[Supersonic]

Aloha !

Originally Posted by Raz0r

I see what you’re saying, there are bluesy and punkish songs on the UTI’s, especially on UYI 1, and Chinese Democracy is nothing like that. But “This I Love” is a piano ballad like “November Rain”, and “There Was A Time” is an epic ballad that reminds me a lot of “Estranged”. I listen to songs like This I Love, There Was A Time, IRS, Catcher in the Rye, and they very much sound like GNR to me.

I very much disagree with this. This I Love is nothing like November Rain. November Rain has a haunting, melodramatic feeling over it, it's got a feeling pretty much everyone understood when it was released. Then there's all the signature sounds in it, the orchestration, the little drum fills, and obviously Slash dominating the song. Compare this to This I Love, which is pretty much a poem read on some mediocre instrumentation.

I also don't understand why and how There Was A Time reminds you of Estranged. Estranged, another song with no real structure, yet everything seems to fall together and is blend together by an actual band working together. And then there's TWAT, a song with pretty much the verse chorus verse chorus structure and then a heavy outro attached to it. I like the song, and feel it's as close as Axl could come to something sounding like Guns N' Roses. But in the end, it's not Guns N' Roses, it's his project, and very much sounds like a solo artist doing his thing.

Like I said in a previous post, my first impression of the album, after getting past the first 3 tracks that had an Industrial and NuMetal influence, my first impression of the rest of that album was how it could have been called UYI3, because a lot of those ballads could have fit right in with UYI2.

Nope, don't see it. There's absolutely no Blues on Chinese Democracy. It rarely sounds like classic rock, or even hard rock. It's very keyboard heavy, put together with samples and sounds of various songs and instruments. It's the direct opposite of how Use Your Illusion and Appetite was put together, and it's why it never sounds like anything Guns N' Roses had recorded. And the ballads are of such a disappointing level that I think when Axl would've brought them on the table Duff and Slash would have walked away laughing.

And let me ask you this, what is a GNR album supposed to sound like? UYI1 and Lies, sound very different than Appetite for Destruction did, UYI2 different than all three. But they’re all GNR right?

I think it's fair to say that everyone knows what a Guns N' Roses album is supposed to sound like considering how pretty much everyone knows Chinese Democracy doesn't sound like Guns N' Roses. It's the 5 individuals of the Appetite era working together and bringing in their influences and musical tastes. Chinese Democracy is Axl bringing in all kind of influences he likes, hoping to recapture a feeling that was a happening, a certain thing that can't be replicated unless these guys work together. And then there's Slash. Without Slash, it's no Guns N' Roses. Anything Slash is playing on since he departed from Guns N' Roses, sounds more like any of the songs on Chinese Democracy.

And I actually like the lyrics for This I Love, there are a couple of powerful lines in that song. Like “There's no one else Could ever make me feel I'm so alive” and “I've searched the universe And found myself Within her eyes”, those are awesome turn of phrase IMO. And powerful. I romantically whispered those words to my girlfriend, now wife, back in the day, and she was putty in my hands. And there’s great lines like that all over this album. How about the lyrics to “Catcher in the Rye” a tribute to John Lennon that gets in the mind of his killer…

Yeah...Frankly, when I write, these kind of lyrics are the ones I avoid like the plague. They're so cliché ridden and so very blunt that I feel they're ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, I wrote some cringe-worthy lyrics, but I wrote them when my English wasn't what it was today, and when I was 20 and had just started writing songs. By now, I've written plenty of better lyrics than the ones you cited. I never understood how someone who wrote that entire outro of Coma could come up with stuff like "I've searched the world and found myself within her eyes". I laugh at that, I really do. It's on the same level of lyrics Bryan Adams would write, delivering it on a sappy acoustic guitar. But while Bryan Adams is often capable of getting away with them, Axl sounds ridiculous.

I agree the production is too much, the album would have benefited from more space , I agree with you there. But I still liked it. I liked most of the lyrics, and I loved the guitar solos. And I’m a Slash fan, but Axl brought on some awesome guitarists to replace him, and I liked what they did.

Yes, the guitarists are technically far advanced compared to Slash. But really, is there any memorable solo or riff on the album? Any? It's once again a testament as to how important Slash was and is to the sound of Guns N' Roses. It's why the album's so bland as well. No standout riffs or licks on there. None. And that's with about 50 guitarists who worked on it.

And yes, it might be fair to say it’s just one man’s vision of what GNR should be, but that man is Axl Rose. Not only was Axl a major part of what made GNR awesome, but as Duff said in his biography, Axl is the single most punk rock, and most metal, person he’s ever met. Without trying to be, he just embodies it, he IS rock n’ roll. A lot of fans dislike him because they blame him for the breakup, or they think he’s an asshole, or they think he’s crazy… but it’s all that about him that made him awesome. That still makes him awesome, and it makes Chinese Democracy awesome. IMHO.

I think Axl's pretty much a has-been. A talented guy who had it all, and then threw it all away because his ego got too big for his boots. There's no question in my mind that Axl's responsible for the breakup. Even to this day Axl is the one who gets in the way of releasing music, showing up on time, delivering all night long. And as far as saying Axl was so important to Guns N' Roses...Meh. I've seen Velvet Revolver, Loaded and Slash's solo act. They all embody what Guns N Roses was a lot more than Axl's current version of it. And with the current state of Axl's vocals, he's pretty much become as disposable as any of the other hired guns. There's nothing rock & roll about that. Sure, it's what made him dangerous and exciting in the early nineties, but this kind of behavior, including Axl Rose and Guns N' Roses, is a thing of the past.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan