Liveblogging “Chinese Democracy”

There’s a difference between waiting 17 years between albums and working on one for 17 years. If an artist takes forever between projects, as a fan you’re delighted that they’ve just put anything else out at all. Tom T Hall, Rush and AC/DC come immediately to mind. The new AC/DC record isn’t great, but it doesn’t suck, and that’s all it has to do. It has a low bar to hurdle to be greeted with open arms by a grateful public.

But if you’ve been fine-tuning your new album since Bill Clinton’s first inauguration, the results had better be pretty fucking mind-blowing or your decades-worth of effort is going to be found lacking no matter how many overdubs, samples and sound effects it boasts.

Axl’s been streaming “Chinese Democracy” on his myspace page for a few days now, so I headed on over to where the cool kids hang out to see what was going on for myself. I love this idea of giving your music away for free. I know I’ll buy an official copy if I like it, but will the cool kids? What Would Fonzie Do? I guess we’ll see when this thing finally goes on sale tomorrow, in stores exclusively at Best Buy (another certified Axl Dick Move) and online.

But I don’t care so much about the ins and outs of Axl’s business model as I do whether or not the music is worthy. What could he have possibly done for the better part of the last two decades to justify that kind of investment of time? How much of it was twisting knobs and turning dials and how much of it was spent on songwriting?

My test is, would Song A stand up in a solo acoustic treatment? Are the hooks there? Is the song about anything, or is there at least clever wordplay in the lyrics? Everything else is, if you will, just lipstick on the pig. And it’s well-known that Axl has added a lot of lipstick to his pig over the years.

And away we go…

Oh my Gawd, the first minute of the first track could be the first minute from a Rush mini-epic. I’m not sure how to feel about that. Oh wait, now he’s doing Trent Reznor. If that was the chorus, this song’s in trouble. Okay, yeah, that chorus is weak. I’m sure Axl insisted on putting this track first.

Second song and I’m still hearing a lot of martial-beat Trent Reznor shit. I love Trent Reznor, but we already have one. Maybe it’s because one of his guitarists played for awhile with Nine Inch Nails (Robin Finke?), but it was probably a calculated move on Axl’s part. He probably wanted a more accomplished technician than Slash and maybe he found one, but Slash’s melodic heart was always a necessary counterpoint to Axl’s banshee wail. Without it, the first two songs are pretty anonymous sounding. They could be any band’s NIN imitation.

Every time I hear one of the squiggley guitar breaks I just get all sad imagining what Slash would have put there instead. It would be integral to the song instead of just a series of snazzy flourishes leading back to the chorus or the next verse.

Let’s see, third song. More guitar noodling. Scootely-doot! Bwip-bomp tweedle…

This one’s kind of a mid-tempo thing – oh, more guitar noodling – but it’s built around a riff that I don’t find that compelling. Okay, Axl’s screaming now, that’s what I’ll be paying my money for when this goes onsale. Alright, this third song, I’m thinking Dokken. Axl’s rockin’ with Dokken. But he does bring on the scream for a bit. I don’t know. I was reminded recently that I didn’t like ‘Appetite…’ for the first couple of spins so I’ll probably look back on this post with shame one day.

Oh good, the first overblown ballad. First line doesn’t sound like Axl at all (very smooth, almost croony), the second line does, third line not, etc. You wouldn’t know it was the same guy if he didn’t hop back and forth between voices in the middle of lines. I just love this guy’s voice.

I gotta tell you, back in The Day, I saw Guns & Roses twice in one week. The Tuesday show was awful, at an outdoor amphitheater in Southern California. The band was ragtag, I remember being bored, and Axl stormed off stage a minute or so into the first encore. After about 10 minutes of audience yelling and stamping, Slash came out to the microphone, apologized and slunk back offstage. Lights up. I almost didn’t want to bother with the hassle of seeing them again that Friday. But I did and it was one of the hardest-rocking, most ass-kicking shows I’ve ever seen. In the Top Ten for sure. They were touring behind the Use Your Illusion albums that hadn’t even come out yet – and this was well before internet leaks – and every formerly-unknown song that night kicked my ass. Between Tuesday and Friday that week I saw one of the worst shows of my life and one of the best. And Axl was responsible for both.

Anyhow, getting back to the first big ballad… This song again, is boring, but builds in pace and racket as it goes along as re: the classic Guns song structure. What it lacks is “Rocket Queen’s” thrilling arias and sense of, I don’t know, purpose. It’s also nowhere near as hook-ey, and I personally like me my hooks.

Okay, next song has some exotic flavors. I think I’ve read about this one. Ooh, I love the vocal it opens with. I’m sure it’ll be gone in no time – yep, down four octaves for the next verse. High smooth voice again. Geddy Lee could sing the shit out of this part of the song. This tune sounds like the first fully-realized song on the album. Well, the acoustic guitar coda is nice, but like most of the rest of the album, I just didn’t find the melody memorable.

Hey, what the fuck? My ‘stream’ just cut off. Well, I don’t know what’s going on, but I don’t have time to figure it out. I’m supposed to be working right now. Probably just as well.

This report is a work-in-progress. Perhaps I’ll post an update if my opinion changes upon repeat listenings. But for my money, this is definitely at least worth capturing for free off the live stream at Axl’s myspace page.

UPDATE: SUNDAY AFTERNOON
Okay, I’ve listened to it now, the whole thing. The one question I kept coming back to was, Why am I listening to this?

It’s big and ballsy and rich and layered but it’s just not special, like the way GNR tunes used to be special. Like this is the second time Axl’s sampled the same lines from “Cool Hand Luke.” It was cool the first time, but here it sounds more like repetition than motif.

His piano ballad, “This I Love” sounds like a Lloyd-Webber knock-off, maybe a number cut from “Phantom…” after poor early audience response.

Most of the lyrics are classic Axl. He’s pissed at the world and none of it’s his fault because it’s everybody else’s fault. Mostly women, bad women, the only kind he’s attracted to. Stupid women! He comes off as the kind of guy you’d cross to the other side of the street to avoid if you saw him coming your way down the sidewalk. “Oh Christ, that guy. Quick, get the muzzle on the dog and dial 911 but don’t push ‘Send’ yet…”

Next time I’m in the mood for mindless grandiosity for its own sake, perhaps I will spin this disc up. How sad is it that I’ve waited 17 years for a great album to do housework by? I already had one of those anyhow, and “Chinese Democracy” is no “ABBA: Gold.”