Review: Chinese Democracy
CHINESE DEMOCRACY
I am not going to recount the long and winding history of the fabled Guns N’ Roses Chinese Democracy record. But I do need to give you some context before we get to the actual review, so you’ll know where I’m coming from.
In the fall of 1987, my first semester of college, I worked at a video store in Mill Valley with a sixteen year old beauty named Madeleine. Now, Madeleine wasn’t a typical high school girl. She was a budding fashion model, and she would periodically jet off to New York and Los Angeles and Paris for high profile modeling shoots. And then she’d come back to work at the video store – her parents thought it would keep her grounded until she graduated. But more important to this story, she was cool in a way that I never would be: She smoked cigarettes and drank Jack Daniels from the bottle and cavorted with hair metal rock stars of the day. One night while we were working, she told me how she’d just returned from a weekend clubbing on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood, and how she’d partied with this new band at the Whiskey called Guns N’ Roses. “Their new record is about to come out,” she told me. “And it’s going to blow your dick off.” To this day, that is the single greatest endorsement for a record I’ve ever heard. Less than a year later, they had the number song in the country and one of the best-selling records of all time.
Appetite for Destruction is a stunning masterpiece – few critics will disagree. But I’ll go ya one further: The song ‘Rocket Queen’ – the 12th and final track on Appetite – is one of the five best rock and roll songs ever written. (The other four, in case you’re wondering, are Lou Reed’s ‘Sweet Jane,’ The Who’s ‘Baba O’Reilly,’ Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born to Run,’ and The Rolling Stone’s ‘Sympathy for the Devil.’) Yes, Rocket Queen is that good. And while the Use Your Illusion records from 1991 are admittedly bloated – it could’ve been a single amazing record instead of two mediocre ones – there are certainly moments of greatness. And Axl’s version of the Skyliners ‘Since I Don’t Have you’ off the otherwise forgettable Spaghetti Incident is one of the greatest rock cover tunes of all time.
And here we are, seventeen years after the release of the last G N’R studio record, and rock and roll is in dire straits: Jack Johnson and Josh Groban have the best-selling records of the last two years. Jack fucking Johnson. He wrote every song on the Curious George soundtrack, and my mom listens to him while she bakes banana bread. I’m not philosophically opposed to anyone writing songs about cartoon monkeys, but this guy is clearly dangerous. And I can’t even talk about Josh Groban without throwing up a little in my mouth. Thankfully, it’s been a great year for rock and roll (though not in record sales), with stellar efforts by Bruce Springsteen, Motley Crue, AC/DC, and even Journey. But right now, at this very moment, the world’s eyes and ears are on Axl Rose, who has jettisoned to planet earth to save rock and roll.
And now, on to the review of Chinese Democracy.
Track 1: Chinese Democracy
The title song ‘Chinese Democracy’ kicks things off to a promising start. It’s no ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ and, for my taste, lacks a definable hook, but the song does indeed rock. This is Axl saying, “It’s been sixteen years, motherfuckers, and now I’m going to punch you in the throat.”
If this song were a Steven Seagal movie, it would be Above the Law (It’s not quite Under Siege, but way better than On Deadly Ground or Belly of the Beast).
Track 2: Sheckler’s Revenge
Uh-oh, I’m getting a bad feeling about this. Remember those stories in the late 1990’s about Axl shaving his head, listening to Nine Inch Nails, and going all ‘industrial’? Sheckler’s Revenge clearly came out this era. And frankly, this is a terrible song. I don’t know who Sheckler is, or why he wants revenge, but I wish he would stop screaming at me through the stereo.
If this song were a Chuck Norris movie, it would be Sidekicks.
Track 3: Better
Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. ‘Better’ is a damn good song, if not a bit slight, and maybe the third best song on this record. It doesn’t rock like anything off ‘Appetite,’ but it would have fit nicely on either of the Use Your Illusion records, which isn’t a bad thing. It’s got a strangely popish chorus that reminds me of something off a Cardigans record. The more I listen to this song, the more I like it.
If this were 1970’s TV show about inner-city high school basketball, it would be The White Shadow.
