New GnR - a first take

It's here. After only 17 years, it's here.

Now let me just start with a few qualifying statements and facts.

First of all, new Guns is not really Guns. Velvet Revolver is more Guns than this group of impostors to the throne. Sure Axl's the frontman and that carries some value. But let's be clear - this is not the same GnR and should be judged as a separate project.

Next, the world's been waiting almost two decades for this album. All the false starts, bad press, random bar fights with Tommy Hilfiger, ill-fated hair decisions (dreadlocks? cornrows?!?), and other assorted bullshit around Axl, his new band, and the album do not bode well for massive public success. The hype that has been building on itself for 17 years or so is crushing at this point, so an honest judgment of the music is gonna be pretty tough to extract from all the rest of it.

And I mean let's be honest - Bumblefoot and Dizzy Reed are only going to carry you so far.

All that said, I've been looking forward to this album since the day it was announced (I believe I was in high school at the time), and finally seeing the tracks lined up all nice and neat in my iTunes gives me a broner for sure. I've listened to the album 3 times through so far, and without getting into the details (we'll save those for a later post) - I fucking dig it.

I've struggled with my ability to be objective here. I mean I once almost tattooed a design on my shoulder giving prominence to guns and to roses as core design elements. (I still may in fact.) GnR was totally influential on my own musical upbringing, and is one of the few bands I still listen to on an almost daily basis. They're in the rotation for life. But do these facts predispose me to be more or less receptive to the band's new work? Arguments could be made on either side. I argue that I'm a harsher critic now because of my love of the old Guns. But am I so fucking excited that I'm going to be blind to what might be truly shitty music?

I think I can be fair.

Favorite tracks after 3 listens:
Sorry
Prostitute
Street of Dreams
This I Love
Madagascar
I.R.S.
Better
There Was a Time
Catcher in the Rye

And that's a lot of tracks. 9 of 'em in fact. Any album with 3 or more killer songs after the first few listens usually makes it into my "good album" category. More than that is just bonus. Triple that is fucking exciting. And as I listen over time I pull out more and more tracks that are interesting for various reasons. After 3 listens - still very much early days - I see this album having all the potential in the world to become great.

How does it map to the old Guns that I know and love? That's tougher to say. I mean the Use Your Illusion albums were a departure from the raw chaos that made Appetite so explosive - but Appetite was a totally new thing too, so anything derivative would have been by definition less explosive. So far I like Axl's more melodic tracks, and the harder stuff sounds more forced. It's different than the old Guns to be sure, but how might the band have evolved if it had stayed together? Velvet Revolver is a more direct descendant - musically and personnel-wise - of the true Guns n' Roses than Axl's new band. But that doesn't make what Axl has produced any less interesting in its own right.

So for me, Chinese Democracy is a success. Has it totally lived up to the hype? Maybe not. But could anything live up to this kind of hype?

Give it a listen and you tell me. I'm just pumped to have Axl back in the fold, and to see Guns - in whatever incarnation - relevant again.

UPDATE: here's a take by the LA Times. Interesting, even if the writer's love of her own voice makes me look positively concise by comparison... I mean, Ann Powers - get over yourself please. You're here to review albums, not masturbate on-screen. I need a nap after that review. Or a shower. I almost threw up reading this line: "Rose's music tells the saga of the mutually abusive relationship between the freight train's axle and the rose it crushes, a potentially poisonous flower that keeps growing back."

You've been warned.