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Evening Standard 31.10.08
Metal mania: Axl Rose joins veterans Metallica and AC/DC in a year of of heavy-rock comeback
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Worth the wait, Axl?
It has come as a shock to learn that the new Guns N' Roses album, Chinese Democracy, not only really exists but is also going to be in shops on 23 November — 17 years since the rock band's last proper release. It's like London Zoo asking if you'd like to come and see their new unicorn.
Chinese Democracy has become a curse, a joke and a legend. In the tortured course of its creation, singer Axl Rose became an obsessive recluse and every other original band member, including guitarist Slash, departed, as Rose fiddled and tweaked, destroyed and started again.
At an estimated £10 million, it is undisputably the most expensive album ever recorded. Accordingly, the hype has become ludicrous. Latest manager Andy Gould recently said: “When they asked Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel, they didn't say, Can you do it in the fourth quarter?' Great art sometimes takes time,” apparently unaware that it took Michaelangelo a sprightly four years.
It was unwise to compare this dreadlocked despot to a Renaissance genius, for if Chinese Democracy needs one thing, it's a lowering of expectations. Like a frozen caveman thawing far into the future, Rose is re-emerging into a completely different world. The music industry is slimming down, cutting back and changing beyond recognition. The epic indulgences he has been afforded to complete these 14 songs (yes, just 14!) will never happen again, to anyone. It is just an album.
It will sell well, of course. Remarkably, after so many years, it is actually being released at a smart time, in a year when other veteran rockers such as Metallica and AC/DC have also made popular comebacks. Existing Guns N' Roses fans will not be alienated despite claims of massive sonic reinvention, while those who always thought Rose screeched like a sack of monkeys will find that he now does so in layer upon costly layer of overdubbed vocal tracks.
The comeback single, the album's title track, simply sounds like a grossly expensive version of the angry metal of old. It has a pretentious ambient intro and the endless widdly guitar solos are somewhat over-egged but it still rocks impressively.
Earlier versions of other songs, scattered all over YouTube like grainy photographs of the Loch Ness Monster, suggest plenty more decent moments, including the chugging industrial metal of Shackler's Revenge, the fierce punk of Riad N' The Bedouins, and Catcher N' The Rye, a catchy, poppier piano ballad that could be a hit to rival November Rain.
So the album won't be a failure musically — but nor can it be the revolution that the scale of its conception demands. Its eventual sales figures will certainly be negligible next to
the near 30 million units that were shifted by Guns N' Roses' 1987 debut, Appetite For Destruction.
The music world is now one of gruelling world tours, internet leaks and free downloads, where the songs themselves are no longer of central importance. If Rose wants to stay in the game now, he will need to give away tracks with T-shirts, tour for years and simultaneously come up with the next album in a blink. His 17-year folly is over. He is finally going to have to work for his money.
NEW ON THE NET
*Heavyweight clubbing brand Ministry of Sound has just relaunched its website at www.ministryofsound.com to make it easier to buy its many, many products, including single downloads, and its ever-popular Annual compilation series — or if you're not feeling musical, its luggage, vodka or perfume.
*The second album by Lily Allen (left) isn't due until February but 90 seconds of a video for comeback single Everyone's At It have
just appeared on YouTube (search for her name and the song title at www.youtube.com). Adhering to the long tradition of second albums being about the hardships of fame, it features lots of gritty clips of (sigh) cocaine use.
*In an effort to shift a few more copies of their excellent debut album from earlier this year, edgy electronica duo Crystal Castles are giving away their track Alice Practice at www.7digital.com. It sounds like a PlayStation exploding — and is none the worse for that.
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