In case you haven’t heard, the new Guns N’ Roses album, Chinese Democracy, is finally out we thought we’d give it a listen. Especially considering the whole album is streaming for free on MySpace. While listening to the album, we thought it would be better to review the other Online reviews. This is Chinese Democracy: A Review of the Reviews. We hope you enjoy.
The Onion A.V. Club had Chuck Klosterman review the album. They said nobody is more qualified to review Chinese Democracy than Klosterman is. Here’s how he starts.
Reviewing Chinese Democracy is not like reviewing music. It’s more like reviewing a unicorn. Should I primarily be blown away that it exists at all? Am I supposed to compare it to conventional horses? To a rhinoceros? Does its pre-existing mythology impact its actual value, or must it be examined inside a cultural vacuum, as if this creature is no more (or less) special than the remainder of the animal kingdom?
Chuck Klosterman needs to relax. We get it. You like this metal band a lot. They took a really long time to come out with an album. I’d guess most people just want to know if they should bother buying it. You know, whether or not you know if it’s a unicorn or whatever. Or “when that grizzly bear finally ate Timothy Treadwell.” Time said, “Why should I — a guy who doesn’t like Guns n’ Roses or heavy metal — review Chinese Democracy? Because I have it. The cool kids cutting class and smoking in the woods have no choice but to let me hang out now.” Great. Can we make all the reviews about you, the guy who writes reviews for whatever magazine? That’s exactly what people want. They want to know about you and not the album. Rolling Stone, on the other hand starts by saying “Let’s get right to it.” Thank you.
We can also deal with less “historical content” bullshit. Or what Axl Rose’s motives were. Save that for an article or documentary or something. Let’s see how good or shitty this really is…
Track 1: Chinese Democracy
This is why we don’t review music. Klosterman calls the song “sprawling and entertaining and profoundly impressive.” Rolling Stone says it has a “stabbing-dagger” lick. They’re like Eskimos with 40 terms for riffs and licks. Gross. The BBC says the guitar riff is “speaker-endangering” and that it shoots off in hundreds of different directions, “encompassing growled, paranoiac verses, off-kilter digital squeals and an anthemic chorus.” All we hear is garbled noise. We don’t get it.
Track 2: Shackler’s Revenge
Axl is the firestarter, twisted firestarter. He’s more human than human. Entertainment Weekly says it’s blistering and “rides a sinister riff to headbanging heaven”. Eskimos! The BBC suggests that Axl’s guitars were in influenced by Rage Against the Machine or Muse. Kind of. Klosterman’s hyperbole continues by saying “it becomes the sonic equivalent of a Russian robot wrestling a reticulating python.” It just really sounds like Prodigy fucking White Zombie. But our feet were tapping.
Track 3: Better
Rolling Stone says it starts off by sounding like “hip-hop voicemail” before blowing up into the vintage Sunset Strip sound. Time says it starts like a Rihanna/rap song. Everyone likes this song. We do too. One for three.
Track 4: Street of Dreams
Chuck Klosterman was the only reviewer we’ve read that liked this one. He talks about it being uplifting and mentions Axl’s “grand anguish.” Rolling Stone and the BBC both said he sounds like Elton John. That’s not all that true. The BBC pretty much hated it. They call it cheesy, terribly overwrought and said Axl oversings so much that he would make somebody auditioning for the UK show, X Factor, cringe. It’s not that bad. The Time guy liked it, but that’s because they probably like the Broadway genre they compare it to. We admit we dig it.
Track 5: If The World
Rolling Stone compares it to a blaxploitation film soundtrack. Klosterman thinks it sounds like a Roger Moore-era James Bond movie song. The Time reviewer pictures an ’80’s metal chick having sex to it. Because it does totally sound like all that stuff, but mostly a vintage porn soundtrack. But in an awesome way.
Track 6: There Was A Time
Do we really need walls of guitar, a symphony and a hip-hop beat on this one? Rolling Stone says there’s a lot going on, including “strings and Mellotron, a full-strength choir and Rose’s overdubbed sour-growl harmonies, wah-wah guitar and a false ending (more choir).” The BBC echoes that. Again, it’s just a lot of noise. You can really dumb it down, Axl.
Track 7: Catcher in the Rye
Only two reviewers have touched this one, so boo to everybody else. Entertainment Weekly think it’s GNR at their best. Klosterman calls it “exceptionally satisfying” and puts the song in an Elton John/Queen category, but in a good way. That’s three Elton John comparisons so far, if you’re counting at home. But we admit we kinda liked this one.
Track 8: Scraped
Nobody really wanted to talk about this one. Rolling Stone called it a “thumper”. This one goes in the “filler” category.
Track 9: Riad N’ The Bedouins
The guy in Time is right. He kinda sounds like Robert Plant in “Kashmir” for part of it, but the rest really sucks. Rolling Stone can talk about “firepower” and “sand-devil fuzz” all they want. It’s like guitars barfing for four minutes. Come on.
Track 10: Sorry
Chuck Klosterman and the BBC both reviewed this one. Klosterman says it resembles spooky Pink Floyd. The BBC says it sounds like Pink Floyd covered by Metallica. We think it just kinda sounds like a Queensryche deep cut. Then the BBC says it sounds ridiculous. We agree. Klosterman does the BBC one better by saying Axl sings in a quasi-Transylvanian/Mexican vampire voice. Then he wonders why he chose the sound and wonders which of Axl’s enemies the song is about. We don’t care. We’d care more if the song was better. What’s going on in the middle here?
Track 11: IRS
Jesus Christ, everyone loves this one. Everyone. We think it’s because it sounds like old GNR. Time even says you could sneak it into a Greatest Hits album and no one would notice. And it doesn’t have 65 layers of strings and shit. The BBC calls it “lean and compact, edited down to the bare essentials, packing the maximum punch per pound.” It might just be a nice break from a few shit songs in a row.
Track 12: Madagascar
A lot’s being made of the MLK and Cool Hand Luke samples. Time calls it crappy and boring. Seriously. Although it doesn’t quite accomplish what it aspires (and no, it doesn’t need the Manheim Steamroller horns), it’s not too crappy. Still gets a ‘meh’.
Track 13: This I Love
Klosterman calls it, “sad, melodramatic, and pleasurably traditional.” This one transitions between classic Axl screamy voice and his new vampire character that we don’t much care for. At least it doesn’t sound exactly like old hair metal or new shit metal. But it’s weird. We just don’t know yet if it’s good weird.
Track 14: Prostitute
Nobody really cares about this one. Probably because they’ve already gotten out the point about the album. This one won’t make or break your opinion.
Chuck Klosterman says, “Three of the songs are astonishing. Four or five others are very good.” Entertainment Weekly says, “At times it’s possible to hear the world-changing CD that Rose… must have had in his tightly braided skull all these years.” Klosterman wins for having the best and the worst review. Probably because (much like we did here) he wrote a Harry Potter novel-sized review. Bottom line: 1/3 is really, really good. The other 2/3 is not worth it. So, in other words, it’s like CDs used to be in 1993 or whenever their last album was. Just go to the MySpace.
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