"Some people got a chip on their shoulder/And some would say it was me/But I didn't buy that fifth of whiskey that you gave me/So I'd be quick to disagree"
"Out Ta Get Me" by Guns N' Roses (on Appetite for Destruction)

A couple of weeks ago, to great fanfare and a bit of sneering, Axl Rose released a Guns N' Roses album called Chinese Democracy. It was only available in solid form at Best Buy, but you could get a CD or double LP vinyl set (for a little bit more--y'know, the collectible factor). If you didn't mind just having the music as ether (digital form), you could get it from iTunes, as well.

I made up my mind a few years ago that I'd pick this up when it came out. If it ever came out. A little bit of completeness, I guess. But I tend to give artists one more shot than most of the public. I'm a little nutty that way. Maybe there's something good in the fifteen year gestation of this project.

Just a couple years ago Brian Wilson released Smile, which was to be the Beach Boys follow up to the sensational Pet Sounds. But Wilson himself went nutty and never released it back in the 60s. He was competing with the Beatles for the perfect pop album, and Smile would not have beat out Sgt. Pepper's. Some of the songs (most notably, "Good Vibrations") was released on Smiley Smile by the Beach Boys, but the original vision was different. And, while not bad, the twenty something years of wait didn't make it better.

Axl and his record company knew one thing, though. If they were gonna release this thing, they had to say it was a Guns N' Roses album. Otherwise it wouldn't have sold as well as it did. Even though we all knew it was the Axl Rose Project.

I prefer to think of this as a CD called Guns N' Roses by a band named Chinese Democracy. And that Axl was being completely ironic about the name of the band and the name of the album.

Because this isn't the G N' R any of us knew, and only vaguely familiar because of the occasional flashes of Axl's voice that sound familiar.

I've listed to this CD a couple of times, and there are some good moments. Much of it, however, passes by sound mosaic snow drifts. And it's no where near like the first time--even though I wasn't a huge fan at first. I liked "Paradise City," but the rest of it scared me. There was something primal there, and it took me a while to latch onto it. I wasn't ready for it.

And even though they play "Welcome To The Jungle" at a lot of football games (on kickoffs), and many try and fail to sing "Sweet Child O' Mine" at Karaoke, listening to Appetite today will still affect even the most jaded listener. G N' R's debut album still shocks today. This was pop music in the late 80s?

It's hard to say what kind of album Axl thought he was making with this thing. And it's has been pieced together from so many musicians, one might think it was actually made by some neurotic artificial musical intelligence. Occasionally one can hear a soul trying to peak out of this dense landscape of guitar chunks and squiggles. And Axl screams and moans and grunts and growls--much of the time simultaneously.

But I don't hear Guns N' Roses. I don't hear the original lineup (that made the first album) or the larger conglomeration (which was forming and breaking up at the same time) that made the double Illusion album.

Gone is Izzy's Keith Richard slyness. Gone is Slash's soul. Gone is Duff's punk. Gone is the wide array of substance abuse and strange alchemy of vision and naivete blended into a band trying to find its legs. And the slashing drums of Adler left the house before anyone else, replaced by drum by tech tool rote.

All that's left is Axl's omniscient angry god surrounded by about fifteen hired hands (not including the guys punching buttons in the studio).

I know Axl isn't listening to me anymore. He stopped taking my phone calls at about the same time he stopped taking calls from the rest of his former band mates.

And I don't want to say (like I've read in a few reviews) that he should get back together with the original line up. We don't want to hear that album either. I know a lot of people want to see the original band live (I saw them in 1988 with my dad), but that won't be the same as it ever was--if it ever happens.

Nope, I'm just saying this: I'm glad Axl was able to pass this through his system. Finally. It sounds like he was paralyzed by it, and maybe this will make him able to write some new songs again. He won't have to call it Guns N' Roses. Or Chinese Democracy. And it won't have to be the circus of an event this one was.

But, y'know, it might be good.

"You're fucking crazy" from "You're Crazy" by Guns N' Roses (on Appetite and Lies)

Matt Worley doesn't attend reunion tours.