playing is (generally) more interesting than the guitar playing on the "Use Your Illusion" albums.
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It's touching on a human level. Noble, even. I didn't think he had it in him.
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It's a good album, no less and no more.
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The first Guns n' Roses album of new, original songs since the first Bush administration is a great, audacious, unhinged and uncompromising hard-rock record.
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80Chinese Democracy is comfortably the most consistent record the band have put out since "Appetite For Destruction," and proof the ginger midget can put out genuinely great rock music without the blonde giant and the black guy.
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80The artist is in fine, ever-changing voice throughout, and there's certainly a ton of musical food for thought here, requiring several listens before the nuances are revealed. Worth the wait? Maybe. Worth a few hours of your time? Definitely.
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80It's an exhilarating album. Seriously, after finally hearing these 14 tracks in their finished form I was so energized I wanted to climb a mountain.
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Whether history declares it a tragedy or a farce, this is one album that's more than a pop exercise. And for that, Axl Rose can finally take a bow.
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70Chinese Democracy's non-existence is so well-known and ingrained, the source of so many jokes, that its actual existence can only be a letdown. That is until you hear it. Then, somewhat astonishingly, 5,475 days, at least $13 million, fourteen studios, twenty or so musicians (including five guitarists and a harpist) seems just about right.
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70An outrageously overblown pop-metal extravaganza, Chinese Democracy feels like a perfect epitaph for all the absurdity and nonsense of the George W. Bush era--one final blowout before Principal Obama takes our idiocy away.
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While few have ever actually accused the singer of using good judgment, Chinese Democracy shows him to be a man who, however divorced from reality, hasn't lost the instincts that once made him great.
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At times it's possible to hear the world-changing CD that Rose--whose banshee howl remains gloriously intact....But too often quantity gets in the way of quality.
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60It is ridiculous. It is overblown, it's pompous, it's aggressive and it's absurdly ambitious. But, here's the rub: it's actually pretty damn good. It rocks, often pretty hard.
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60Chinese Democracy reveals itself to be an ambitious, brave and expansive offering. [Feb 2009, p.108]
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60Chinese Democracy is clearly not the greatest rock album ever made, but nor is it an absolute and utter failure. The irony is, that for all the lavishing of money and time and technology, it's saved by something as old fashioned as a good tune.
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While the album can aptly be termed "good," it isn't the epic that many might expect, especially to those whose interests have long since shifted away from GN'R's aesthetic and the younger generation unable to emotionally connect with the sounds.
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60It is odd that something so standard provides the denouement to this album, trying to span over a decade of fan loyalty. Will they buy it? Undoubtedly. Will they like it? Who knows.
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60Yet even if it defies expectations, Chinese Democracy is not the masterpiece that it so desperately wants to be.
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58Even if Chinese Democracy had dropped a decade previous, it would still sound dated.
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While the band's label, fans and a handful of rock journalists would like to hail this album as the Second Coming of Rock, the reality is that Chinese Democracy is neither a musical resurrection nor the audio equivalent of Ishtar.
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Too bad the epitaph's already scrawled in Chinese Democracy's anachronistic margins: a bottomless pit dug by disposable income, a persecution complex and egomania.
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40Meandering atmospheric intros and outros, with lyrics that often just repeat the same verse ad nauseum, overshadow what could be, at times, shorter, snappier songs.
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40Soundwise, Chinese Democracy is all over the place.
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40By throwing everything at the wall and nailing up the stuff that didn't stick, he's done himself--and more importantly what he clearly views as his masterpiece--a grand disservice. [Jan 2009, p.110]
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40For all the wank and bluster throughout the album's 14 tracks, the bottom line is that the shit simply doesn't rock.
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40The album fifteen years in the making that sounds like a slick but robotic imitation of what it might have been long ago.
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Even if it came out in 1996, it would still be self-absorbed, turgid, over-produced and soulless.
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Chinese Democracy is a multi-million dollar dud, an example of faded brilliance and wasted time. [Winter 2009]
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 107 out of 130
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Mixed: 11 out of 130
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Negative: 12 out of 130
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10
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NeilP10I feel 13 again, as if I've just heard rock and roll for the first time.
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ShawnM10A perfect record, absolutely flawless.