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Does the NITL Tour validate Chinese Democracy?


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A random thought - does the fact that there are players on CD who weren’t originally in the group but are still there now mean that album has more ‘validity’?

IMO - it was and still is very much a GNR album so I am fine with it but wonder if anyone who could not get on the boat with CD think anything better of it now/is more accepting?

 

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4 minutes ago, bdinan said:

Didn't need validation for me. It was an album released under the Guns N' Roses brand, and for the most part  - I enjoyed it, and still enjoy several tracks. I had some good times in that era on the forums, when there was excitement, and at the shows - which were largely pretty darn good. 

I have this lingering sense of "too little, too late" when it comes to NITL. Don't get me wrong, I went to four shows(FedEx, both at Metlife, and MSG), and enjoyed them all. I think this whole production would have been better a decade ago when Axl had the vocal chops to pull it off at an exceptionally high level. 

I am in the mindset of enjoying what we had, and continue to have instead of dwelling on the past - what could have and should have been. All in all, I can't say I've been disappointed in any shows I've been to, or even the record itself. 

 

 

Yeah - totally agreed. I think it would have been even better 10 years ago like you say but it is what it is. I think moving forward the set list will need to cater for lower register songs along with any newly recorded stuff (which will happen IMO) which will clearly be sung in a more comfortable register.

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I thought maybe more people would become aware of CD. Especially those who were not following GNR through the Slashless years, maybe with the NITL tour CD has had a chance to be heard from a bigger audience than the tours that followed its release. Its had like 70 million streams on Spotify since it was released, so its not like nobody has not noticed it.

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45 minutes ago, dgnr said:

Not in this lifetime :P Go to a NITL show. Watch the crowd reaction to any CD song. There's your answer ;)

been there done that. the fans that look at each other and think "whats this" when a CD song starts are in the 95% of fans that have never heard GN'Rs second best album.

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2 hours ago, bdinan said:

Didn't need validation for me. It was an album released under the Guns N' Roses brand, and for the most part  - I enjoyed it, and still enjoy several tracks. I had some good times in that era on the forums, when there was excitement, and at the shows - which were largely pretty darn good. 

I have this lingering sense of "too little, too late" when it comes to NITL. Don't get me wrong, I went to four shows(FedEx, both at Metlife, and MSG), and enjoyed them all. I think this whole production would have been better a decade ago when Axl had the vocal chops to pull it off at an exceptionally high level. 

I am in the mindset of enjoying what we had, and continue to have instead of dwelling on the past - what could have and should have been. All in all, I can't say I've been disappointed in any shows I've been to, or even the record itself. 

 

 

I think 2006 nitl reunion would have been great, when axls voice was so much better and he looked so fit.

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2 hours ago, History2010 said:

it did add legitimacy to the record imo. If the songs had disappeared from the setlist then it would have sent a clear message about the NuGuns era being over; but instead Slash and Duff joined the NuGuns line-up making a hybrid of the band where the NuGuns era is mixed with the classic era and its all "Guns N' Roses" 

Lets be honest, slash and duff arnt going to be joining the band and saying "no cd songs they dont represent guns n roses, that is the time we were in the band". 

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36 minutes ago, Sydney Fan said:

I think 2006 nitl reunion would have been great, when axls voice was so much better and he looked so fit.

Definitely would have been the peak window for a better product. I hate to sound like I'm complaining, but the human voice is a finicky "instrument," and even the best singers slip with age. We've reached a point where GNR is more of a nostalgia act. Much like Bon Jovi, or Metallica, or pretty much any group from that generation. 

 

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Just now, bdinan said:

Definitely would have been the peak window for a better product. I hate to sound like I'm complaining, but the human voice is a finicky "instrument," and even the best singers slip with age. We've reached a point where GNR is more of a nostalgia act. Much like Bon Jovi, or Metallica, or pretty much any group from that generation. 

 

True, though credit to metallica as they are interested in still doing albums because I've read in an interview they enjoy making music in the studio and still enjoy the creative process. So its not about the money for these guys. I hope guns can have that same mindset. Mind you i put guns on a higher stand than bon jovi, his voice is done.

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I don't think any piece of art in any medium - which is what music is, really ever needs "validation." It exists. There doesn't always have to be a reason it exists. For better or worse, Chinese Democracy was released under the Guns N' Roses brand. I think now that it has been released a decade ago, the lore and the mythology about it before hand overshadows the final product. What we got was a decent Rock album, that is probably not for everyone. If anything, you can argue that going backwards in terms of a reunion has ruined any sort of validity that the record may have had. For years, all we heard was there was never a chance of any sort of reunion - hence, "Not in This Lifetime."

I'm not unhappy with the way anything went. It provided entertainment, humor, stress, a lot of different emotions leading up to lineup changes, announcements, and eventually the record. 

The reunion took me by surprise, and I've enjoyed it for the most part - hope it leads to more down the road, or it will look like a one off cash grab. 

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1 minute ago, Sydney Fan said:

True, though credit to metallica as they are interested in still doing albums because I've read in an interview they enjoy making music in the studio and still enjoy the creative process. So its not about the money for these guys. I hope guns can have that same mindset. Mind you i put guns on a higher stand than bon jovi, his voice is done.

I hate to criticize JBJ or Axl too much. I sing a bit, and at 36, my voice isn't what it was at 26. I can only imagine how horrible it will be at 46. So kudos to those guys for being able to keep it going at a respectable level for as long as they have. 

Axl was so good in 2006, that I went out of budget to see all four hammerstein shows. He was amazing. Really vindicated himself in my mind, after a pretty substandard 2002 era. 

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I still feel that songs just aren't good.  Even with Slash and Duff on them it doesn't help.  Songs that the cult following love like This I love and Better are by far the most awkward and boring songs of the NITL tour.  There were a few songs on the album with potential but they missed the mark overall and the songs aren't the same class as the Classic Guns material. Not even close. Then there is the musicians in the band playing on the album.. I could write a page why CD for that alone never be a legit Guns N' Roses album, but it has all been said thousands of times over the years..

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Validation in the sense of more people from the "classic" lineup giving their stamp of approval to consider this an album in the official GNR cannon, sure.  It doesn't really matter to me, although I do enjoy the interpretations of Chinese Democracy, Catcher, and Maddy that they have done on the NTLT tour

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7 hours ago, dgnr said:

Not in this lifetime :P Go to a NITL show. Watch the crowd reaction to any CD song. There's your answer ;)

I think the title track from CD got pretty good reception on the show I attended ( also being in pretty low register Axl doesn't sound bad singing it)  But the other songs that were performed from that album... yeah... people were mostly just waiting them to be over.

 

Even though it's not really my cup of tea, IMO CD is not a bad album. It's very ambitious. But when you have name Guns N' Roses attached to your music it creates a lot of expectations. If CD was Axl's solo album, probably many people would've been more forgiving of it. But it isn't, so we'll never know. 

Edited by Fourteenbeers
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