Published at 11:45 AM on October 23, 2008

By Steve LaBate

Finally: the first single from Guns N' Roses' comically overdue Chinese Democracy. But is there still a place in rock for Axl Rose?

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The final verdict on Chinese Democracy will have to wait until the finished album hits shelves (available Nov. 23, exclusively at Best Buy), but all the early signs point to it being the most over-the-top vanity project in rock history, rather than a carefully constructed masterwork. Axl might be holding the GN'R moniker hostage, but this new single doesn’t feel much like his old band. The one-minute-plus sound-collage intro is pretentious in a way GN'R never was, even when considering the more grand orchestral and conceptual scope of the Use Your Illusion albums. And while Axl’s voice sounds as strong as ever on “Chinese Democracy,” the painfully fussed-over music sullies the old GN'R sound with hints of Nine Inch Nails-esque industrial rock, Marilyn Manson-style theatrical pomp and suffocatingly compressed nü-metal power-chordage, even slotting in the kind of flashy attention-whore guitar solo Slash would probably scoff at.

It also doesn’t help Axl’s case that these are just different times. Back in GN'R’s heyday, there was a conspicuous lack of irony in pop music. The hyper-self-consciousness we see today hadn’t yet seeped into the rock mainstream. Hair-metal bands were just too dumb, high, drunk and overrun with bleach-blonde groupies to wonder how they were being perceived. After the navel-gazing and ironic detachment of the ’90s (which has reached critical mass in our culture over the last decade), the new Chinese Democracy single's lyrics seem unforgivingly silly:

If they were missionaries

Real time visionaries

Sitting in a Chinese stew

To view my disinfatuation

I know that I’m a classic case

Watch my disenchanted face …

Cause it would take a lot more time than you

Have got for masturbation

Even with your iron fist

All they've got to rule the nation …

This song is still living in that world of 20 years ago, when you could get away with lyrics this ridiculous—even when they weren’t the least bit tongue-in-cheek. And, sonically, the music is in a mid-’90s vaccum. Sure, in ’94 or ’95, it might’ve been a coup for GN'R to begin incorporating the influences of then-cutting edge acts like NIN and Manson, but in 2008, the sounds Axl is aping no longer sound fresh—hell, they’re practically classic rock at this point.

All of this is sad because, once upon a time, GN'R was such an important, vital band, and its larger-than-life frontman was a big part of the draw. But I don’t know if there’s a place for Axl Rose in today’s post-post-post-everything musical landscape. For Axl, Chinese Democracy is what Smile was to Brian Wilson—a creative albatross around his neck, an unfinished masterpiece weighing him down for a pretty huge chunk of his adult life, tarnishing his legacy, making him into a caricature. Unless the rest of Chinese Democracy is a huge improvement over the title track, there won’t be the same happy ending for Axl that there was for Wilson when he finally released Smile to critical acclaim in 2004.

With his former bandmates’ momentous contributions to the GN'R sound notoriously absent (especially the songwriting input of Stradlin); without all of the old lineup’s chemistry and electricity—you’re left with the bland, personality-starved ghost of a once-great band.

At this point, it seems like the best thing for Axl to do would be to make nice with Slash, Duff, Izzy and the gang, and go out on tour every few years to play the classic GN'R material for anyone who missed it the first time around. There would be no shame in that. To paraphrase what Slash told childhood friend Marc Canter in Canter’s Guns N’ Roses book Reckless Road, to make even one album as good as Appetite For Destruction—a classic record that people will be listening to for years, that had a huge impact on rock music when it was released, and that is now part of a tradition that includes the likes of the Stones, Led Zeppelin and The Stooges—is enough.

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8 Comments

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By Dreux on October 23, 2008

Steve,

You hit the nail on the head with this one and I know exactly where you're coming from. I'm a 30 y/o professional who has cherished GNR through the years (I even met Slash, Duff, and Matt twice!) and am cringing at this release.

I wish they'd put a notice sticker on the album cover saying something like "Warning: Original Members Not on This Album. Axl Only"

I truly would feel different if it was known as an Axl Solo record.

And for anyone who's heard the leaks, listen to the words. It should of been called the "Axl misses Stephanie Seymore" record since most of it seems to be written about her.

Excellent work....I hope this article spreads!

By Jeff on October 23, 2008

I would have to agree and disagree... Like the poster above, I also am a 31yr old GNR fan since the begining, and why this isn't the orignal band, I think the die hards knows this.

