Guns N' Roses' New Album Delivers More Than Soda

Of the many great hair-rock clown shows to emerge in the mid-to-late ’80s, few were as substantive as the almighty five-piece Guns N’ Roses.

Steeped in the raucous rock ’n’ roll lifestyle of seedy gigging up and down the Sunset Strip, with the musical chops to back up the visuals, Guns N’ Roses quickly carved out a significant following with the 1987 release of its debut studio album Appetite for Destruction. A year after the huge commercial successes of Appetite (nearly 30 million copies have been sold to date), the band released the “interim” half-studio/half-live album G N’ R Lies, which was in turn succeeded by the 1991 release of the double-album Use Your Illusion (I + II). Like G N’ R Lies before it, the Use Your Illusion set was far more eclectic than the strictly rough-edge rawk of Appetite for Destruction. With ever-expanding commercial and musical influence, the band no doubt seemed destined for great success.

It was thus with due consternation that music fans witnessed the dissolution of the band in the years to come. Lurking behind the vast successes was serious tension between the self-proclaimed leader, Axl Rose, and the band’s instrument-bearers—lead guitarist Slash, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin, bassist Duff McKagan, and drummer Matt Sorum. As early as the Appetite for Destruction days, Rose purportedly became overwhelmingly difficult in the studio and prone to temper tantrums while on the road.

During an August 1991 show in Mannheim, Germany, for example, Rose walked off the stage without conferring with his bandmates. During a forced intermission of sorts, the band and crew tried to convince Rose to get back onstage and finish the set. In the end, Rose conceded, but only after learning that management had literally blockaded escape routes from the premises. By the end of the European leg of that tour, Stradlin had quit the band. In the unproductive years immediately after Stradlin’s departure, despite a cover album released in 1993, the band had essentially become a nonentity.
By the mid-’90s, Rose was the only remaining original member.

Following the departures of Slash, McKagan, and Sorum, Rose quickly set about finding replacements in order to release a proper follow-up to Use Your Illusion, to be called Chinese Democracy. Yet as the years passed, few indications of a time frame for the album’s release surfaced. Despite financial nudging by management at Geffen Records, Rose’s obsessive attention to detail and brash personality resulted in consistent roster shake-ups and countless scrappings of recorded material. By 2004, displeased by the lack of progress, Geffen released an unauthorized greatest hits compilation, which only served to further aggravate the growing discontent between Rose and his financial backers.

Then began the series of unfulfilled promises. In May 2006, Rose claimed the album would be released by the end of the year. In December 2006, he claimed a tentative release date of March 6, 2007. Through the end of 2007, however, the band had failed to deliver, leading many to wonder whether Chinese Democracy would ever be released. On March 26, 2008, eager to make a commercial play on the ongoing interest of those awaiting the album’s release, Dr. Pepper Snapple Group went so far as to promise “a Dr. Pepper to everyone in America” in the event of the album’s release. By late summer 2008, a spate of new rumors surrounding the album arose, climaxing in August with reports that the album was to be released as a Best Buy exclusive on Nov. 23. In October, the Best Buy rumor was verified, and the first single, “Chinese Democracy,” was released to the public.

The single “Chinese Democracy” is, surprisingly, downright solid. Carefully balancing the feel of the heaviest moments of pre-breakup Guns N’ Roses with the more metallic influences of the contemporary rock scene and the band’s new musicians, it serves as a solid link between the old and the new. It is exactly this ability to incorporate the traditional GN’R vibe which will be crucial to Chinese Democracy’s reception by the legion of enduring fans. The more frightening aspect of the updated sound, however, is the excessively glossy feel of the single and its track layering. Devoid of Slash-and-company’s down-and-dirty crunch, the tune unfortunately feels like a prelude to an overly processed, inauthentic disappointment. Harsh, perhaps, but I suppose we will just have to wait and see. If the album is indeed a letdown, at least I will have that free can of Dr. Pepper to pick me up.

Guns N’ Roses’ Chinese Democracy will be released by Interscope Records on Tuesday, Nov. 23.