Track 4: Street of Dreams
I was never one of those Guns N’ Roses purists who hated everything off the Illusion records, who thought the band sold out when Axl started writing 14 minute piano ballads. I mean, who doesn’t love them some ‘November Rain’? In a historical context, it’s important to remember that Axl was doing something revolutionary. Most love ballads of the era were confectionery pop diddies about a guy losing a girl and being sad about it – Poison’s ‘Every Rose Has it’s Thorn,’ Cinderella’s ‘Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til It’s Gone,’ Skid Row’s ‘I Remember You,’ or Warrant’s ‘Heaven.’ But an Axl Rose ballad was layered with darkness and dreamlike, nightmarish imagery. These songs – November Rain, Don’t Cry and Estranged – are about love and loss and mysticism and death, and Stephanie Seymour fighting another chick at a wedding and then dying in the rain. This stuff was heavy, man. In other words, if Axl Rose was George Harrison and Gun’s N’ Roses were the Beatles, then Bret Michaels was Davey Jones and Poison were The Monkeys. And that’s as clear as I can be.
But back to ‘Street of Dreams.’ I unabashedly love this mid-tempo ballad. At first listen, it seems a bit strange. The recurring piano riff – and I realize that the term ‘piano riff’ does not usually denote any sort of rocking – is clearly stolen from REO Speedwagon’s ‘Keep on Rollin’’. And for some odd reason, Axl sings the opening lines of the song in a deep, slightly Transylvanian accent that can best be described as ‘Dracula-esque.’ (In the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall – which I highly recommend – check out Jason Siegal singing the tune from his Dracula puppet musical, and you’ll know what I mean).
As ‘Street’ opens, and for the first minute, I neither love it nor hate it. I am indifferent, withholding judgment, because I am waiting for Axl to deliver the goods, because he owes me. He owes all of us. So I keep listening, waiting. And then at the 1:20 mark, something begins to happen. Something familiar, yet new. Something grounded in the physical world, yet ethereal. Something that can only be described as magic. If the hair on your arms doesn’t stand up just a bit, if the tiniest smile does form on your cynical lips when Axl’s screeching voice soars and the guitars kick in, then you’ve got a dark, empty cavern in your chest where your withered heart used to beat. ‘Street of Dreams’ becomes a certain kind of awesome that I have neither heard nor felt for a very long time, and was quite certain that I may never hear nor feel again. This is everything I want from Axl Rose. Consider the goods delivered. Now here’s the disclaimer: If you’re a G N’ R purist and hated everything off Illusion – and if you hate REO Speedwagon and guys who talk like Romanian vampires – then you’ll probably hate this song. But it fits nicely into the G N’ R canon, and it rightfully belongs in any collection of their best songs. Axl croons repeatedly, “What I thought was beautiful don’t live inside you any more.” Axl, old friend, you couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Track 5: If the World
This is an odd, slow-tempo number. With it’s vaguely Spanish-Flamenco guitar picking at the outset, and the funky, grooving bass line that sounds like an Isaac Hayes b-side from the Shaft era – I’ll admit it took me a while to warm to this one. But Axl’s voice has never sounded better, and the song, in it’s own bizarro way, is kinda cool.
If this were a Jean Claude Van Damme movie, it would be Time Cop.
Track 6: There Was a Time
Another mid-tempo tune, less quirky than ‘If the World’ -- A solid effort that wouldn’t sound out of place on the Illusion records, perhaps as a companion piece to ‘Yesterdays.’ But here’s my concern: Six songs into Chinese Democracy, and there has been very little rocking. I understand that Guns N’ Roses has moved beyond the dirty blues-inspired post-punk garage rock of Appetite for Destruction. Axl has a unique creative vision, and I get that. I do. But Axl – and now I’m speaking directly to you – there was a time when the shear force of your rocking would jam me in the nutsack and push my balls up into my esophagus while you pummeled me about the head and neck with your utter disdain for civil society. There was a time my friend. There was a time.
If this were a Billy Joel record, it would be River of Dreams.
Track 7: Catcher in the Rye
Yet another mid-tempo pseudo-rocker, only now Axl is writing lyrics about a JD Salinger book I read in junior high. It’s baffling on so many levels. I mean, this is the guy who wrote Mr. Brownstone, which is the third best song ever written about heroin. Don’t get me wrong – ‘Catcher’ is not a bad song, probably the fifth best song on this record. But what’s next – a stirring ballad based on Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women? A fist-pumping anthem called To Kill a Mockingbird? Suddenly I’m 14 years old, eating tater tots and sipping a cran-apple juicebox in the Del Mar Middle School cafeteria, staring at the budding cleavage of Monica Dillweather. And while the memory it conjures is pleasant enough, it does not fucking rock.