Can we not look at this as Axl Rose releasing an album under the name we have grown to love. I would never compare this to the first 5 GNR records, as it is a different lineup, different writers.

Axl is a good song writer, and I have heard the rest of the demos out there and as Chinese Democracy is one of the better songs on the album, there are other tunes that I think are equally as good.

Yes it has been a long drawn out process, and do I wish it was 1988 again and we could see the original 5 tearing it up on stage? You Betcha!

But it's not that way... Move on, get over the fact that they arent together and stop taking the easy approach and slam Axl becuase that is what the rest of the media is doing.

By Tom Mularz on October 23, 2008

Steve LaBate is an idiot. Wouldn't know good music if it slapped him upside the head. This isn't the 80's moron. It's a differant era, and a differant band. I'm sorry, but I saw GNR 2 years ago and it was one of the best shows I've seen. Yes I saw them back in the 80's and they kicked ass then too. And it really is only axl that matters. Axl's voice is the band. Anyone can play guitar..(sorry slash), but it's the voice that carries the band. For example..Black Sabbath. They sucked without ozzy. Need I say more. Chinese Democracy is a great song. Can't seem to get enough of it. Better than anything I've heard on the radio in at least the last 10 years. And Steve LaBate, as Axl would say.. Suck my fuckin' Dick Asshole!

By TannerL on October 24, 2008

Nice post.

Axl missed his window for re-entry, and it's evident with this weak song. I barely made it through the 1:30 intro.

Sure, we fans would have been satisfied recollecting in tranquility the emotions GNR stirred in all of us back in the day. Like poetry with a python and a cigarette dangling from its mouth.

I think we would have even jumped on his train if there wasn't this enormous gap of time. Think about it: Third graders eventually applied to grad school while he fine-tuned his masterpiece.

I even think we would have been appeased talking about Chinese Conspiracy in "what-ifs" for the rest of our lives. It could have been that now-weedy plot of land cleared out on the old bypass that never saw a brick of development. Sure, it once was prime, but we all understood why no pipes were plumbed. No concrete poured. We all understood.

Now we have to confront this garbage, hear it, and judge it in its context.

Watch OUR disenchanted faces, Mr. Rose.

By Erick on October 24, 2008

Ive seen guns in '88, '92 and '06 and let me tell you they sound fuller than ever before. and i think everyone who saw them in 2006 has agreed on that. Guns n roses has ALWAYS been a revolving group of players and any real guns fan would know that and the only one that has been at the forefront and better judgement of direction of it has been axl. and so rightfully so, axl saw fit that what ever happened to the GNR name he would make sure the fans could still get good solid proud of rock music from the band and not let it become something that would have sold out the name and hes done just that. And i could care less who buys the record cuz i know those songs are grand and i would benefit by seeing one of rocks biggest band and frontman up close and personal in smaller theater settings as oppose to killing my self trying to catch them at stadiums like back in the day. What you guys need to do is grow up and listen to the music and not some reckless behavior they used embrace. cuz you dont live like that anymore anyways too. so why should they? the are musicians and so listen to thier art. and like the commenter TOM said, axl is still bad ass and would invite you still to suck his F'n d*ck!!

By Rob on October 24, 2008

Of course there's still a place for Axl. He's still got a lot of fans, if a lot of detractors. Listen, no one else would try something this big and dramatic and pretentious. So, that makes it something unique, I think. Everybody won't like it. It isn't subtle, at all. But there's a place for it.

Now, I have to defend the guy. You transcribed his lyrics wrong and then slammed them. Nice. Listen, sure he's not Yeats, but his lyrics are better than say and they sound good when he sings them. That's the point. Pop music isn't about the lyrics. One of the big mistakes in the modern world is adoring lyricists as if they had any literary talent. They don't. None of them do. It isn't ironic, who cares? Axl Rose needs to write songs like Of Montreal now?

Now, you cut on Axl for sounding like Nine Inch Nails. Come on. This sounds very little like Nine Inch Nails. You've got Of Montreal on the magazine cover and their new record is basically late 90s Beck and Sly Stone and the Beatles tossed together. It's still cool. But Axl isn't allowed to use computers?

So it doesn't sound like what you liked before you got too cool for Axl. That's fine, but it doesn't mean it's a bad song.

By Steve LaBate on October 24, 2008

OK, so I corrected those few misheard lyrics, but I still think they're hilariously bad! Thanks for all the comments, though. I appreciate this kind of amped-up, fiery discussion... even from the people who wanna hurl nasty insults quoted from GN'R's "Get in the Ring" at me. Hell, I love that song!

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