Chinese Democracy Leaks

[BUTT 0]

Are you a grown man? Teenage girls fawn over Backstreet Boys less than you fawn over Axl Rose. It's farcical.

Come on Czech. Teenage girls don't care about BSB anymore. You should have said The Jonas Brothers.

[Use Your Illusion 0]

Man, anyone who rips on Rhiad hasn't heard the final mix. That shit is a fucking tornado.

[Use Your Illusion 0]

...no, not 'of shit'.

[1234-5678 0]

Name me a Slash solo that someone else who has been in GNR, Finck, Buckethead, Ron Thal, Richard Fortus, hasn't found a way to make better. Because they are simplistic.

 

This is just so stupid. So so so stupid. I mean, I don't know where we can really go from here. You would obviously rather listen to shitty guitarists like Robin Finck and Bumblefoot, so I think this part of the discussion is pretty much over.

 

If you honestly think Velvet Revolver is better then the new GNR songs, I can't even argue with you anymore. You're just too far gone. That's so ridiculous, it's....well ridiculous. Just an atrocious band, so much weaker then I expected. And bag on Axl taking so long as much as you want. Scott Weiland, now there's a guy whose well is dry. Terrible lyrics

 

Please enlighten me on what makes Axl's new songs SO much better than Velvet Revolver. I realize you think they are mind-blowing, earth shattering stuff, but please understand that the only people who really think that are you and posters on MyGNRForum.

 

Democracy will outsell Revolver's first album with it's first week of sales.....ok, maybe not that much, but I guarantee within a month. And "Fall To Pieces" was so unbearingly embarrassing, just....wow.....I have to stop. I can literally feel my face getting hot. Terrible....awful, just an utter abortion of a song. I think Weiland and/or Duff had the balls to call that their "Sweet Child." Ridiculous.....

 

I don't particularly like Fall to Pieces either, but I was just talking strictly about commercial success. Axl won't have that kind of success with whatever singles he releases. I mean, Chinese Democracy was a fucking god awful single choice. One of the worst new songs they've got.

 

Velvet Revolver's worst songs aren't anywhere near as bad as nuGNR's worst songs (Silkworms, Oh My God, Rhiad, etc.)

 

Again, no one has ever heard what Paul Huge has had to contribute. They are just going on what bitter former members, Slash, Matt Sorum, have had to say. Unless you've played with Huge personally, of course....

 

Thankfully, we'll probably never hear it because of the revolving door of shitty musicians that Axl has had in there. Although, someone shittier like Robin Finck or something probably took his place so it's a lose-lose situation for the listeners.

 

 

You're right there is nowhere else to go. My prejudice against Slash, your prejudice against guys like Finck and Thal....pointless discussion.

 

Democracy is killing on the radio......http://www.antimusic.com/news/08/oct/27GNRs_Chinese_Democracy_A_Radio_Hit.shtml

 

 

[UZI Suicide 0]

Man, anyone who rips on Rhiad hasn't heard the final mix. That shit is a fucking tornado.

 

And you've heard the final mix? The version that is going to be on the album? Or are you talking about the one that leaked? Because if you are, that isn't a very good song. I think most people who are creaming over the leaks even admit that it blows.

[1234-5678 0]

Man, anyone who rips on Rhiad hasn't heard the final mix. That shit is a fucking tornado.

 

And you've heard the final mix? The version that is going to be on the album? Or are you talking about the one that leaked? Because if you are, that isn't a very good song. I think most people who are creaming over the leaks even admit that it blows.

 

I never liked it until I heard the leak. I dunno, it's got an "Immigrant Song" type vibe going on....could go either way depending on the final mix. Still better and more original then anything Revolver did though.

 

[Use Your Illusion 0]

I'm talking about the one that leaked, and it doesn't blow. It's fuckin' awesome. There's something new to pick up and hear in that every time you listen to it.

[1234-5678 0]

Oh My God > Slither

[Black Lushus 0]

Hey now, let's not get too crazy here!

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Oh My God >

 

...

 

I got nothing. I had a really hard time finishing that song the first time I listened to it, and it's only 3'40"! At least "My World" is out of the way in about a minute, and you can just turn off the album after "Don't Cry."

 

Speaking of, what the hell kind of a decision was that? You have Estranged/You Could Be Mine/Don't Cry, which is about as good a 20-minute arena rock trilogy as could possibly be conceived, and a perfect concluding high note for an up-and-down album...and then you kill it with that weird faux-Reznor bit. Was that supposed to be Axl's "Her Majesty" or something?

[Black Lushus 0]

I love how apparently Axl snuck that song on to the album and the other guys didn't even know about it til after it was released. Izzy probably did a big ol WTF. That's probably when he realized "Man, I gotta get the fuck back to Indiana!"

[BUTT 0]

Apparently the remaining unheard songs leaked in rather poor quality. No, I don't know where they'd be found. I read one of them sounds like Jim Steinman. That's cool. Someone once wrote an a GNR forum that the end of "November Rain" was a ripoff of "Ravishing." I don't believe that. That is all.

