Chinese Democracy is Axl Rose, Dizzy Reed, and an enormous cast of session musicians and temporary band members that would make Wu Tang blush. By that time, Slash was gone, but some of his wor was incrorporated into some of the songs. Same with Duff McKagan.
But, honestly, does that make it not really GNR? Sure, Slash and Duff are gone. Matt Sorum was replaced first by Brain, then by Frank Ferrer, both of whom are awesome. Itâs not like Tracii Guns was around, or Steven Adler. Izzy Straddlin had been gone for a long time, and honestly he was probably more the heart of GNR than anyone but Axl. And how attached were any of us to Gilby Clarke, really?
Instead, we got a lot of Chris Pittman, who is very good, Buckethead, who is one of the best guitartists on the planet but arguably just stylistically inappropriate for most of GNRâs work, Richard Fortus, who is great, and Ron âBublefootâ Thal who, in my opinion, in addition to being an absolutely awesome metal guitarist, is exactly the type of guy youâd want if you were trying to bridge the musical gap between the southern-rock-cum-thrash-metal that GNR used to be and the 21st century electro prog rock Rose clearly wanted them to be. Thereâs also Paul Tobias, who is geat, and Josh Freese plays a surprisingly large role, and he is outstanding.
Other fixtures during that time included Robin Finck, who was Nine Inch Nailsâ touring and sometime session guitarist on lead. Sean Beavan, longtime industrial metal producer, was involved for a long time, as was Caram Costano. Sebastian Bach was arond for a while and did guest vocals on one of the better tracks. Billy Howerdel, back when he was kind of a nobody, was involved on an uncredited basis for a long time. He ended up being a critical cog in A Perfect Circle.
Is this the ârealâ GNR? No, I guess? But If you ask me, neitther was the group that put together a lot of Use Your Illusion II (UYI I was mostly cover material and music written in the Appetite-era sessions and shortly thereafter), much less the group that toured on it. The ârealâ GNR from that era, if you ask me, was Axl, Slash and Izzy.
Chinese Democracy works best if you embrace three things: (1) go into it with no expectations, (2) accept that there is no ârealâ GNR after Appetite, other than Axl - and I really think thatâs the case, and (3) if you like the style Rose was attempting when making the record.
I remember someone (probably Chuck Klostermann?) once saying that after he wrote *November Rain," Axl Rose realized how good GNR could be, and decided that there was no point in recording anything that wasnât as good everything GNR could possibly do all at once, and he spent the next 15 years trying to make that happen with Chinese Democracy.
It helps a lot, too, to remember that at this time, Rose was trying to figure out a new way for GNR to be, knowing, I think, that trying to keep making Appetite would be sad and pointless, and that he was really obsessed with acts like Nine Inch Nails and Moby, and really excited by the injection of electronica into rock music at that time, all while resolving that there was no point in making any song at all if it couldnât be fuckin Liberace, Queen, Led Zepplin and without losing relevance to nu rock, Linkin Park, etc.
With Chinese Democracy, he did not achieve that. What he did achieve is some bizarre adnd amazing prog rock electro thrash piano masterwork thatâs super long but much more focused still than UYI I and II. It has a lot of obviously flawed and a couple of clearly failed tracks on it. But at its best, it is an epic and timeless metal opera only Axl Rose couldâve made, and only with the help of literally dozens of the finest producers, session men, guitarists and other creatives he could get his hands on.
I defy anyone to put âThere Was a Time,â âMadagascar,â âIRS,â âProstituteâ and âThe Catcher in the Ryeâ against anything GNR composed after 1988 and tell me those donât deserve a place among the highest this band has ever produced, below only a handful of tracks from Appetite and UYI collectively. Several of those songs did begin life with Slash and Duff around, in the early/mid-1990s. Even the less univeresally lauded tracks like âSorry,â âIf the World,â âChinese Democracyâ and âShacklerâs Revengeâ are creative, fun, kinetic and timeless in ways than anything - if weâre being honest with ourselves - that the ârealâ GNR couldâve made at that point.
Honestly, I think we live in a better world where we got Chinese Democracy, Itâs 5 O Clock Somewhere and Contraband instead of whatever hte ârealâ GNR wouldâve gotten through in the next 10 years.
