Do you think Chinese Democracy's distinct lack of great rock songs is what sunk it in the US?

[Randy Lahey]

Do you think Chinese Democracy's distinct lack of great rock songs is what sunk it in the US? Going from Welcome to The Jungle and You Could Be Mine to Chinese Democracy is a pretty noticeable drop in quality. Even the much derided Anything Goes is still a 100 times the song that Chinese Democracy is. If the rest of the rockers Axl has are on the same level as Chinese Democracy, Scrapped and Riad, he would be best not to release them.

Edited August 15, 2013 by Randy Lahey

[AndreCC]

I think if it had more rockers it would have been widely accepted

[Randy Lahey]

The rockers needed to be great.

Edited August 15, 2013 by Randy Lahey

[Apollo]

Chinese Democracy was the wrong choice as the first single.

Boring song. I think casual rock fans heard that and simply moved on to other albums.

[axlsalinger]

Lack of singles killed it. Shouldn't started with Better and done things like the Harvey Davidson ad along with Axl on the cover of Rolling Stone.

[Randy Lahey]

If The World was the only conventional sounding single on the album. All the other songs had parts that worked against them as being singles.

Edited August 15, 2013 by Randy Lahey

[ManetsBR]

Shackler's Revenge

Better

Riad N' The Bedouins

IRS

-

No.

[Randy Lahey]

Better is a cool song but it's not really a straight up GNR style rocker. IRS sounds better live than on CD; for some reason it feels flat on CD. Riad is straight up shit. And Shackler's has some good parts but Bumblefoot's solo and the 50 layers of Axl vocals ultimately render it a plank walker.

Edited August 15, 2013 by Randy Lahey

[jmapelian]

CD had a distinct lack of any great songs

[Kapitch_77]

CD is the St-Anger of gnr. Hope they learned and they make their Death Magnetic for the next album.

[jimb0]

CD is the St-Anger of gnr. Hope they learned and they make their Death Magnetic for the next album.

Except they tried to make it sound bad while Axl tried to make CD sound Good. But both sounded bad.

Kinda funny. I was a little kid and had AFD and The Black Album. I said these bands are amazing, they can't make bad albums.

Fast Forward.. I was wrong.

[wasted]

CD isnt rock enough for the US. Its not metal enough, not guitar oriented for metals to like. Its more international.

Shacklers is prob the cloest thing to YCBM level. But Korn isnt that big, well they are but mainstream pop isnt going to like it.

CD isnt a rock album, its pop metal album.

It hardly matters tho, the rocker just needs to cause a stir with a action movie video.

Then You need a hit. ITW to me has cross over appeal. Better has crossover appeal to convince nu metal fans GNR are cool.

CD seems to pander to the 90s alternative market. but the Queen pop element isnt enough.

[dalsh327]

The best thing about St Anger was having Some Kind of Monster come out of it.

There was a decent amount of promotion for ChiDem, but once people heard it on MySpace, they had a "take it or leave it" attitude about the album. Maybe it's not how Axl envisioned the album to turn out, but he stands by the songs.

[rockerman]

Do you think Chinese Democracy's distinct lack of great rock songs is what sunk it in the US? Going from Welcome to The Jungle and You Could Be Mine to Chinese Democracy is a pretty noticeable drop in quality. Even the much derided Anything Goes is still a 100 times the song that Chinese Democracy is. If the rest of the rockers Axl has are on the same level as Chinese Democracy, Scrapped and Riad, he would be best not to release them.

Couple of factors made it a no go. You can fool the rest of the world that this is the real deal but Americans saw through the bullshit and called Axl on his game for trying to fool us that GNR was him and him alone. CD had none of the excitement or thrill that GNR previously had. It wasnt a fun record to listen to nor was it a topical record to wrap yourself around. Here in the states with no promotion and very little reference to it other than it being somewhat of a joke the things came and went as if it was never here in the first place.

[wasted]

Axl assembled a grunge industrial line up at first. and in 2000 that would have hit the mark a lot more. That was a lot more in the moment. After CD got rejected then Axl has to figure out how to make all this material viable as the sell by date gets closer and closer. In the end they over shot that point in 2004. So by 2006-8 you can basically see CD as a retro 90s album. And the songs have had to go through so much work, it's almost like has a cartoon bubble gum feel about it, like Sticky Fingers. From an alternative album in the 90s it turns into a pop metal opera. It doesn't have the organic feel it had in 99 but it became something much more unique.

And the rockers like Chi Dem, Riad, IRS have more of a retro 90s feel. Even Shackler's is like Rob Zombie meets Korn to play Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

They never laid down what you could call a AFD meets UYI rocker, maybe because it was played by grunge industrial guitar players. There's no riff machine in new Guns.

Scraped had the most up to date production and with Sorry could have been to the two singles that might work at that time in 2008. But what people wanted was a retro 90s GNR album. AFD meets UYI produced by Mike Clink.

[RockerRoller]

well i would have to point to the fact that most of the people i know in california think of gnr as a complete joke cause of axl. not much else really, just its weird and axl needs to pull his head out of his ass and realize he needs izzy n slash to write some catchy guitar driven rock

[wasted]

LA California the US isn't the only market. You know Shackler's goes over real well in Berlin, and possibly amongst other num etal fans if they are listening. Axl has already done the US with UYI. That's one way to do things, the other is to repeat to underwhelming success what you've done before, see ACDC. The impression you get is Axl wasn't excited about that prospect. He wanted to do something more creative. Not very metal of him. I'm sure Jim Florentine disagrees wit Axl's choices.