[BUTT 0]

OK, well I downloaded them from LimeWire, skimmed over them, and deleted them because they sounded like crap. No, not the songs themselves, the MP3 files! They're scratched to shit, no doubt because they want to deter people from downloading them.

 

"Rhiad" has a cool new ambient intro like "Chinese Democracy." Too bad it doesn't make the song itself any better. "Catcher in the Rye" sounds exactly the same as in the demo, just much better quality of course. "Scraped" isn't very good. "Sorry" is ominous and brooding, and it's in 3/4 time, which is always good for a change in a band where virtually the entire catalog is in 4/4. "This I Love" is amazing, but it doesn't really sound like Steinman. But it does have a show tune-esque vibe to it, a little bit. Not Cole Porter show tunes, Andrew Lloyd Webber show tunes.

[UZI Suicide 0]

Catcher isn't the same. Brian May's guitar solo has been replaced with a shitty one by one of other guitarists. "The Blues" now has guitar in the beginning of the song, somewhat like it had on the 2002 tour, but also...not really like it all. Hard to explain.

 

I think "Scraped" is decent enough, a little better than Rhiad but not as good as Better on the scale of NuGNR rockers. "Sorry" is an appropriate title since the song fucking sucks. I got all hyped after hearing Sebastian Bach describe it, but it's really awful.

 

"This I Love" is a good ballad. Compared to past GNR ballads, it is definitely no Estranged or November Rain, it's probably a few notches below Don't Cry.

[The Ghost of bps21 0]

I loved Sorry. I had to turn it off because it was scratching loudly after a minute...but I loved it.

[BUTT 0]

Catcher isn't the same. Brian May's guitar solo has been replaced with a shitty one by one of other guitarists. "The Blues" now has guitar in the beginning of the song, somewhat like it had on the 2002 tour, but also...not really like it all. Hard to explain.

It's not hard to explain. There's no drums, bass or lead guitar. Just one rhythm.

[UZI Suicide 0]

Yeah, I guess that really wasn't too hard to explain.

[Use Your Illusion 0]

Oh My God is pretty cool, although I don't think it's better than Slither. Put the music aside though, those lyrics are awesome.

 

So it's leaked, hey? Not touching it until the album is released. I need *some* new material to listen to for the first time.

 

UYI

 

P.S Uzi, you bought into hype from SEBASTIAN BACH?

[UZI Suicide 0]

Oh My God is pretty cool, although I don't think it's better than Slither. Put the music aside though, those lyrics are awesome.

 

So it's leaked, hey? Not touching it until the album is released. I need *some* new material to listen to for the first time.

 

UYI

 

P.S Uzi, you bought into hype from SEBASTIAN BACH?

 

See, I think the riff on Slither is awesome. It's catchy as fuck, the kind of riff I could listen to over and over without tiring, but the lyrics make no fucking sense. I find that to be the case for many of Velvet Revolver's songs, while I find it to be the opposite for many of the NuGNR songs (some decent songwriting, structure, but the musicianship just isn't there).

 

I shouldn't have bought into the hype. If Bach says something is good, that means it probably sucks. If he says it's great, it's probably average. He says its amazing, then it's probably just good. But he made it sound like the mind blowing, earth-shattering song ever so I was at least expecting a good-to-great song. I just don't like it though.

[1234-5678 0]

Can someone throw me the new leaks?

[Use Your Illusion 0]

I haven't heard a Weiland song that makes any damn sense lyrically, VR minus Scott Weiland is a great thing.

 

Impressions on the leaks, JAxl, when you get 'em. I'm still holdin' out!

[1234-5678 0]

Found em on youtube. They're all chopped up, skipping, etc. If that makes sense. I really can't form an impression, "This I Love" sounds remarkable though.

[jimmy no nose 0]

I finally got clean versions of Sorry and Scraped. I only listened to them once earlier, didn't get much of a feel for them, but I definitely liked Scraped a lot better on first listen.

 

My favorite thing I've heard from the album so far, though, is the Shackler's Revenge vocal track someone took off the Rock Band game. It rules.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQLueq5o3gE

 

[BUTT 0]

Clean as in no AIM beeps or other such chicanery? Where'd you find that?

[1234-5678 0]

I finally got clean versions of Sorry and Scraped. I only listened to them once earlier, didn't get much of a feel for them, but I definitely liked Scraped a lot better on first listen.

 

My favorite thing I've heard from the album so far, though, is the Shackler's Revenge vocal track someone took off the Rock Band game. It rules.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQLueq5o3gE

 

 

Can you send me those leaks? You don't have a clean "This I Love" though?

 

[1234-5678 0]

November 10th, 2008

 

Guns N' Roses

Chinese Democracy

RS: 4of 5 Stars

2008

 

Let's get right to it: 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. In other words, it sounds a lot like the Guns n' Roses you know. At times, it's the clenched-fist five that made 1987's perfect storm, Appetite for Destruction; more often, it's the one sprawled across the maxed-out CDs of 1991's Use Your Illusion I and II, but here compressed into a convulsive single disc of supershred guitars, orchestral fanfares, hip-hop electronics, metallic tabernacle choirs and Axl Rose's still-virile, rusted-siren singing.

