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Was Chinese Democracy an album that Axl used to reflect upon and explore his own feelings of isolation, misery and madness?

Randy Lahey

By Randy Lahey
in 2013

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Randy Lahey LEGEND

Randy Lahey

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Was Chinese Democracy an album that Axl used to reflect upon and explore his own feelings of isolation, misery and madness? When I listen to it I get the sense of somebody replaying past events over and over and allowing their mind to run wild. The most important relationships (Seymour and GNR) in his life had ended, and his aspirations of having his own family and GNR being a beloved worldwide stadium act like Led Zeppelin had vanished with them, or at least that's how it played out in his mind. And he was once again forced to start over without any idea of how to actually do that. So he found his own way by cutting himself off from everyone and mining his own misery and madness as a form of therapy that ultimately resulted in New GNR and the construction of the Chinese Democracy album.

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wasted
wasted

In someways most of the songs seem like the songs Axl would have written anyway about Seymour. Chi dem is kind of the political lyric he might write like Civil War, it seems almost personal at the sam

pepsicoca Senior

pepsicoca

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Nope. Just self pity. Axl isn't honest enough with himself for all of that. And I'm not sure he has the mental capacity.

exactly.

the lyrics would have been more interesting if they had been more self-critical instead of just blaming the others or claiming it was unintentional...

axl didn't respect the other original members of the band, he thought gnr was his solo project, that's why gnr broke up. he should admit it.

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phaeryen DEMI-GOD

phaeryen

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To very large degree Randy has summed up a big portion of nuGNR.

He most certainly had a craving hunger to out-do Slash, in court and musically. Too bad his own psyche was too shaky to pull it off in the early 00's when it would have been relevant to do. 2008 was way too late to drop the anti-slash album, because slash had made himself into a nostalgia clown by then.

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AndreCC DEMI-GOD

AndreCC

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To me it was his point of view of what happened in his life... distorted or not it's up to the listeners to decide. He gives us his view on things.

Honestly if it wasn't for Axl's hyper sensitive behaviour this would have been just a misunderstanding and by now he would be friends with all of the old members of his band, but since Axl makes everything hyper sensitive and dramatic it's all a big mess.

In any case i'm still with the old members as far as the break up case is concerned, and after hearing what Alan Niven had to say, i think that cleared out a lot of things that people didn't wanna believe.

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wasted LEGEND

wasted

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It's very much set in the past to me. But maybe in some cases maybe they were written as much in the present as My Michelle. Like Riad is meant to be just personal attack. It's all seems to be inspired from characters from his former life. Or attacks or ruminations on the Media/internet (Sorry and Scraped). Even Catcher seems like it was inspired by his stalker in a way. Chi Dem maps out the new milieu like Jungle once did. It's just now it's like this oppressive industry, he's like POW of GNR.

To me CD was what he was fighting in the late 90s but not nessarily what he wanted new GNR to be about. I think he may have thought he had achieved some sort of success which could afford him some sort of freedom, but it was just another form of slavery. Now he had to produce music for the fans and media that would dictate to him what he should do. So CD is kind of like his big fuck you to that but at the same time wanting it still to be GNR, very much a contradiction in terms, almost like a...chinese democracy?

Whether he's go the Democracy part of CD to come or this was more of a culling that would just lead to a surrender I don't know.

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Guest NGOG

Guest NGOG

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CD is Axl's own personal Vietnam.

I'm pretty sure I've read that exact quote before.

From me.
It would appear you're in the infant stages of amnaesia or writing block by repeating past analogies.

No seriously, good post Randy.

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wasted LEGEND

wasted

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In someways most of the songs seem like the songs Axl would have written anyway about Seymour. Chi dem is kind of the political lyric he might write like Civil War, it seems almost personal at the same time. Catcher he probably would have wanted on the next GNR album anyway. TWAT seems to have lines about the making of the album and Madagascar is meant to be about the old band. Scraped, Riad, Sorry and IRS are all very Axl.

So Chi dem, Sorry, Madagascar and Prostitute seem to be the songs that really capture what CD was about outside of being heartbroken.

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wasted LEGEND

wasted

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CD is Axl's own personal Vietnam.

I'm pretty sure I've read that exact quote before.

From me.

CD is a war Axl could never win?

It's the war that his record company wouldn't let him win.
What the label needs is a war you cant win so they can keep manufacturing WMDs.

Maybe the next record will be the War on Terror.

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wasted LEGEND

wasted

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CD seems like all the fall out from the 90s. That's why it's still GNR to me. If AFD is Axl and boys rolling on the streets of LA, UYI is them falling apart at their peak in luxury, then CD is after the comedown after the party , one man left alone with his memories. The pool is drained and the only dealer on speed dial is Pizza Hut.



CD is Axl's own personal Vietnam.


I'm pretty sure I've read that exact quote before.

From me.

CD is a war Axl could never win?

It's the war that his record company wouldn't let him win.

They could have just nuked Vietnam with 8 videos from CD but they dragged it out using conventional weapons and ground forces. There were many casualties of W.A.R.

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phaeryen DEMI-GOD

phaeryen

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CD seems like all the fall out from the 90s. That's why it's still GNR to me. If AFD is Axl and boys rolling on the streets of LA, UYI is them falling apart at their peak in luxury, then CD is after the comedown after the party , one man left alone with his memories. The pool is drained and the only dealer on speed dial is Pizza Hut.

!!!

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Randy Lahey LEGEND

Randy Lahey

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They could have just nuked Vietnam with 8 videos from CD but they dragged it out using conventional weapons and ground forces. There were many casualties of W.A.R.

And after all these years they still haven't been able to locate Dan Druff's bike.

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wasted LEGEND

wasted

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They could have just nuked Vietnam with 8 videos from CD but they dragged it out using conventional weapons and ground forces. There were many casualties of W.A.R.

And after all these years they still haven't been able to locate Dan Druff's bike.

Maybe thats whats holding up CD II?
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Randy Lahey LEGEND

Randy Lahey

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They could have just nuked Vietnam with 8 videos from CD but they dragged it out using conventional weapons and ground forces. There were many casualties of W.A.R.

And after all these years they still haven't been able to locate Dan Druff's bike.

Maybe thats whats holding up CD II?

Axl Rose's Big Adventure. We won't be getting Big Top Axl until he finds that bike.

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