What other rock bands do you think inspired the sound of Chinese Democracy?

[ColdHeartBreaker]

Scraped's intro always reminded me of a gay Queen song.

[wasted]

Prostitute is The Police's Roxanne filtered through the Smashing Pumpkins as performed by Primus with Buckethead.

I'll never hear that song the same again. Sting, it makes sense. Scraped always reminds me of a really heavy version of Bad, maybe it's more of a Primus slap bass type thing tho.

More Than a Feeling was on Californication and it sounded not unlike Chi Dem.

Ultimately it's GNR, you can probably dissect AFD into AC/DC and Aerosmith parts.

[ITW 2012]

Prostitute is The Police's Roxanne filtered through the Smashing Pumpkins as performed by Primus with Buckethead.

Ultimately it's GNR, you can probably dissect AFD into AC/DC and Aerosmith parts.

We're basically unpaid blood spatter analysts. If The World is the sound of Crockett and Tubbs trying to solve the murder of Tupac Shakur; with Phil Collins and Jan Hammer playing in the background.

Edited February 21, 2010 by ITW 2012

[phaeryen]

List would be a long one,

but in the end Chinese Democracy ended up being its own kind of thing.

The Sean Beavan/Tom Zutaut phase of this album was probably far more easily recognizable as an Axl's vision of a futuristic industrial GNR sound like what he was going for from the mid nineties.

Most of it got canned and they started new stuff... Im still a little bit of loss, because I liked the synthesizer+drum machine heavy industrial rock of the nineties just like Axl did. (Nine Inch Nails Downward Spiral/broken EP, Marilyn Manson with Antichrist Superstar, White Zombie with Astrocreep2000...)

[doakes]

For better or worse, it's clearly Axl's vision...

Go back and look at the Axl tracks from UYI... November Rain, Estranged, Breakdown, Don't Cry.... My World.

So, other than the inclusion of some post grunge, industrial elements-- I think many of his former influences remain the same...

Queen, Elton John, Led Zeppelin, Beatles... NIN, the usual suspects.

--

One name I haven't seen, but I'm sure has been mentioned, as a reference is Todd Rundgren. No discredit to Axl's song writing abilities, but November Rain sounds A LOT like Dust In The Wind... Fuck, GnR's even covered it numerous times.

But Todd was also pretty experimental-- Cast The First Stone is a pretty industrial, grim, melodic track-- Reminds me of My World and Shackler's.

[realpoti]

I remeber a guy talking about some songs that didn't make it in Chinese Democracy. Two songs. One of then he said that sounded like Smells Like Teen Spirit. Anyone remember this ??

He said that about a track called 'Quick Song' i think. Axl confirmed the track name as real

besides the bands already mentioned, a possible influence could be jane's addiction.I can't say i hear it very much directly but we all know that axl seems to love that band

Yeah, it was that. Do you remember the other song ?? It will be a pain in the ass to find this, it' too old

[Revolver]

I can see how the beginning of ChiDem is somewhat like Teen Spirit, other than that I find it really difficult to compare Nirvana to GnR at all.

I feel a Nirvana-type of feel through out the whole song because of the way the verses are sung.. in that "don't really give a fuck"-sort of style, a la Nirvana

[realpoti]

I found it:

Jeff Leeds has spoken to elsewhere about some ‘new’ tracks he encountered during his recent investigations for his GN’R article in the NY Times .

The first track, ‘Atlas Shrugged’ is described as being somewhere between 70’s glam rock and ‘November Rain’. Another new track, ‘Quick Song’, is a rock song with a riff similar to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit. The last track, ‘Zodiac’, is described as an electronic, industrial song.

It is likely that these tracks are older GN’R tracks, so it is unclear whether these tracks will have been A-listed for the forthcoming Guns n’roses, ‘Chinese Democracy’.

[carsonskitz]

pink floyd on sorry definately

[AmyL]

Anything an artist listens too and likes at all is an influence.

[GeorgeGlass]

I love the feel of the up-tempos on CD, the industrial feel and energy of songs like Shacklers, Scraped, Better and the title cut. I would love to know if there were other bands out there with a similar sound that perhaps inspired the production of these songs.

Could anybody shed any light on this? I remember one critic comparing the title cut to Korn, who I can't say I'm all that familiar with.

Unfortunatetly, NIN. That whole industrial, synthesizer fake sounds thing went out about 5-10 years ago which is why CD's released was very mis-timed. It would have been much more relevant in the late 90's/a reasonable time since UYI.

[Atlas Shrugged]

i dont think the people who say it sounds like NiN have ever listened to a NiN song.

[ColdHeartBreaker]

The first track, ‘Atlas Shrugged’ is described as being somewhere between 70’s glam rock and ‘November Rain’. Another new track, ‘Quick Song’, is a rock song with a riff similar to ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit. The last track, ‘Zodiac’, is described as an electronic, industrial song.

