Any album that takes about two decades and millions of dollars to produce is likely to disappoint, but Axl Rose’s “Chinese Democracy” gives disappointment a new name “Chinese Democracy”.This was an album thought up in 1993 and took about 15 years to complete, finally being released in 2008. It failed on every possible level.
When it was released, music industry experts stated that it would be virtually impossible for it to not meet expectations. Built in were two possible scenarios for the album:
The first one stated that since the hype had been so heavy on the album that certainly it would be good and sell on the merits of its artistic worth. People would be intrigued by an album that took so long to make by an artist who was so beloved. It would be like if My Bloody Valentine got together and released a follow up to Loveless, only for people without musical taste.
The second outcome took a different approach. Instead of being very good, it would be horrendously awful. Awful could be a good thing though, as the panning would be so hard that people would be tempted to tune in and see what the fuss was all about.
But what happened, which everyone should have expected, was nobody cares about Guns N’ Roses anymore. Jeez, their last album was from the early 90s. People forget about artists so easily that a comeback can be after taking a year or two off. So essentially all the possible outcomes didn’t factor this in, they assumed people cared about some early 90s washed out loser rocker.
No review stated that this was a masterpiece. In fact, most reviews focused on the sheer length of time it took to record and the unimpressive quality of the music. “Better” one of the singles, sounded like something that would’ve rocked your face off in 1997, not 2008. 2008 had simply evolved beyond the point of caring about culturally irrelevant rock stars, or about cheesy guitars solos like those provided by the extremely overrated Buckethead. But most reviews simply stated “meh”. Literally saying anything else would have resulted in some awful legal action from Axl’s camp.
In fact, the most interesting aspects of this recording session were the extremely bizarre and often brutal legal proceedings. One of them is obvious: China banned the album since it considered it “offensive”. Clearly communist officials in China have better taste than our own law enforcement.
Apparently the US government enjoyed the album. They enjoyed it so much that on August 28th, 2008 FBI agents broke into Kevin Cogill’s house and arrested him, charging him with copyright infringement. Since they weren’t certain whether or not a blogger called “Skwerl” was dangerous, they came in heavily armed. Bloggers generally live in fortified compounds in cul-de-sacs and awake at 6:59am on a weekday morning, hoping for some cool overseas events to blog about. Eventually he was released and finished serving his one year of mandatory house arrest.
Of course Dr. Pepper (that mixture of chemicals commonly referred to as “refreshing”) avoided a serious blow. Axl’s attorneys tried to sue it, claiming they didn’t honor their promotional contract with Axl, but apparently once Axl heard about this threatened lawsuit, he felt sorry for the multinational company. Individuals who steal a few MP3s of mediocre music expect a much crueler fate. No sympathy for the devil I guess.
So selling over 5 million copies of dregs worldwide must count as an accomplishment of some sort. Just kidding, it wishes it was dregs. But on the plus side, it did reach number one in Slovenia and New Zealand.
Shame he didn't get number one in America. He likes America a lot, judging from the photo above, maybe a little too much. I'm glad that he received a cold shower from the lackluster album sales.
Shame he didn't get number one in America. He likes America a lot, judging from the photo above, maybe a little too much. I'm glad that he received a cold shower from the lackluster album sales.