Why is Chinese Democracy so hated?

[WhazUp]

I don't think CD is "hated" literally except for the petty GNR people who go on and on about how it ain't "real GNR" and like politicians they take sides

CD though I would say was a mixture of overproduction and not being able to live up to the hype, as well as just not having any real hit songs on it.  There are some enjoyable moments on the album for sure, but it definitely suffered in the songwriting department

[F*ck Fear]

I think it's a few things.

1) It took way too long to create, and release.

2) Slash N' Duff were not on it.

3) It sounds nothing like the original Guns N' Roses.

4) People like to build shit up, and tear it down.

[RONIN]

20 hours ago, DieselDaisy said:

Auto-tuned. I've long suspected Rose's vocals have been auto-tuned on that album, ''If the World'' especially so.

Auto tune, 90's vocals from the vault, and a handful of studio sessions between '06-08 when he got some semblance of his old voice back = Chinese Democracy.

It would behoove Axl and his moronic management team to have any forthcoming GnR album () consist of the old demos that have his vintage 90's vocals instead of auto-tuning his current vocals. Hope springs eternal.

[Daron]

Axls's awful vocals.

Axls's mickey howling almost in every song.

[F*ck Fear]

There are songs on Chinese Democracy that feature some of Axl's finest vocal moments.  Riad, and TWAT are the first to come to mind.

[AXL_N_DIZZY]

Didn’t get out at various points when the market would have been most receptive (i.e. 99-02, 06). Needed a couple more “Better”-type songs to carry the record and not have them leak. The “stars”/feature performers (i.e. Bucket/Finck) on the record (aside from Axl) were gone- which serves to dampen enthusiasm when you’re hearing something you like (e.g. some casuals I knew who were banging on Axl for missing Slash started knocking him for allegedly running Bucket off too). Takes much more time than most IMHO for the songs to get “familiar”, etc.

That said- I personally love Chinese. If not the songs as individual units per se- the musicianship and many of the performances on their own are incredible IMHO. Right there with UYI II for me. 

 

Edited January 29, 2018 by AXL_N_DIZZY

[gunsguy]

I personally love CD but it hit me at a time where I connected with it.  I understand why others may not dig it.  For me personally I do, I listen to it often myself

[default_]

I like half of the tracks on it. Casuals/non hardcore fans dont really care for the overproduction, they cant make a difference of it or for the ammount of time it took to be released, Id say most of the people wouldnt even know Slash wasnt on the record lol

The problem is: The music. Everybody expected a rock record from GUNS N ROSES and Chinese Democracy wanst really that. The album is weird and thats a fact, we cant arguee about that. Had they released an album before it that would show some signs of a change on the sound of the band, it might have been looked with another kind of judgment, but the change was huge and subtle.
There is difference from AFD to UYI? Yeah, but it isnt that much and in the middle we had LIES showing another side of the band. Of course, UYI was still a rock n roll record that aligned with the influences they've always showed to the public: Queen, Aerosmith, Zeppelin, Stones, so the impact of it wasnt that big.
And there were huge, great songs, easy listening on it.

CD is hard to listen, it would never hit the fanbase of a simple band like Guns N' Roses cause it isnt what Guns N' Roses fans are looking for. GNR fanbase cant relate to it.

Edited January 29, 2018 by default_

[El Guapo]

It's just not that good. It's not even a real album, it's just stuff put together with maybe a handful of good songs somewhere in there. Not Guns N' Roses at all, imo. 

[Order of Nine]

It's beyond the 80s nostalgia trip that most guns fans haven't gotten past or grown out of. I'm so glad Axl didn't sell out and do what the industry and fans wanted. Maybe 10 or 15 years from now when people realize that there aren't any real deal rock acts around the "hardcore" fans will appreciate someone that did things on his own terms. 

[auad]

On 27/01/2018 at 7:29 PM, Draguns said:

As an old time GNR fan, I can see why people didn't like it. First off is the obvious: no Slash nor any of the original GNR was on that album. It 's tough to change a band musically when a whole generation grew up on the original. It was never going to succeed because people have an image of the band. Axl wasn't going to be able to replace that image with guys who looked like they didn't belong. You had a weirdo dressed up in a Michael Meyers mask with a KFC bucket on his head that uses a puppet to talk.   You had another clown dressed up in an alien outfit with half of his head shaved off.  When I saw this during the MTV Awards, I was thinking WTF even though I was excited that Axl was back. The image just didn't suit  GNR. With GNR, you expected cool badasses. Not industrial freaks.