[J Dog]

Axl assembled a grunge industrial line up at first. and in 2000 that would have hit the mark a lot more. That was a lot more in the moment. After CD got rejected then Axl has to figure out how to make all this material viable as the sell by date gets closer and closer. In the end they over shot that point in 2004. So by 2006-8 you can basically see CD as a retro 90s album. And the songs have had to go through so much work, it's almost like has a cartoon bubble gum feel about it, like Sticky Fingers. From an alternative album in the 90s it turns into a pop metal opera. It doesn't have the organic feel it had in 99 but it became something much more unique.

And the rockers like Chi Dem, Riad, IRS have more of a retro 90s feel. Even Shackler's is like Rob Zombie meets Korn to play Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

They never laid down what you could call a AFD meets UYI rocker, maybe because it was played by grunge industrial guitar players. There's no riff machine in new Guns.

Scraped had the most up to date production and with Sorry could have been to the two singles that might work at that time in 2008. But what people wanted was a retro 90s GNR album. AFD meets UYI produced by Mike Clink.

You got it. Around 2000 or so, it would have been more accepted. Just the musical landscape of the time would have allowed for more acceptance. And the line up at that time could have gained some real fans I think.

[vaida]

CD didn't contain a single single (hit material). Hence there was no video. Hence there is no radio air play. Hence Axl & Co. have become irrelevant, other than to the few who visit these types of boards. They appear to go down well in 3rd world counties, but then again, so do all bands that bother to play in them. Truth is the truth hurts...

Edited August 15, 2013 by vaida

[Randy Lahey]

I agree with what Billy Corgan said about CD giving him more of an appreciation for what it is that Axl does in GNR.

[wasted]

Axl assembled a grunge industrial line up at first. and in 2000 that would have hit the mark a lot more. That was a lot more in the moment. After CD got rejected then Axl has to figure out how to make all this material viable as the sell by date gets closer and closer. In the end they over shot that point in 2004. So by 2006-8 you can basically see CD as a retro 90s album. And the songs have had to go through so much work, it's almost like has a cartoon bubble gum feel about it, like Sticky Fingers. From an alternative album in the 90s it turns into a pop metal opera. It doesn't have the organic feel it had in 99 but it became something much more unique.

And the rockers like Chi Dem, Riad, IRS have more of a retro 90s feel. Even Shackler's is like Rob Zombie meets Korn to play Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

They never laid down what you could call a AFD meets UYI rocker, maybe because it was played by grunge industrial guitar players. There's no riff machine in new Guns.

Scraped had the most up to date production and with Sorry could have been to the two singles that might work at that time in 2008. But what people wanted was a retro 90s GNR album. AFD meets UYI produced by Mike Clink.

You got it. Around 2000 or so, it would have been more accepted. Just the musical landscape of the time would have allowed for more acceptance. And the line up at that time could have gained some real fans I think.

But the label fucked it up by not backing Axl and wanting to Live Era out more. If Axl is ready to go to mix you go, after that it's an up hill battle for anyone from Lennon to Page to re-record an album and make it fit in, it's rolling snowball of shit at that point. but they did it, and it made CD eventually insanely great and unique.

I agree with what Billy Corgan said about CD giving him more of an appreciation for what it is that Axl does in GNR.

How did you interpret that?

That Axl really takes his influences and builds it into a GNR album. He could do it with any set of influences. It's what he got from Queen. That's an option anyway. He could also do a more off the cuff album if he wanted, if there's a real moment to be a part of.

[Randy Lahey]

I agree with what Billy Corgan said about CD giving him more of an appreciation for what it is that Axl does in GNR.

How did you interpret that?

That Axl really takes his influences and builds it into a GNR album. He could do it with any set of influences. It's what he got from Queen. That's an option anyway. He could also do a more off the cuff album if he wanted, if there's a real moment to be a part of.

That Axl's largely responsible for constructing the songs out of the parts that the other guys come up with.

[wasted]

I agree with what Billy Corgan said about CD giving him more of an appreciation for what it is that Axl does in GNR.

How did you interpret that?

That Axl really takes his influences and builds it into a GNR album. He could do it with any set of influences. It's what he got from Queen. That's an option anyway. He could also do a more off the cuff album if he wanted, if there's a real moment to be a part of.

That Axl's largely responsible for constructing the songs out of the parts that the other guys come up with.

Do think that dates back as far AFD? Or did Axl take the arrangements of Paradise City, Rocket Queen, Jungle, Nov Rain, Estranged and see them as GNR so used them for CD. To me Axl has an epic aesthetic that Izzy or Slash don't seem to have. The punk rock guys wouldn't do big intros or do songs like SOD, TWAT, Catcher or TIL.

If you're constructing parts it's probably always better to do it in the past tense.

[Gracii Guns]

Put it this way, for Chinese Democracy to be a great-selling record, it requires much more than the die-hard fans to buy it. It needs your Average Joe who heard a single on the radio to buy it. No song from CD got a monopoly on radio play. It's not a radio-friendly album. Most people have a certain expectation of Guns N' Roses which they have well moved on from now. Guns N' Roses without Slash? Most wouldn't care for it. It's sad as it's an excellent album, but not what your Average Joe expects of GN'R.

[phaeryen]

Biggest fail for the record was the fact that Axl refused to play ball and stopped answering his phone because he was dissatisfied with the album.

He went rogue and AWOL, like Sarah Palin.