 

 

If Rose ever had a moment's doubt or repentance over what Chinese Democracy has cost him in time (13 years), money (14 studios are listed in the credits) and body count — including the exit of every other founding member of the band — he left no room for it in these 14 songs. "I bet you think I'm doin' this all for my health," Rose cracks through the saturation-bombing guitars in "I.R.S.," one of several glancing references on the album to what he knows a lot of people think of him: that Rose, now 46, has spent the last third of his life running off the rails, in half-light. But when he snaps, "All things are possible/I am unstoppable," in the thumper "Scraped," that's not loony hubris — just a good old rock & roll "fuck you," the kind that made him and the old band hot and famous in the first place.

 

 

Something else Rose broadcasts over and over on Chinese Democracy: Restraint is for suckers. There is plenty of familiar guitar firepower — the stabbing-dagger lick that opens the first track, "Chinese Democracy," the sand-devil fuzz in "Riad N' the Bedouins" and the looping squeals over the grand anguish of "Street of Dreams." But what Slash and Izzy Stradlin used to do with two guitars now takes a wall of 'em. On some tracks, Rose has up to five guys — Robin Finck, Buckethead, Paul Tobias, Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal and Richard Fortus — riffing and soloing in broad, saw-toothed blurs. And that's no drag.

I still think the wild, superstuffed "Oh My God" — the early Chinese Democracy track wasted on the 1999 End of Days soundtrack — beats everything on Guns n' Roses' 1993 covers album, The Spaghetti Incident?

 

Most of these songs also go through multiple U-turns in personality, as if Rose kept trying new approaches to a hook or a bridge and then decided, "What the hell, they're all cool." "Better" starts with what sounds like hip-hop voicemail — severely pinched guitar, drum machine and a near-falsetto Rose ("No one ever told me when/I was alone/They just thought I'd know better") — before blowing up into vintage Sunset Strip wallop. "If the World" has Buckethead plucking acoustic Spanish guitar over a blaxploitation-film groove, while Rose shows that he still holds a long-breath vowel — part torture victim, part screaming jet — like no other rock singer.

 

 

And there is so much going on in "There Was a Time" — strings and Mellotron, a full-strength choir and Rose's overdubbed sour-growl harmonies, wah-wah guitar and a false ending (more choir) — that it's easy to believe Rose spent most of the past decade on that arrangement alone. But it is never a mess, more like a loud mass of bad memories and hard lessons. In the first lines, Rose goes back to a beginning much like his own — "Broken glass and cigarettes/ Writin' on the wall/It was a bargain for the summer/An' I thought I had it all" — then piles on the wreckage along with the orchestra and guitars. By the end, it's one big melt of missing and kiss-off ("If I could go back in time . . . But I don't want to know it now"). If this is the Guns n' Roses that Rose kept hearing in his head all this time, it is obvious why two guitars, bass and drums were never going to be enough.

 

 

It is plain, too, that he thinks this Guns n' Roses is a band, as much as the one that recorded "Welcome to the Jungle," "Sweet Child O' Mine," "Used to Love Her" and "Civil War." The voluminous credits that come with Chinese Democracy certainly give detailed credit where it is due. My favorite: "Initial arrangement suggestions: Youth on 'Madagascar." Rose takes the big one — "Lyrics N' Melodies by Axl Rose" — but shares full-song bylines with other players on all but one track. Bassist Tommy Stinson plays on nearly every song, and keyboardist Dizzy Reed, the only survivor from the Illusion lineup, does the Elton John-style piano honors on "Street of Dreams.

"

 

But Rose still sings a lot about the power of sheer, solitary will even when he throws himself into a bigger fight, like "Chinese Democracy." In "Madagascar," which Rose has played live for several years now, he samples both Dr. Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech and dialogue from Cool Hand Luke. And at the end of the album, on the bluntly titled "Prostitute," Rose veers from an almost conversational tenor, over a ticking-bomb shuffle, to five-guitar barrage, orchestral lightning and righteous howl: "Ask yourself/Why I would choose/To prostitute myself/To live with fortune and shame." To him, the long march to Chinese Democracy was not about paranoia and control. It was about saying "I won't" when everyone else insisted, "You must." You may debate whether any rock record is worth that extreme self-indulgence. Actually, the most rock & roll thing about Chinese Democracy is he doesn't care if you do.

 

 

DAVID FRICKE

 

(Posted: Nov 27, 2008)

 

Thanks to HTGTH

[Use Your Illusion 0]

That's a great closing line there. Awesome review, really positive.

 

Not long to go now...

[Use Your Illusion 0]

http://www.q1043.com/pages/news/gunsnroses/better.html

 

The brand new 'single', if you want to call it that, from Chinese Democracy - Better. Now with new drum and guitar parts.

 

Oh, you better believe it's fuckin' slick. This is the new Guns N' Roses right here.

[1234-5678 0]

There is absolutely no reason for this song to not catch fire.

[Black Lushus 0]

Much better than the title track...can't wait for Sunday! (It's Sunday, right?)