If this were the new Coldplay new record… Actually, it doesn’t suck that bad.
Track 8: Scraped
‘Scraped’ should have been scrapped. What the Hell is going here?
Track 9: Riad N’ the Bedouins
This song is called Riad N’ the Bedouins. And that really says it all.
If this were a Steven Seagal movie, it would be Stone Cold starring Brian Bosworth. No, that didn’t make sense to me either.
Track 10: Sorry
Sweet Jesus. Another slow number, but this one is awful. How many bad puns can I make using this title:
- This is a ‘sorry’ excuse for a song.
- I’m almost ‘sorry’ I bought this record.
- I’m ‘sorry’ I subjected my neighbors to this steaming turdpile of a song.
Okay, you get the idea.
If this were a bowel movement, it would be explosive diarrhea.
Track 11: I.R.S.
Now we’re finally getting somewhere. I.R.S. harkens back to Illusion-era songs such as ‘Civil War’ – and that’s a good thing. A solid-if-unspectacular tune.
If this were an item on Taco Bell’s 89 cent Value Menu, it would be a Cheesy Double Beef Burrito.
Track 12: Madagascar
Aah, yeah… Madagascar is the tits. Sure, it’s not the balls-out rocker I’ve been waiting for, but it’s a damn good song. In fact, Madagascar comes off like a distant cousin of Blind Faith’s ‘Can’t Find My Way Home,’ with Axl crooning:
“No I won't be told anymore / That I've been brought back in this storm / And left so far out from the shore / That I can't find my way back, my way anymore”
Not as uplifting as ‘Street of Dreams,’ but possibly a better song.
If this were a John Cusack movie, it would NOT be One Crazy Summer.
Track 13: This I Love
This one had me worried going in, because any Guns N’ Roses song with the word ‘Love’ in the title is bound to suck, unless it’s something like, “I Love Heroin” or “Gonna Give You My Love in a Bathroom Stall,” which would be totally awesome. But ‘This I love’ – Hmmm. So I press play on the old iPod, and guess what?
It does not suck, not even close. ‘This I love’ is a dark, ominous and tortured Use Your Illusion-esque ballad that is, or should be, the fourth part of Axl’s brooding quadrilogy that includes November Rain, Don’t Cry and Estranged. Stylistically, ‘This I Love’ leans more towards Estranged than November Rain, all sadness and frustration and hopelessness and gloom.
Slash wouldn’t wipe his ass with this song, but I kinda dig it.
Track 14: Prostitute
Sadly, this song is not about a prostitute, because that would have been so rock and roll. Instead, ‘Prostitute’ is Axl’s big “fuck you” to all those who doubted his fifteen year journey towards Chinese Democracy. And really, what’s more rock and roll than that? This is one of the better songs on the record, and when Axl croons, "Ask yourself / Why I would choose / To prostitute myself / To live with fortune and shame" – it’s clear he’s talking to all the haters out there.
If this song were a breakfast pastry, it would be a bear claw.
So there you have it. There are two great songs on this record (Street of Dreams, Madagascar), two very good songs (Better, This I Love), three decent songs (Chinese Democracy, Prostitute, Catcher in the Rye), and the other seven songs? Well…
And the verdict is: Axl Rose will not save rock and roll. Perhaps I had too many hopes pinned on this effort, too many lofty expectations. Because to me, Chinese Democracy is more than just a record: It is a bridge to my youth. And if the bridge is not sound, it will plummet into the angry, raging waters below. So perhaps the ultimate failure of Chinese Democracy – and it is ultimately a failure – is not entirely Axl’s fault. Maybe I needed this record to be something that it never could be, regardless of its artistic merit. Axl could never recreate the soaring memories I have of his earlier work, and anything less would be abject failure. So the torch of rock savior will be passed on to another. There’s a new Springsteen record due out in January, and a new U2 record in February. Perhaps our fate is now in the hands of Bono. I leave you with the following quote, that seems somehow appropriate:
“He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.”
