Estranged Reality, on 08 December 2008 - 02:16 AM, said:
Here's the thing -- Axl's no genius. He's not a great lyricist. He's not a musical pioneer. He's just a great rock n' roll frontman who had a knack for good pop-rock songs, serious revivalism of rock n' roll from the Led Zep/Stones era (as opposed to the tongue-in-cheek Van Halen-style updatings of Led Zep that had given birth to the theatrics of KISS and Crue), and a Bowie-like ear for musical trends, which is why GN'R managed to stay relevant for as long as it did in an ever-changing musical climate. People say grunge killed GN'R - but they forget that Axl foresaw the rise of grunge as far back as '90 when he was asking Cobain to open for them. He knew it was coming -- he just didn't know how to adapt to it, and maybe part of the reason he seems to despise Slash so much nowadays is that Slash wouldn't follow him into the trend. He knew rap was going to become big - the NWA caps were being worn before it was cool to name-drop NWA - and he also foresaw the industrial era -- that's why the rumours of ChiDem's industrial sound came about -- but he was too slow to actually release anything until after the fact, in 1999, when it seemed stale and derivative of Nine Inch Nails, and musical climate had already moved on to the industrial-parody of Limp Bizkit, which in a way mirrored how Van Halen had taken the legitimate stadium rock genre and had some fun with it a couple decades before (the difference being: Van Halen were great, whereas Limp Bizkit sucked bigdick).
I digress... the point is, Axl's never been a great innovator or a great musical genius or lyricist. He wrote from the heart - often a very naive and idealistic heart, mind, which made the songs more endearing. But Axl's J.D. Salinger-like seclusion has given him an air of self-importance, like he wants people to think he's a misunderstood genius, even if - truth be told - he never wanted people to believe that at all and just needed "some time all alone" for himself. The industry doesn't work like that -- if you alienate yourself from your old bandmembers, become a recluse in your mansion: you're a misunderstood genius. That's how they label you (Hughes, Salinger, Malick - they all got the label).
Axl's problem is that he isn't a misunderstood genius, he's just a really talented rock n' roll frontman who had personal issues that he obviously needed time to deal with, but his silence created a myth surrounding the music as well as the personality, and the years of seclusion have created lofty ambitions that could have never been met. At the end of the day, Chinese Democracy is just a good rock n' roll album - ambitious, yes; not life-changing, not a pioneering album. It sounds like Guns N' Roses, for the most part, but that's not enough for people who have waited almost two decades. Axl, whether he wanted to or not, created a myth around himself that wasn't accurate; and in his failure to live up to this myth, he has delivered what most people will consider - despite its consistent quality - to be a disappointment.
It makes people ask: if all this time he was just making a Guns N' Roses album, why the long wait? Why alienate all the other bandmembers? If his plan all along was just to update their sound a bit, but not really push boundaries or go full-on crazy (and trust me, nothing here is that musically off-the-wall), why the long wait? Why the silence? Why the myth? Why the hype? It creates an unavoidable sense of questioning and doubt that this album can't survive, no matter how good it is. Drug the GN'R name through the mud? No. Created questions for most people as to why the last 17 years went the way they did? Yes. Chuck Klosterman had the right idea.
And I just want to add that I'm not saying it's a bad album. It's a very good album. It's probably the second-best GN'R album overall, and the most consistent of all the albums. But that doesn't change what I've mentioned above, which is why I believe it has basically been written off by non-fans as a good album, but also a non-event.
this post got me pregnant.
i voted no. everybody knows chinese democracy era guns n roses is different than original era. if you dont like CD, thats fine, it does nothing to tarnish the old band.
if your going to make this argument i think its better to say, has axl destoryed his own name? everybody knows gnr is the axl rose show, gnr isnt representing AFD but rather tis represnting axl himself at this point.
anyone who cant seperate the original from the new needs to lighten up.
there should be a thread "is slash ruining the gnr name by playing with fergie and PCD?" at least CD was good, dont make me link to the BEP performance of SCOM.
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