Contraband vs Chinese Democracy

[Faxl Rows]

Nü-metal? Seriously, no. NO.

[tomfriend]

Chinese by a huge distance. It's not without its flaws but its consistently interesting. Contraband only has a couple of stand out moments, the rest is by-the-numbers stuff. Functional but forgettable.

[Strange Broue]

There is nu metal present. Listen to the thing. I seem to recall Spectacle and Headspace or something or other being exceptionally, 'nu metal'. As for Axl he delved into nu-metal with Scraped and Shackler's Revenge.

All Nu metal should be eradicated.

Overmixed basslines aren't nu metal, you fool

On the Scraped and SR thing i can agreee with that.. maybe Rhiad is Nu Metal too.

OMG is an nu industrial mixtape

Nu Metal was cool back in the day and had got some cool elements

Edited December 1, 2014 by Motivation

[tomfriend]

I've seen even die hard Slash fans concede that in terms of ability, Bucket and co equal or exceed him as a player. Of course, that makes no difference if Slash's bluesy style is what you're missing or were hoping for from CD.

However, I don't think anyone could seriously claim Scott is in the same league as Axl as a singer. With him at the helm VR and Contraband lacked identity.

[DieselDaisy]

There is nu metal present. Listen to the thing. I seem to recall Spectacle and Headspace or something or other being exceptionally, 'nu metal'. As for Axl he delved into nu-metal with Scraped and Shackler's Revenge.

All Nu metal should be eradicated.

Overmixed basslines aren't nu metal, you fool

On the Scraped and SR thing i can agreee with that.. maybe Rhiad is Nu Metal too.

OMG is an nu industrial mixtape

Nu Metal was cool back in the day and had got some cool elements

Opinion declared, null and void.

[Apollo]

CD by a mile.

Though the general rock crowd seemed to like Contraband more.

Fall to Pieces is extremely boring and the lyrics sound like they were written in a matter of minutes.

CD is head and heals above VR. But I sure wish Axl had Slash's work ethic and love of sharing music with his fans.

[niceguy]

I actually just listened to Shacklers and then Slither back to back yesterday-- it was strictly a random shuffle on my spotify. I hadn't listened to either song in like 2 years.

FWIW, I do audio engineering in NYC.

Shacklers was jarringly horrible: such a mess of overproduction. Stupid synth bleeps, horrible atonal solo, grating guitar tones. And the worst part was Axl's vocals, just so hugely compressed, so many layers, until it was like a vocal pancake. It was horrible to hear, just atrocious.

Then came on Slither. I thought the drum brass was mixed a bit too low, but overall. I was stunned at how organic and natural the production was. On top of that, the songwriting and arrangement was shockingly stellar. And the wah solo! Incredible. The only thing I'd change is raise the drum brass and drop the rhythm guitars a hair.

[Apollo]

I would have to say Chinese Democracy is the better album. C.D has a lot more moments of "magic" on it, even if it sounds like its been overdone and overthought and overplayed. Contraband is a solid, modern rock n roll record, but doesn't have many of those magical moments on it, the majority of it is in the above average category( which is fine, but when your talking about the comeback record from the "Guns" of Guns N Roses and Scott Weiland above average wont do, it has to be spectacular)

Best songs off of Contraband

1. Slither

2. Set Me Free

3. You Got No Right

Best songs of Chinese Democracy

1. Chinese Democracy

2. Sorry

3. There was a time

That's the beauty of CD. I think the songs CD and Sorry are two of the three worst songs on the album (along with Scraped).

[IncitingChaos]

It would have been cool if these records were both released the same year and both up for a Grammy or vma. The build up would have been incredible here haha

When CD did things right musically, it was incredible. The instrumentals of the album were worthy of their own release. Axl struggled coming up with the proper vocals and lyrics at times in my opinion. He hurt CD by laying multiple vocal tracks over each other, and losing focus on the importance of the pure rock voice that he has and also lyrically he just missed at times. On some songs like better, twat, and catcher I feel nobody is a better lyricist. It was just hit or miss on Axl's part.

Contra- exactly what I expected this album to sound like. Nothing incredible to separate it, but also nothing detrimental in terms of trying to do too much. It was safe and effective. People liked the album bc it didn't try to reinvent anything. It was familiar rock and for the fans it was excellent.

Neither album succeeded in my opinion. They both needed to be nearly perfect to revitalize rock and they needed to coexist in the same era. Axl's new rock direction needed to work and VR's classic rock vibe needed to be a bigger force to move fans back to this sound. I do feel they had the opportunity at the time to bring rock back to a mainstream audience, but their efforts just didn't click at the time. You could say the right 5 guys were not together, but I don't think it mattered here. Both bands were great and both could have done something really special for rock...again. Both albums left something to be desired though.

