Review: Chinese Democracy Only Kind of Sucks And Is Awesome Too

Through all of the speculation and ridicule, I always figured we'd get to hear the new Guns N' Roses album at some point. These days, it seems like everything that ever gets recorded is so meticulously documented and channeled through so many people that something as high-profile as this would have nary a chance of completely disappearing, even if the project were to be put on hold or "scrapped" altogether. In fact, I'd put pretty good money on both "scrapped" and "on hold" as catchphrases for "Democracy" at various points during its development, and here we are.

So, what's the story? Over a decade has passed since the last remaining original members of Guns N' Roses decided that Axl was too much of a Jujyfruit even for the ridiculous money they were pulling in. Without his bandmates for the first time since the mid-eighties, the frontman persevered, retreating to the recording studio and setting to work on what was sure to be the magnum opus, the Big Shot To The Head that proved once and for all that: 1.) Axl Rose was a genius; and 2.) You don't f*** with genius, man.

Time passed, and soon rumors of a happy reunion with Slash and the boys dried up. There were no developments from the studio except for vague assurances every so often from Rose that something "big" was underway, and that we would have something to hear "soon." Months faded into years, years became a decade, and some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. The productive (if eccentric) Rose ceased to be what he once was, and became something of a bedtime story, a cautionary tale to aspiring singer-producers - this is what happens when you allow a single-minded obsession to take hold of you.

Rose retreated further and further into his hillside home, spending countless days and nights at the controls, tinkering with what he was now convinced was the Most Important Work of All Time, the One Album that would win the hearts of men and rescue real Rock music from the ashes of the post-grunge backlash that led to the resurgence of boy bands and hip-hop's takeover of popular culture. He spoke in riddles, coyly suggesting that "Chinese Democracy" was nearly ready for the masses. Meanwhile, band members came and went, leaving small impressions on the project but unable to wrest from Rose's grasp what had gradually become his most precious possession and most far-off pipe dream.

One day, Axl emerged from his hillside studio, and the world saw what obsession can do to a man. He carried a master tape in his mouth, and demanded that his record company barter for raw meat and several millions of cans of Dr. Pepper. He looked like this:

Axl proceeded to gnaw several toes off of his longtime business manager and tear off toward West Hollywood, pausing fits of maniacal laughter only to mutter intermittently about Paul Newman and "stupid fat copses."

All that aside (and I hear they're now searching Burger King dumpsters in Reseda for some reason), is it any good? You know, parts of it are actually pretty awesome. When he is back in full-on Howlin' Axl mode, Rose's voice is as great as it has ever been. Not expecting anything whatsoever from the record, I was quickly put in my place within 30 seconds of the opening strains of the title track (which also opens the album) when Rose's "Appetite"-era scream gave me just the slightest tingle. Had he really done it?

As I got further into the album, each new track begged me to hate it and then totally sucker-punched me with an unexpectedly memorable hook or some of the best honest-to-goodness nuts-in-hand guitar soloing I've heard in years (no, folks, Slash is not missed). Even signatures of Axl's mental, erm, transition (such as an inexplicable Eastern European accent taken on for much of a verse) give off more of an Endearingly Crazy and Rather Interesting Guy vibe than a Wow, I Hope That Crazy Guy At The Bowling Alley Didn't See Me Looking At Him thing. This is Axl at his weirdest and most excessive, and often we come out better for it. Most interesting of all is "If The World," a slinky string-accented creeper so directly lifted from every 007 theme song ever that I actually Googled the song afterwards to see if it had been considered for one of the Brosnan Bond movies.

Are there missteps? You bet. Rose seems to have put nearly all of his melodic energy into crafting perfect choruses, often at the expense of the rest of the song. Also, each track is so elaborately layered and produced, and so complicated to listen to, that it is easy to get lost in the elements of each production. At times, it is possible to forget that we are meant to be, very simply, listening to a rock band play songs. And, there just isn't anything simple about "Democracy." In the end, just listening to each song had become so tiring that I was desperate for the record to be over with - by the eleventh or twelfth song, the weight of production, instrumentation, and concept just becomes too heavy for the record to endure.

Of course, there is harmony to be found in excess, and the very things that can make "Chinese Democracy" frustrating can be rewarding as well. Just as the bloated triumph Use Your Illusion kind of sucked but was awesome too, "Democracy" ultimately succeeds as proof-positive that Rose is still capable of producing interesting music. With each successive listen, new things (both good and bad) are discovered about the record. This can make it hard to really get to what the crux of what an artist is saying, but can also help bring the repeated rewards that help good albums endure. In any case, and unquestionably, in whatever form the band takes Guns N' Roses sounds quite unlike anything else out there. And, shocker, the music seems to be relevant even today. As I type, the record has streamed over 5 million times in the Vortex of Youth Culture itself, Myspace.com.

