Chinese Democracy

And another thing, while I'm catching up. As most of you now know, Chinese Democracy is fucking atrocious, but Timmy told me to blog it so I didn't piss him off complaining to him about it any more.

In brief, it's a horrible, horrible mess.

The level of overproduction, and the amount of autotune so ham-fistedly on display is gobsmacking. For comparison, take a listen to anything from Bat out of Hell 3. Now, bless him, Meat Loaf can't pitch like he used to, so there's a fair amount of autotune on that album. You have to listen real close to hear it though, because it's only done where absolutely necessary, and it's done with a light touch. The result is a Meat Loaf record which is in tune and still sounds like Meat Loaf.

In the case of Chinese Democracy, whoever's been at the desk has been so heavy handed, Axl's voice loses all of it's character. On occasions it sounds one step away from a vocoder.

It's hard to believe that it took 13 years to make something that sounds so much like everything being thrown at a wall. There's no finesse, no subtlety. Even Death Magnetic sounded like a band playing songs, Chinese Democracy sounds like a Guns n' Roses simulator programmed by an excited teenager.

Add to that the fact that the best song (the slow, piano one, fucked if I can remember what it's called) is lifted from a Polyphonic Spree song, and you have a record custom designed to piss me off.

I was going to give it some time to settle in, but much like the NME reviewer, I'm not sure I even want to give it a second listen.

Nah, bollocks. Life's too short.