[Free Bird]

CD:

TWAT

Sorry

Better

TIL

CD

CB:

Sucker Train Blues

Slither

You Got No Right

Dirty Little Thing

Lovin The Alien

Set Me Free

FTP

That are my favourit tunes of each record.

I have more fun with the Contraband stuff, while there're some magic moments on CD too

[wasted]

For me Contraband has Slither, Fall to peaches, Loving the alien.

CD has Chi dem, Better, SOD,

Shacklers, ITW, Prostitute

Scraped, Sorry, THis I Love

Three batches of singles.

CD is wildly creative in conception and execution. Contraband is a solid hard rock record.

[Sisyphus]

Contraband is a great album but Chinese is definitely better. No competition for me.

[magisme]

There's no reason to listen to either of these albums, really.

[trqster]

Contraband with Axl on vocals would have been one of the greatest rock albums out there. As it is neither Contraband or CD are really that great.

[maynard]

I feel like in 15-20 years people will appreciate Contraband a lot more.

[EvH]

I actually just listened to Shacklers and then Slither back to back yesterday-- it was strictly a random shuffle on my spotify. I hadn't listened to either song in like 2 years.

FWIW, I do audio engineering in NYC.

Shacklers was jarringly horrible: such a mess of overproduction. Stupid synth bleeps, horrible atonal solo, grating guitar tones. And the worst part was Axl's vocals, just so hugely compressed, so many layers, until it was like a vocal pancake. It was horrible to hear, just atrocious.

Then came on Slither. I thought the drum brass was mixed a bit too low, but overall. I was stunned at how organic and natural the production was. On top of that, the songwriting and arrangement was shockingly stellar. And the wah solo! Incredible. The only thing I'd change is raise the drum brass and drop the rhythm guitars a hair.

Great post. Honest question: as an audio engineer, weren't you bothered by the godawful mastering on Contraband? I really can't listen to more than two songs in a row because of the brickwalling. Think whatever you want about ChiDem, both in terms of songwriting and production, but it's a bresh of fresh dynamic air in the compressed music world.

I think you guys all know this story, but there's a great quote from Bob Ludwig who mastered Chinese:

"Guns ‘N Roses:

Dynamics and quality win the Loudness Wars

from Bob Ludwig:

On Sunday, November 23rd the new Guns ‘N Roses record Chinese Democracy was finally released after many years of waiting and many millions spent making it. 14 different recording studios are credited. I was thrilled to have been chosen to master the album.

In October, when I first heard some of final mixes which were incredibly multi-layered and dense, I was surprised by two things: The mixes were so finally honed that doing the smallest move sounded like I had done a lot and also that adding the typical amount of compression used in mastering these days took the life and musicality out of the recordings in a big way.

The trial disc I submitted to the producers had 3 versions: The one I personally liked had no compression that was used just for loudness, only compression that was needed for great sounding rock and roll. Then, knowing how competitive everything is these days, I made two more masterings, one with more compression and another with yet more compression, but even the loudest one wasn’t remotely as loud as some recent CDs. Hoping that at least one of these would satisfy Axl and Caram Costanzo, the co-producers of the record, I was floored when I heard they decided to go with my full dynamics version and the loudness-for-loudness-sake versions be damned.

I think the fan and press backlash against the recent heavily compressed recordings finally set the context for someone to take a stand and return to putting music and dynamics above sheer level.

The dynamics vs. volume trade-offs include the act of simply turning your playback volume clockwise a little. True, when shopping the iTunes store your song may not blast out as loudly as other songs. When trying to impress the radio station PD it may be an issue if you don’t have the guaranteed attention this record deserves, however level on the radio broadcast is NOT an issue. As I have been lecturing to people for years, the radio stations are all in competition with each other and they all have devices to make loud things soft and soft things loud and indeed, I heard a critic’s review of Chinese Democracy on NPR and the song examples they played screamed over my portable radio. Even with the radio station compression you can still hear detail in the car… amazing!

I’m hoping that Chinese Democracy will mark the beginning of people returning to sane levels and musicality triumphing over distortion and grunge. I have already seen a new awareness and appreciation for quality from some other producers, I pray it is the end of the level wars. "

Edited December 1, 2014 by EvH

[Nosaj Thing]

I never liked VR but Contraband is a better record, by a mile. Chinese Democracy is utterly awful.

[niceguy]

weren't you bothered by the godawful mastering on Contraband? I really can't listen to more than two songs in a row because of the brickwalling. Think whatever you want about ChiDem, both in terms of songwriting and production, but it's a bresh of fresh dynamic air in the compressed music world.

I actually don't think the mastering on Contraband is too bad. Mastering hadn't yet reached the absurd levels it's reached today, but yes, ChiDem is better mastered. But I don't hear a night and day difference.

