Chinese Democracy

I was never into Guns 'n' Roses (consequently, I don't know exactly how much of a disappointment Chinese Democracy is compared to the band's other work), but the mythoi surrounding the album has become such a running joke that I had to give it a listen (The first African-American president is elected into office and Chinese Democracy is being released? What universe are we living in?). And it looks like there were plenty of people just as curious as I was.

According to NME.com, "Guns N Roses' new album 'Chinese Democracy' has broken all records after being streamed on MySpace. The album received around 25 listens a second up until today (November 21) after being streamed in full on the site yesterday (November 20). Up until 4pm (GMT) today the title track had been played over 826,000 times, with the total amount of plays all the album tracks have received adding up to over 3 million."

Every track bespeaks of a mid-life crisis or sounds like it's trying too hard to appear relevant to the 18-25 year-old male demographic who will inevitably flock to their nearest Best Buy to purchase this turgid piece of polycarbonate plastic. Maybe they kind of amount to the same thing.

Alexis Petridis of the Guardian UK writes: "The credits go on and on like an airport bonkbuster, painstakingly detailing the painstaking details: 14 studios, seven people credited for "additional Pro-Tools", six guitarists on one song alone. It wears its agonising gestation like a badge of honour, as if all this was not merely unavoidable but somehow necessary. In reality, the time and effort involved magnifies the album's shortcomings. You hear the lyrics of If the World - "if the world would end today, all the dreams we had would slip away, there's nothing more to say-ay-ay" - and think: bloody hell, is that best you could come up with? It's not like you haven't had time to think about it."

Also, you'd think a guy capable of spending $13 million on studio polish would be able to stop looking like white trash.


Here's the link to GnR's MySpace page where the album is being streamed. Have a laugh.