"Completely unbearable," Dod readily admitted.
And Cameron? He wasn't even aware that the infamous never-to-see-the-light-of-day-nevermind-a-whiskey-bar-jukebox-near-you album by Guns N' Roses had actually dropped earlier that morning in physical form exclusively at Best Buy. His reaction during the start of a third track? "I wish that he had put this shit out back in 1996 so that he could have moved on to different material for the past decade."
Oh, how the criticism stung. At least a little bit. Somewhere deep inside I was taking this affront personally. My take? I'd listened through the entire CD twice already and had quickly managed my own expectations. I knew that "If The World" was inexusable pap unworthy of my beloved G N' R of old. I'd heard it during the closing credits of Ridley Scott's fall picture Body of Lies a month earlier. Things certainly didn't bode well then for the supposedly impending Second Coming. But that's just the problem. Or a glaring one amongst many inherent to the project/product of W. Axl Rose, the J.D. Salinger of the Sunset Strip. Listening to the entirety of Chinese Democracy is an exercise in "you can never go home again" philosophy. It isn't the creative output of the band most remember as Guns N' Roses. It isn't a kindred spirit to Appetite for Destruction, G N' R Lies, or the sprawling 2 1/2 hours of material contained within the Use Your Illusion CDs (although it does often bear more than a passing resemblance to the Illusions era palate). While the still-remaining patient fans can now celebrate the sheer reality that there actually is a new Guns N' Roses record, I am left wondering what Slash, Duff and Izzy think. If Axl is G N' R's manic obsessive mastermind (and, legally, sole owner of the brand name) then those three were the core pulse of the band itself. Chinese Democracy is essentially one very expensive Axl Rose solo project. If nothing else, let's at least be clear on this point.
So how's the album?
It's all right. Not half bad. Certainly not terrible. This isn't glowing praise, I know, yet it's preposterous to consider that Chuck Klosterman gave it an "A-" and claimed that at least three songs are "astonishing" while never making clear exactly which three songs he's referring to. Klosterman -- an amusing rock critic, renowned pop journalist and, most importantly, a contemporary in my rock 'n roll enthusiasm -- is thoroughly blinded by the light. He's delirious. His review, published in The Onion's non-satirical A/V section, is pointedly humorous and at times spot on in its dissection of the man (Rose), his demons, and resulting musical endeavors. But Klosterman's self-admitted notion that "There is no one in the world more qualified to review the exhaustingly anticipated new Guns N' Roses album than he is" tells me everything that I need to know. That is, here's a review written from the perspective of a slightly jaded but still forgiving 15-year-old Guns N' Roses fan listening to the album alone in his bedroom. I recognize that kid.
Chinese Democracy often sounds like the logical follow-up to the Use Your Illusion albums both in scope and scale. It's there in the lengthy, bombastic arrangements of "Madagascar" and "There Was A Time." The penultimate track, a treacly ballad titled "This I Love," is a distant relative of either rendition of "Don't Cry" but that doesn't mean that it's any good. Arrested adolescence served Rose reasonably well at 28. A seasoned artist in his 40's should know better than to release such a song under the guise of rock 'n roll. "Prostitute" has a pretty solid melody and a looped drum beat that wouldn't have sounded out of place back in the early '90's. It's eerily similar to the beat Lenny Kravitz devised for Madonna's "Justify My Love." Too bad that the unremarkable guitars are credited to five (five!) different guitarists. The album is awash in faceless technical proficiency and studio wizardry of the Pro Tools era. (No transparent admissions located in the liner notes as to Rose's propensity for vocal processing along with every other instrument, but odds are his vocals are a little more than wet.) Had Rose not only conceived but also executed 2008's Chinese Democracy in the age of analog the current result would have been a remarkably impressive sonic feat. The fact that "Shackler's Revenge" is a digital mishmash of the highest order doesn't make it any less disappointing once you realize that it bears no resemblance to the band that once tore it up as an in-the-flesh five piece both at the clubs and in the studio. So many of the tracks on this album sound stylistically dated because they are dated. To deliberately release this collection as a "new" album 15 years or so after the first tracks were stored on a hard drive does a disservice to much of the material. New doesn't exactly mean fresh in this instance.
But there are moments, people! Moments of fleeting glory. "Catcher in the Rye" is a minor gem amidst the rubble with a shuffle boogie verse and a chorus punctuated by sing-a-long "nana na's" and layered guitar soloing that verges on inspired rather than obligatory. Faint praise, yes, but praise nonetheless. "I.R.S." is sinister enough by design: gloomy chords, paranoid lyrics delivered with a patented snarl, and shredding dialed in from notables Robin Finck and Buckethead. It's a deep cut worth listening to on a record that all too often feels like an entire collection of deep cuts. "Better" moves from falsetto singsong to headbanging crunch to engaging bridges and back again with surprising ease. I just don't want to think about how many years it took to complete the recording or consider the fact that twelve others in addition to Rose are credited with the writing, arranging, playing, programming and editing. "Street of Dreams" is pretty cool for what sounds like an outtake from Use Your Illusion II complete with its Elton John piano and earnest vocal. Just be sure to ignore the embellished crescendo at the very end that makes you wonder at the last second, "Wait, was I just listening to G N' R or a Broadway musical?"
There's a school of thought that suggests Axl Rose would benefit from another heroin binge on the strip with actual band mates and a penniless bank account, but alas you can never go home again. I remember reading a piece in Rolling Stone back when the Illusions were released where Izzy Stradlin stated that he first heard the track "My World" (in retrospect the first Axl solo track, sampled and programmed, on a proper G N' R album) and thought "What the hell is that?" Axl seized full control of the ship beginning in 1991 and apparently never looked back. Stradlin wisely salvaged his dignity and sanity by jumping overboard soon thereafter, and one by one the remaining core members were either dismissed or quit in subsequent years. It's hard to imagine a reunion along the lines of the recently successful tour staged by The Police. It's even harder to imagine Slash, Duff & Izzy making any effort to learn much if any of Chinese Democracy. Somewhere Stradlin is still clutching his well-worn copy of Exile on Main Street and recalls the days when he and his childhood buddy from Indiana formed an honest and true rock 'n roll band in the seedy clubs of Los Angeles while breaking the mold of hard rock for all future generations. Somewhere Slash is shirtless and swigging from a bottle of Jack while effortlessly conjuring guitar magic with a lit cigarette dangling between his lips. Perhaps Duff is jamming there with him.
And somewhere in the posh hills looking down over Hollywood, secluded in a hermetically sealed recording studio with no one but hired guns to keep him company or assist him in music making, Axl Rose still thinks he has a band called Guns N' Roses. And somehow he thinks it still matters.
