Chinese Democracy - Guns and Roses
Track List:
Chinese Democracy
Shackler’s Revenge
Better
Street of Dreams
If the World
There Was a Time
Catcher in the Rye
Scraped
Riad N’ The Bedouins
Sorry
I.R.S.
Madagascar
This I love
Prostitute
This was a mistake
I heard someone say if you ignore the band name and think of this as a mid oughts rock album it’s pretty good. I can confidently say that person is wrong and it wouldn’t surprise me if they thought Photograph by Nickelback is top tier rock music. I’ve listened to 83 other albums as part of this project and this is the first I seriously thought about just stopping and not returning to.
The few notes I took. There are multiple times where they layer vocals, Axl using his high screaming voice and a lower register voice. This isn’t something new, lots of bands layer vocals. Hell the mandolin is made to layer itself to create a nice sounding effect. I don’t think it works here. There isn’t harmony created, rather just two vocal melodies that run parallel with one another. The backing track for “If The World” sounds like it was sampled from a porn. The backing track for “There Was A Time” I liked.
Ultimately this seemed uninspired and while it didn’t make my existence any worse by listening to it I also don’t feel as if the album has enhanced my life whatsoever.