I am not going to recount the long and winding history of the fabled Guns N’ Roses Chinese Democracy record. But I do need to give you some context before we get to the actual review, so you’ll know where I’m coming from.
In the fall of 1987, my first semester of college, I worked at a video store in Mill Valley with a sixteen year old beauty named Madeleine. Now, Madeleine wasn’t a typical high school girl. She was a budding fashion model, and she would periodically jet off to New York and Los Angeles and Paris for high profile modeling shoots. And then she’d come back to work at the video store – her parents thought it would keep her grounded until she graduated. But more important to this story, she was cool in a way that I never would be: She smoked cigarettes and drank Jack Daniels from the bottle and cavorted with hair metal rock stars of the day. One night while we were working, she told me how she’d just returned from a weekend clubbing on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood, and how she’d partied with this new band at the Whiskey called Guns N’ Roses. “Their new record is about to come out,” she told me. “And it’s going to blow your dick off.” To this day, that is the single greatest endorsement for a record I’ve ever heard. Less than a year later, they had the number song in the country and one of the best-selling records of all time.
Appetite for Destruction is a stunning masterpiece – few critics will disagree. But I’ll go ya one further: The song ‘Rocket Queen’ – the 12th and final track on Appetite – is one of the five best rock and roll songs ever written. (The other four, in case you’re wondering, are Lou Reed’s ‘Sweet Jane,’ The Who’s ‘Baba O’Reilly,’ Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born to Run,’ and The Rolling Stone’s ‘Sympathy for the Devil.’) Yes, Rocket Queen is that good. And while the Use Your Illusion records from 1991 are admittedly bloated – it could’ve been a single amazing record instead of two mediocre ones – there are certainly moments of greatness. And Axl’s version of the Skyliners ‘Since I Don’t Have you’ off the otherwise forgettable Spaghetti Incident is one of the greatest rock cover tunes of all time.
And here we are, seventeen years after the release of the last G N’R studio record, and rock and roll is in dire straits: Jack Johnson and Josh Groban have the best-selling records of the last two years. Jack fucking Johnson. He wrote every song on the Curious George soundtrack, and my mom listens to him while she bakes banana bread. I’m not philosophically opposed to anyone writing songs about cartoon monkeys, but this guy is clearly dangerous. And I can’t even talk about Josh Groban without throwing up a little in my mouth. Thankfully, it’s been a great year for rock and roll (though not in record sales), with stellar efforts by Bruce Springsteen, Motley Crue, AC/DC, and even Journey. But right now, at this very moment, the world’s eyes and ears are on Axl Rose, who has jettisoned to planet earth to save rock and roll.
And now, on to the review of Chinese Democracy.
Track 1: Chinese Democracy
The title song ‘Chinese Democracy’ kicks things off to a promising start. It’s no ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ and, for my taste, lacks a definable hook, but the song does indeed rock. This is Axl saying, “It’s been sixteen years, motherfuckers, and now I’m going to punch you in the throat.”
If this song were a Steven Seagal movie, it would be Above the Law (It’s not quite Under Siege, but way better than On Deadly Ground or Belly of the Beast).
Track 2: Sheckler’s Revenge
Uh-oh, I’m getting a bad feeling about this. Remember those stories in the late 1990’s about Axl shaving his head, listening to Nine Inch Nails, and going all ‘industrial’? Sheckler’s Revenge clearly came out this era. And frankly, this is a terrible song. I don’t know who Sheckler is, or why he wants revenge, but I wish he would stop screaming at me through the stereo.
If this song were a Chuck Norris movie, it would be Sidekicks.
Track 3: Better
Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. ‘Better’ is a damn good song, if not a bit slight, and maybe the third best song on this record. It doesn’t rock like anything off ‘Appetite,’ but it would have fit nicely on either of the Use Your Illusion records, which isn’t a bad thing. It’s got a strangely popish chorus that reminds me of something off a Cardigans record. The more I listen to this song, the more I like it.
If this were 1970’s TV show about inner-city high school basketball, it would be The White Shadow.