I'm guessing that ChiDem was simply handed off to Ludwig for mastering, because he's one of the best around. Unlike the production, Axl had zero technical influence on the mastering, and so it sounded great.

Imagine if ChiDem were handed off to a competent producer and Axl had zero technical control over the production! Songs like CITR and Better would be organic, natural-sounding, and actually fantastic songs.

[DieselDaisy]

That is the problem with Axl and the making of Chinese. There is no one there with the power to go, ''that is shit, Axl''. Well if they say that, they get sacked. It is the same with Lucas and the prequels. There was nobody there who could go, ''no George, Jar Jar Binks is a terrible idea''.

[wasted]

Seems not true because Jimmy and Ezrin told Axl could do better a few times. Axl seemed to listen to them in bringing in RTB then finally getting Costanzo.

Wallace mixing the producer threesome. There's no way it's going to sound like the majority think rock should sound.

But I think each track works but you have to jump genre zones. I enjoy all the different tones, scope. It's new music, creative with nothing taken for granted.

Fight Song, Got the Life, Head Like a Hole, Everything's Ruined is a lot of different things to take on the radio. But on a GNR record it's insane. People expecting hard rock, get alt rock, don't like it, nobody was surprised.

[robin2002]

Contraband is the better album, ChiDem could of been better but Axl decided to drop in Ferrer half way through a track, replace a Brian May solo with BBF farting and leave in songs like Rhiad and Scraped (seriously, if these songs are better than whats to come on CD2 I don't want to hear it). There are of course still some great moments on ChiDem, Buckets TWAT solo, and the outro to Prostitute is better than anything on Contraband, but as an album.. Contraband definately.

[BangoSkank]

Contraband is cool, but it's somewhat generic street rock (which we've heard over and over and over again). It's fun to listen to, but there's no real impact to it. Chinese Democracy, love it or hate it, had huge balls and Axl tried to push his sound in a wild, new direction. Because of that, I'll always be a lot more interested in what Axl is doing (or what he'll hopefully be doing) than what the rest of the original lineup are up to.

[maynard]

I could agree CD features a wide range of different styles, but the songs themselves are pretty generic. The rock tunes sound like Static X/90s industrial, the ballads don't feature any different song structures or sound textures.

Contraband is also generic, but it never intended to be anything else. Chinese Democracy is too pretentious, took much more money and time and it all makes the fail much bigger and lol-worthy.

Contraband is the better album simply for sounding cohesive and more organic. Lyrics are better, Scott's voice sounds good, all the instruments work in harmony instead of the copy+paste mess of CD, etc.

Actually, I think it's a little unfair to compare a multimillion project led by a crazy dictator that took years to be released to a collaborative straight-rock album made in (probably) months.

VR were doing what they do best. Axl was playing Trent Reznor and he simply sucks (and I mean HE REALLY SUCKS) at making electronic/multilayered songs.

Edited December 2, 2014 by ProstituteComa

[wkuk04]

I could agree CD features a wide range of different styles, but the songs themselves are pretty generic. The rock tunes sound like Static X/90s industrial, the ballads don't feature any different song structures or sound textures.

Contraband is also generic, but it never intended to be anything else. Chinese Democracy is too pretentious, took much more money and time and it all makes the fail much bigger and lol-worthy.

Contraband is the better album simply for sounding cohesive and more organic. Lyrics are better, Scott's voice sounds good, all the instruments work in harmony instead of the copy+paste mess of CD, etc.

Actually, I think it's a little unfair to compare a multimillion project led by a crazy dictator that took years to be released to a collaborative straight-rock album made in (probably) months.

VR were doing what they do best. Axl was playing Trent Reznor and he simply sucks (and I mean HE REALLY SUCKS) at making electronic/multilayered songs.

Loving the way you spread your negativity. Madagascar has the best solo on either album. The filler tracks on Contraband and there is a lot of them take too much of the album up IMO. CD has a drive and intensity that drags you in.

Edited December 2, 2014 by wkuk04

[maynard]

I could agree CD features a wide range of different styles, but the songs themselves are pretty generic. The rock tunes sound like Static X/90s industrial, the ballads don't feature any different song structures or sound textures.

Contraband is also generic, but it never intended to be anything else. Chinese Democracy is too pretentious, took much more money and time and it all makes the fail much bigger and lol-worthy.

Contraband is the better album simply for sounding cohesive and more organic. Lyrics are better, Scott's voice sounds good, all the instruments work in harmony instead of the copy+paste mess of CD, etc.

Actually, I think it's a little unfair to compare a multimillion project led by a crazy dictator that took years to be released to a collaborative straight-rock album made in (probably) months.

VR were doing what they do best. Axl was playing Trent Reznor and he simply sucks (and I mean HE REALLY SUCKS) at making electronic/multilayered songs.

Loving the way you spread your negativity.

Loving the way you spread you sensitivity.