Review: GUNS N' ROSES' 'Chinese Democracy' Is Not The Greatest Rock Album Ever Made

March 27, 2006

Chuck Klosterman of Spin magazine has penned a review of the complete 13-song version of GUNS N' ROSES' long-awaited new album, "Chinese Democracy". An excerpt from his review follows [***NOTE: The review may or may not have been written as an early April Fool's Day joke***]:

"It's been a long time since GUNS N' ROSES have released an album of new material. Everybody knows this, but it's a fact that bears repeating. If you purchased a kitten on the day that 'Use Your Illusion I' & 'II' arrived in stores, it's probably dead by now. As a consequence, there has been a great deal of pressure on Axl Rose to deliver a record that would validate a 15-year, $13 million wait. There is really only one way for 'Chinese Democracy' to avoid utter and absolute failure: It needs to be the greatest rock album ever made.

"'Chinese Democracy' is not the greatest rock album ever made.

"Oh, it's certainly awesome, but I don't think it's '15 years awesome.' Had Axl released his album after a silence of, say, 11 years and two months (at a cost of, say, $11.5 million),'Chinese Democracy' would be an undeniable masterpiece, but considering the circumstances, some of this work seems shoddy. I get the impression most of the 13 songs were written between 1993 and 1999, and Rose merely spent six or seven years touching them up in the studio. One is forced to wonder if a track like 'Madagascar' was only recorded 75 or 80 times, which calls Axl's alleged 'maniacal perfectionism' directly into question."

Read the entire review at Spin.com.

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