Track 4: Street of Dreams
I was never one of those Guns N’ Roses purists who hated everything off the Illusion records, who thought the band sold out when Axl started writing 14 minute piano ballads. I mean, who doesn’t love them some ‘November Rain’? In a historical context, it’s important to remember that Axl was doing something revolutionary. Most love ballads of the era were confectionery pop diddies about a guy losing a girl and being sad about it – Poison’s ‘Every Rose Has it’s Thorn,’ Cinderella’s ‘Don’t Know What You’ve Got ‘Til It’s Gone,’ Skid Row’s ‘I Remember You,’ or Warrant’s ‘Heaven.’ But an Axl Rose ballad was layered with darkness and dreamlike, nightmarish imagery. These songs – November Rain, Don’t Cry and Estranged – are about love and loss and mysticism and death, and Stephanie Seymour fighting another chick at a wedding and then dying in the rain. This stuff was heavy, man. In other words, if Axl Rose was George Harrison and Gun’s N’ Roses were the Beatles, then Bret Michaels was Davey Jones and Poison were The Monkeys. And that’s as clear as I can be.
But back to ‘Street of Dreams.’ I unabashedly love this mid-tempo ballad. At first listen, it seems a bit strange. The recurring piano riff – and I realize that the term ‘piano riff’ does not usually denote any sort of rocking – is clearly stolen from REO Speedwagon’s ‘Keep on Rollin’’. And for some odd reason, Axl sings the opening lines of the song in a deep, slightly Transylvanian accent that can best be described as ‘Dracula-esque.’ (In the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall – which I highly recommend – check out Jason Siegal singing the tune from his Dracula puppet musical, and you’ll know what I mean).
As ‘Street’ opens, and for the first minute, I neither love it nor hate it. I am indifferent, withholding judgment, because I am waiting for Axl to deliver the goods, because he owes me. He owes all of us. So I keep listening, waiting. And then at the 1:20 mark, something begins to happen. Something familiar, yet new. Something grounded in the physical world, yet ethereal. Something that can only be described as magic. If the hair on your arms doesn’t stand up just a bit, if the tiniest smile does form on your cynical lips when Axl’s screeching voice soars and the guitars kick in, then you’ve got a dark, empty cavern in your chest where your withered heart used to beat. ‘Street of Dreams’ becomes a certain kind of awesome that I have neither heard nor felt for a very long time, and was quite certain that I may never hear nor feel again. This is everything I want from Axl Rose. Consider the goods delivered. Now here’s the disclaimer: If you’re a G N’ R purist and hated everything off Illusion – and if you hate REO Speedwagon and guys who talk like Romanian vampires – then you’ll probably hate this song. But it fits nicely into the G N’ R canon, and it rightfully belongs in any collection of their best songs. Axl croons repeatedly, “What I thought was beautiful don’t live inside you any more.” Axl, old friend, you couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Track 5: If the World
This is an odd, slow-tempo number. With it’s vaguely Spanish-Flamenco guitar picking at the outset, and the funky, grooving bass line that sounds like an Isaac Hayes b-side from the Shaft era – I’ll admit it took me a while to warm to this one. But Axl’s voice has never sounded better, and the song, in it’s own bizarro way, is kinda cool.
If this were a Jean Claude Van Damme movie, it would be Time Cop.
Track 6: There Was a Time
Another mid-tempo tune, less quirky than ‘If the World’ -- A solid effort that wouldn’t sound out of place on the Illusion records, perhaps as a companion piece to ‘Yesterdays.’ But here’s my concern: Six songs into Chinese Democracy, and there has been very little rocking. I understand that Guns N’ Roses has moved beyond the dirty blues-inspired post-punk garage rock of Appetite for Destruction. Axl has a unique creative vision, and I get that. I do. But Axl – and now I’m speaking directly to you – there was a time when the shear force of your rocking would jam me in the nutsack and push my balls up into my esophagus while you pummeled me about the head and neck with your utter disdain for civil society. There was a time my friend. There was a time.
If this were a Billy Joel record, it would be River of Dreams.
Track 7: Catcher in the Rye
Yet another mid-tempo pseudo-rocker, only now Axl is writing lyrics about a JD Salinger book I read in junior high. It’s baffling on so many levels. I mean, this is the guy who wrote Mr. Brownstone, which is the third best song ever written about heroin. Don’t get me wrong – ‘Catcher’ is not a bad song, probably the fifth best song on this record. But what’s next – a stirring ballad based on Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women? A fist-pumping anthem called To Kill a Mockingbird? Suddenly I’m 14 years old, eating tater tots and sipping a cran-apple juicebox in the Del Mar Middle School cafeteria, staring at the budding cleavage of Monica Dillweather. And while the memory it conjures is pleasant enough, it does not fucking rock.