If nothing else, the finished version of "Chinese Democracy" functions as a fascinating historical document of a recording that is truly the product of several different eras of popular music. Within individual songs, we hear classic 80's "shredding," prog-lite string sections, drums influenced by the "industrial" metal of the early 90s, and modern ultra-compressed production techniques. Even Axl Rose sounds on some songs as if overdubs were done years apart from each other. To not only know that this record is the culmination of over a decade of what we've heard was constant revision but to be able to hear it in the recording itself makes the whole thing worth it for me. It's a weird, ridiculous, excessive, glorious thing. Welcome back, old man.

Rating: 3 out of 5

State & Tula

Hi, everyone. Any attempt at an introduction or explanation of what I'm trying to do will stop here and wait a while. I'll begin the inaugural post with what won't be the last mention here of my alma mater, The University of Texas. The latest BCS standings were released about an hour ago - we're #2, and in position (for now) to win a three-way tie-breaker for the Big XII South division title and a chance to play ourselves into the national championship game. I don't suspect the standings will hold, but at any rate, there is at least reason for hope right now. For that, I say, it could be worse. Hook 'Em Horns.

So anyway, I go through phases during which I flirt with the idea of contacting people I know or used to know but haven't talked to in a while. Usually I don't follow through with anything - I'll google someone's name in a couple of different ways or look at their Myspace page, and then I won't think of them for another 3 years. It's probably for the better. Lately, though, I've been slightly more serious about reconnecting with people. See, I'm getting married in a few months, and there are certain folks from my past that are/were important enough to me that I'd really like for them to see it happen. There's Walt, for example, the guy I started my old band with, with whom I share a birthday and who may or may not still be in the Army. Speaking of sharing my birthday and joining the Army, there's the long-lost Mike. The last I heard of him, he married some chick who goes to Renaissance fairs. Go figure! There's my friend Heather from high school, I hear she has three kids now, and the list goes on and on.

Then there's Kyle. He's one of a handful of what I considered "inseparable" friends for the first couple of years of college. He drove a big old gold-painted monster of a car, and we'd drive around crashing classy parties in the rich neighborhood and listening to jazz on the tape deck. Things change: in 1998 I stopped showing up at school, and Kyle declared he "had the blues" and was moving to Louisiana. He wound up at LSU, and I dropped in on him a couple of times during Mardi Gras or whenever, but we weren't really close once he left, and like a lot of friends do we gradually fell out of touch altogether. I got a random phone call from Kyle in 2002 while I was scouring the dollar bins in the back of the old Sound Exchange in Austin. He was living with a girlfriend in San Francisco and working for some kind of advocacy group, and he told me he wasn't the same person he used to be and was thinking of moving "somewhere." Somewhat fittingly, my clearest memory of that conversation is walking out of the record store to get better phone reception and almost getting run over by an ex-girlfriend. The distraction of nearly dying at the hands of a girl I'd really kind of screwed over threw off the dynamic of the conversation and made it hard to remember what we'd been talking about. Kyle said he'd let me get back to it, and that was the last time I heard from him.

I had a close call in 2005 when, according to my friend Mikey (not the Army one) I missed Kyle by about 15 seconds at the New Orleans Jazz Festival. I had run off to get beers, and Mikey said he appeared like a ghost, out of nowhere. He looked the same except for a crew cut, was back in New Orleans to work in media, and left a phone number that turned out to be wrong. This made me start thinking about how I could go about finding the guy, and when I starting making wedding plans, the idea of getting back in touch with Kyle had been lingering in my head for a while.

After some Google iterations, a scan of Myspace turned up a long-abandoned page for a filmmaker/teacher based in Taipei with a picture attached that was certainly the Kyle I knew. He was never as into film as some of us were, but there he was. And God damn, he looked exactly the same. A web link on the page didn't work, but left me with the name "La Corriveau," which as it turns out was the popular name of Marie-Josephte Corriveau, a convicted and executed French-Canadian murderer/folk hero from the mid-eighteenth century. The hunt was on. Anyhow, putting two and two together, this is where I wound up, and it's as far as I've gotten:





Well, if an adult puppet film about an executed and apparently anguished Quebecois frontierswoman/army brat isn't getting anywhere, I don't know what is. Calling Kyle Craig.