Second part is the music itself. While there are some good songs, none were great.  There some songs that were actually very poor like Scraped and Rhiad. The songs didn't have that memorable hook musically. There weren't  many songs that had memorable riffs like previous GNR material. I was excited and gave it a favorable review when it came out due to Axl coming back. Now, I wouldn't. It's an average album.

Lastly, the time that it took to get the album out. It just took too long even though there were challenges that needed to be overcome. I think if Axl had released as a solo album in 99 or 2000, it would have been viewed more favorably.  

 

this

[Tom2112]

On 27/01/2018 at 11:55 PM, Draguns said:

It's not just because the original Gunners were not there. That's one of many reasons why old school GNR fans didn't like it.

There's a lot of good songs, but not great songs. The song writing was better on AFD, GNR Lies and UYI I and II.  Lyrics wise Axl did some good things on CD. However, musically and production wise, it wasn't as good. This brings up my next point.

Buckethead. There's a reason why the guy has 70 albums and not one great song from them. There was a reason why Bumblefoot was never heard of before CD.  There's a reason why you also have never heard of Robin Fink before GNR and after either. 

Robin finck was in NIN before guns, and people knew him... Not a household name, but we'll known for a rock musician.

Bumblefoot was successfully touring all around the world, had several albums out and had high end endorsements... not a household name, but that was not the intention of you ever listened to his music.

Buckethead, underground certainly but everyone in the know knew of Buckethead and appreciated his ability and his work. Do you consider Victor Wooten a nobody because he hasn't had a hit single or no 1 record? Well on spite of this he records and tours successfully. Just because someone hasn't broke the mainstream does not mean they aren't great musicians/songwriters, arguing otherwise is crazy. So many great acts never manage to make it despite having great songs.

The assertion that everybody was either a nobody or talentless hack is hilarious, and so very easy to pick apart.

Edited January 29, 2018 by Tom2112

[RONIN]

Chinese Democracy should have been an Axl/Buckethead collaboration (as it was intended when he joined) from start to finish just like UYI was mostly an Axl/Slash joint affair.

I'm talking a real collaboration where Axl and Bucket wrote and created together instead of asking Bucket to jam for 40 hrs in a chicken coop and then using 1% of the riffs to chop up in the studio w/ Roy Thomas Baker/Caram. It would have been more cohesive and to be frank, there's nothing Robin and Bumble contributed that Bucket couldn't do 10x better (imho). 

That was the true disappointment of CD for me. If you have a star of Slash's caliber in your lineup - use him. Bucket should be wailing all over that entire album. But then again, Chinese wasn't intended  to be a guitar driven album. So the meat and potatoes 40+ year old mullethead AFD fan isn't going to dig it right from the outset. And because Axl got cold feet and watered the album down to appeal to the classic era fans, the people who wanted to hear more experimental music (Illusion 2 fans) probably felt that Axl didn't push far enough w/ his avant garde guitarist Buckethead. I'm in the latter camp. By trying to appeal to everyone, you end up appealing to no one. Axl already gave the middle finger to the fanbase years ago - he should have just gone all the way and put out a prog rock triple album w/ him and bucket just indulging themselves every which way in 10 minute + art rock epics. 

[Draguns]

1 hour ago, Tom2112 said:

Robin finck was in NIN before guns, and people knew him... Not a household name, but we'll known for a rock musician.

Bumblefoot was successfully touring all around the world, had several albums out and had high end endorsements... not a household name, but that was not the intention of you ever listened to his music.

Buckethead, underground certainly but everyone in the know knew of Buckethead and appreciated his ability and his work. Do you consider Victor Wooten a nobody because he hasn't had a hit single or no 1 record? Well on spite of this he records and tours successfully. Just because someone hasn't broke the mainstream does not mean they aren't great musicians/songwriters, arguing otherwise is crazy. So many great acts never manage to make it despite having great songs.

The assertion that everybody was either a nobody or talentless hack is hilarious, and so very easy to pick apart.

Not necessarily hilarious or easy to pick apart.  It's an opinion. Just like you have yours.