If this were the new Coldplay new record… Actually, it doesn’t suck that bad.
Track 8: Scraped
‘Scraped’ should have been scrapped. What the Hell is going here?
Track 9: Riad N’ the Bedouins
This song is called Riad N’ the Bedouins. And that really says it all.
If this were a Steven Seagal movie, it would be Stone Cold starring Brian Bosworth. No, that didn’t make sense to me either.
Track 10: Sorry
Sweet Jesus. Another slow number, but this one is awful. How many bad puns can I make using this title:
- This is a ‘sorry’ excuse for a song.
- I’m almost ‘sorry’ I bought this record.
- I’m ‘sorry’ I subjected my neighbors to this steaming turdpile of a song.
Okay, you get the idea.
If this were a bowel movement, it would be explosive diarrhea.
Track 11: I.R.S.
Now we’re finally getting somewhere. I.R.S. harkens back to Illusion-era songs such as ‘Civil War’ – and that’s a good thing. A solid-if-unspectacular tune.
If this were an item on Taco Bell’s 89 cent Value Menu, it would be a Cheesy Double Beef Burrito.
Track 12: Madagascar
Aah, yeah… Madagascar is the tits. Sure, it’s not the balls-out rocker I’ve been waiting for, but it’s a damn good song. In fact, Madagascar comes off like a distant cousin of Blind Faith’s ‘Can’t Find My Way Home,’ with Axl crooning:
“No I won't be told anymore / That I've been brought back in this storm / And left so far out from the shore / That I can't find my way back, my way anymore”
Not as uplifting as ‘Street of Dreams,’ but possibly a better song.
If this were a John Cusack movie, it would NOT be One Crazy Summer.
Track 13: This I Love
This one had me worried going in, because any Guns N’ Roses song with the word ‘Love’ in the title is bound to suck, unless it’s something like, “I Love Heroin” or “Gonna Give You My Love in a Bathroom Stall,” which would be totally awesome. But ‘This I love’ – Hmmm. So I press play on the old iPod, and guess what?
It does not suck, not even close. ‘This I love’ is a dark, ominous and tortured Use Your Illusion-esque ballad that is, or should be, the fourth part of Axl’s brooding quadrilogy that includes November Rain, Don’t Cry and Estranged. Stylistically, ‘This I Love’ leans more towards Estranged than November Rain, all sadness and frustration and hopelessness and gloom.
Slash wouldn’t wipe his ass with this song, but I kinda dig it.
Track 14: Prostitute
Sadly, this song is not about a prostitute, because that would have been so rock and roll. Instead, ‘Prostitute’ is Axl’s big “fuck you” to all those who doubted his fifteen year journey towards Chinese Democracy. And really, what’s more rock and roll than that? This is one of the better songs on the record, and when Axl croons, "Ask yourself / Why I would choose / To prostitute myself / To live with fortune and shame" – it’s clear he’s talking to all the haters out there.
If this song were a breakfast pastry, it would be a bear claw.
So there you have it. There are two great songs on this record (Street of Dreams, Madagascar), two very good songs (Better, This I Love), three decent songs (Chinese Democracy, Prostitute, Catcher in the Rye), and the other seven songs? Well…
And the verdict is: Axl Rose will not save rock and roll. Perhaps I had too many hopes pinned on this effort, too many lofty expectations. Because to me, Chinese Democracy is more than just a record: It is a bridge to my youth. And if the bridge is not sound, it will plummet into the angry, raging waters below. So perhaps the ultimate failure of Chinese Democracy – and it is ultimately a failure – is not entirely Axl’s fault. Maybe I needed this record to be something that it never could be, regardless of its artistic merit. Axl could never recreate the soaring memories I have of his earlier work, and anything less would be abject failure. So the torch of rock savior will be passed on to another. There’s a new Springsteen record due out in January, and a new U2 record in February. Perhaps our fate is now in the hands of Bono. I leave you with the following quote, that seems somehow appropriate:
“He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.”
posted by The Newsroom at 12:08 AM
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