Guns N' Roses - Chinese Democracy

It's the day that I thought would never come. Last Sunday I stopped at Best Buy (the only retailer to carry it BTW) and picked up my copy of the new Guns N' Roses album, Chinese Democracy.

It seems like every year for the past 15 or so, GNR has announced that this album was ready. But it has never appeared. It's been a running joke for so long that's it's hard to remember when the band actually released something (that would be the 1997 flop, The Spaghetti Incident?).

In a bold move, the band posted the entire album on their MySpace page (though currently only 6 songs are up). Needless to say, after years of hype amounting to nothing, plus Axl's poor performance record at live shows (not showing up or inciting riots), I listened to the entire thing before going out to make my purchase.

What I heard surprised me. Granted, this album is not Appetite for Destruction. But with that said, it's a damn good album, one that flows from front to back really well. There are a few songs that aren't all that, but no bombs. And yes, it's obviously been re-re-re-dubbed, but that's to be expected for a project that's taken over a decade and features members that are no longer with the band.

So okay, it's Guns N' Roses...or maybe it's more accurate to say that it's Axl Rose and his current band. And it took so long to produce that it became a running joke. It's not as good as Appetite for Destruction. But I've got to face it, it's a good album, way better than Spaghetti Incident? and I'll even say Use Your Illusion I and II (which can really be boiled down to one good album, once you remove all the fluff). It's worth at least a listen.