Damn it Axl. I want to hear these, bad.

[FuddMckagan]

I can hear NIN, Pink Floyd and Nirvana. Probably some other stuff too but I can't quite put my finger on it.

[Nintari]

You're a Towel.

Yup. Axl wanted the same drums, or type of drums Grohl used on Teen Spirit.

The opening riff in each song, which is used throughout the song sounds alot alike.

the solos in CD sound like teen spirits on speed.

But the entire chord progression is NOTHING like something Kurt would have wrote. It's basically the same chord progression as the outro for SCOM,the verse for Back off bitch etc. It's the same chord progression as smoke on the water and the beastie boys "no sleep till Brooklyn" with a slight variation and tuned down a whole step...I believe.

E,G,A

Nirvana used very odd, very different structures.

Edited February 22, 2010 by Nintari

[hopkins]

Linkin Park with strings

[Mastodonny]

I hear some Badmotorfinger era Soundgarden on Scraped and Rhiad. The electronis bells and whistles remind of U2's Pop

[sourdeezl]

I would say a mix between Greenday and the Jonas Brothers..

AXL IS A GENIUS. I WILL KILL FOR YOU

[wasted]

People say the CD riff sounds like Teen Spirit but I think Cobain was thinking More Than A Feeling. The overall CD song seems more like the Boston song than Teen. It's more like Fight Song than Teen. There's no quiet/loud dynamic, it's just a very catchy rant.

Then with the drums/effects at first I thought it was NIN or Beck but latter Zepp and Stones stuff has similar sounds. So it's really hard to pin down whether the record sounds like that bcos influenced by older bands or the newer ones, or that it was just made in the late 90s with people who do that kind of thing. Basically it's a classic rock cd produced 90s/00s.

What I don't get is why their isn't any other bands who like classic 70s rock but then are influenced by newer stuff sound wise. Why is it either Wolfmother or Korn? Maybe it isn't I just don't know the bands.

Edited February 23, 2010 by wasted

[Cdlove]

I will always say that the breakdown in Better is inspired by Death/Metalcore. While I hate that genre, it's almost uncanny in terms of similarity.

[wasted]

I will always say that the breakdown in Better is inspired by Death/Metalcore. While I hate that genre, it's almost uncanny in terms of similarity.

I see it as the NIN moment. Maybe on The Fragile or Perfect Drug single, I pretty sure the remix had something similar. It is a bit Megadave, Rust In Peace. Finck wrote the song so it sort of makes me think it has NIN-quality but it's hard to pin down cos there's so much more going on. Like the weird distorted warble sound like something off a Ween album.

Edited February 23, 2010 by wasted

[Cdlove]

I will always say that the breakdown in Better is inspired by Death/Metalcore. While I hate that genre, it's almost uncanny in terms of similarity.

I see it as the NIN moment. Maybe on The Fragile or Perfect Drug single, I pretty sure the remix had something similar. It is a bit Megadave, Rust In Peace. Finck wrote the song so it sort of makes me think it has NIN-quality but it's hard to pin down cos there's so much more going on. Like the weird distorted warble sound like something off a Ween album.

Yea that was my alternative, but my friend listens to a lot of Death/metalcore and the breakdowns are always in the same style as it is in Better.

[Young_Gun]

Definitely hear bits of Garbage(the band) in there and also some late 90's Smashing Pumpkins(when they went from rock to electronica). Of course none of them are straight rip offs of the bands or songs, but some styles are related. All in all it is very unique. The chord progression to the title track is totally different to Smells like Teen Spirit. Different key, different progression.

[wasted]

I will always say that the breakdown in Better is inspired by Death/Metalcore. While I hate that genre, it's almost uncanny in terms of similarity.

I see it as the NIN moment. Maybe on The Fragile or Perfect Drug single, I pretty sure the remix had something similar. It is a bit Megadave, Rust In Peace. Finck wrote the song so it sort of makes me think it has NIN-quality but it's hard to pin down cos there's so much more going on. Like the weird distorted warble sound like something off a Ween album.

Yea that was my alternative, but my friend listens to a lot of Death/metalcore and the breakdowns are always in the same style as it is in Better.

It makes sense since they emphasize breakdowns, that would make Better a melodic metalcore song? I don't think I've consciously listened to a metalcore album. Is Bullet for My Valentine metalcore?

I think the closest I've come is Avenged Sevenfold's City of Evil. I think I've heard something like the Better breakdown on something like that or Odelay by Beck.

I hear some Machina: Machines of God on Prostitute and somehow TWAT is very Pearl Jam in the Long Time parts.

[springclean]

better = tool