Fact is that Buckethead and Robin Finck didn't belong in GNR. The casual fan never even heard of Robin Finck prior to GNR. In fact most casual fans of NIN, like myself, thought that Trent Reznor did all of the instruments. The casual fan never knew who the people were behind the touring band of NIN. 

As far as Buckethead goes, he is  talented, but  there isn't anything memorable about his music. There's a reason why he's using  a gimmick. 

In regards to Bumblefoot, I like the guy. Out of all of the people in "NU GNR", I want him to succeed the most. He's a Jersey guy who is cool and took a lot of crap from the others. However, he was not known prior to GNR. He didn't do anything that was memorable in regards to CD even though he recently called it a masterpiece.  At least with him, he brought back the GNR spirit. 

One other thing. Why join Guns N' Roses when you are not in it for the money and fame? All three guitarists thought it would help them out with their careers. 

Edited January 30, 2018 by Draguns
more text

[Tom2112]

2 hours ago, Draguns said:

Not necessarily hilarious or easy to pick apart.  It's an opinion. Just like you have yours.

Fact is that Buckethead and Robin Finck didn't belong in GNR. The casual fan never even heard of Robin Finck prior to GNR. In fact most casual fans of NIN, like myself, thought that Trent Reznor did all of the instruments. The casual fan never knew who the people were behind the touring band of NIN. 

As far as Buckethead goes, he is  talented, but  there isn't anything memorable about his music. There's a reason why he's using  a gimmick. 

In regards to Bumblefoot, I like the guy. Out of all of the people in "NU GNR", I want him to succeed the most. He's a Jersey guy who is cool and took a lot of crap from the others. However, he was not known prior to GNR. He didn't do anything that was memorable in regards to CD even though he recently called it a masterpiece.  At least with him, he brought back the GNR spirit. 

One other thing. Why join Guns N' Roses when you are not in it for the money and fame? All three guitarists thought it would help them out with their careers. 

Well, Finck was writing on those albums... it's really beside the point if you and the casuals couldn't don't try to find out who wrote what.

You can argue all day that these guys were nobodies, but if they were nobodies they would absolutely not have been hand picked by one of the biggest bands of all time. Nobody is arguing that they were rockstars or household names, but each one of those guys had a healthy career. Your assessment of success seems to only focus on fame and fortune, but in many musicians eyes success is being able to live off playing music, and all of those guys were doing just that.

 

[RONIN]

3 minutes ago, Tom2112 said:

Well, Finck was writing on those albums... it's really beside the point if you and the casuals couldn't don't try to find out who wrote what.

You can argue all day that these guys were nobodies, but if they were nobodies they would absolutely not have been hand picked by one of the biggest bands of all time. Nobody is arguing that they were rockstars or household names, but each one of those guys had a healthy career. Your assessment of success seems to only focus on fame and fortune, but in many musicians eyes success is being able to live off playing music, and all of those guys were doing just that.

 

The weird thing to me about Finck's inclusion is that he was doing soundscapes for Trent and Axl, being the great fan of Trent/NIN, hires Finck to bring that NIN spirit to his project. But he tasks Finck with bringing a "Slash" vibe (emotional feel) to counterbalance Buckethead which to me is just odd.  Bucket is extremely versatile - he has so many songs where he plays with plenty of feel and Finck is great at creating a canvas/walls of sound as Axl wanted to do with CD. So why get Finck to do what Bucket can easily do? I don't feel like Axl played to the strengths of these players really and it sort of shows in the final material. It's like he got his dream team of players and then didn't know what to do with them. 

[SoulMonster]

People don't hate Chinese Democracy because it wasn't very good. Spaghetti Incident wasn't very good, yet people don't hate that record. You don't hate bad records, you dislike them or are indifferent to them. When people HATE a record it is not enough that it isn't very good, it must also symbolize something really bad.

[Draguns]

7 hours ago, Tom2112 said:

Well, Finck was writing on those albums... it's really beside the point if you and the casuals couldn't don't try to find out who wrote what.

You can argue all day that these guys were nobodies, but if they were nobodies they would absolutely not have been hand picked by one of the biggest bands of all time. Nobody is arguing that they were rockstars or household names, but each one of those guys had a healthy career. Your assessment of success seems to only focus on fame and fortune, but in many musicians eyes success is being able to live off playing music, and all of those guys were doing just that.

 

You still didn't answer my question. Why did they agree on Guns N' Roses if they didn't want money and fame? Please don't give me the excuse that they saw success in living off playing their music. They could have turned the offer down easily and continued on with their lives. This is like Nirvana fans stating Kurt Cobain wasn't in it for the money and fame.

In regards to NIN, I like a few songs of theirs but not enough to buy an album or really research them. 

[DieselDaisy]

2 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

People don't hate Chinese Democracy because it wasn't very good. Spaghetti Incident wasn't very good, yet people don't hate that record. You don't hate bad records, you dislike them or are indifferent to them. When people HATE a record it is not enough that it isn't very good, it must also symbolize something really bad.

Two words: Limp Biscuit. 

[Nikki_Sixx]

I don't hate CD.

Amazing album.

I hate the fact that he just HAD to call it GNR, and ruined the GNR legacy in the process...

I hate the fact that he deliberately chose to sing like Mickey Mouse on his own album

I hate the fact that ONLY Axl manages to delay his own delays, and not communicate about it AT ALL ... while blaming everyone else except himself for it all.

I would have had no problem with Axl and his hired musicians, if they'd just called it what it IS, an Axl Rose solo album.  They're probably all excellent musicians and nice guys.  I hate the fact that each and everyone of them went along with the charade of calling that 'band' GNR...

... and that none of them had the balls to tell Axl to stop singing like a chipmunk and start singing like Axl Rose

[Order of Nine]

14 hours ago, Draguns said:

Not necessarily hilarious or easy to pick apart.  It's an opinion. Just like you have yours.

Fact is that Buckethead and Robin Finck didn't belong in GNR. The casual fan never even heard of Robin Finck prior to GNR. In fact most casual fans of NIN, like myself, thought that Trent Reznor did all of the instruments. The casual fan never knew who the people were behind the touring band of NIN. 

As far as Buckethead goes, he is  talented, but  there isn't anything memorable about his music. There's a reason why he's using  a gimmick. 

In regards to Bumblefoot, I like the guy. Out of all of the people in "NU GNR", I want him to succeed the most. He's a Jersey guy who is cool and took a lot of crap from the others. However, he was not known prior to GNR. He didn't do anything that was memorable in regards to CD even though he recently called it a masterpiece.  At least with him, he brought back the GNR spirit. 

One other thing. Why join Guns N' Roses when you are not in it for the money and fame? All three guitarists thought it would help them out with their careers. 

You've clearly been living in a bubble.

[jacdaniel]

Guns became popular as a hard rock band. The Illusions era was still great but the word Bloated describes that era well. Fighting, ego's, late starts, piano, keyboard, expensive after parties, big budget videos. 

 

The band needed to get back to basics. But Axl wasn't interested.  He wanted more bloat, more guitars, more keyboards, industrial sounds. 

 

He lost the support of his band, fans, label, management etc.  CD is the sound of a man in self pity, who lost all support but pushed on, copying and pasting music together from lots of musicians to fulfill his vision.

 

Unfortunately for him, nobody was really interested in that vision for Guns. They wanted Guns to be hard rock. 

 

Axl should have released CD as a solo album in 1997 and then got Guns back together for a Guns album.

[EvanG]

Because it has ''Guns N' Roses'' on the album cover and it's not the Guns N' Roses people grew up with. If it was released under a different name, some opinions may have varied.

[Tom-Ass]

It has pretty much all been said already.  It didn't look or sound anything like Guns N' Roses. The songs were weak.. Axl sounded weird... I think Axl may have gotten a bit too much credit as a song writer prior to CD being released. I know I was guilty of it. I didn't think he could really write a bad song until CD came out. It was so all over the place and forced. Trying to chase the latest trends that had already come and gone by the time it was released. Axl was one of the best "rock" front men\singers of all time. I think most fans would have been more happy with him releasing a rock album under the GnR name.  If he really needed to explore other kinds of music I think he would have gained a lot more respect doing it as a solo project.   Guns were a band that thrived off each other.  The original band all brought something to the table. It may have been to different degrees but they all brought something. When CD was finally released  it was so bad that a lot of people resented Axl for tarnishing the GnR catalog with those songs. 

 

[Draguns]

9 hours ago, Order of Nine said:

You've clearly been living in a bubble.

If that's what you think so be it. Fact is a lot of people didn't know Finck, Buckethead, Bumblefoot, and DJ Ashba prior to GNR. I have friends that are  more into music than I am and are musicians. They never heard of any of those people before GNR.