Released: 2008

Genres: Hard Rock, Industrial Rock, Alternative Metal

The Musiquarium’s Chinese Democracy Review Score: 2/5

After about 15 years without any new music and millions of dollars in studio sessions later, Guns N’ Roses’ ever elusive sixth studio album has finally seen the light of day… and it’s outdated and mostly terrible.

Recorded between 1998-2007 in about a dozen different studios, with about a dozen different musicians (none of which were original Guns N’ Roses members outside of Axl Rose), Chinese Democracy was destined to fail, and fail it did.

The title track sounds like it has about a dozen guitar tracks layered over each other, probably each from a different session guitarist. Shackler’s Revenge is a nu metal adjacent track and something I never thought I’d associate with the typically blues-based hair metal band. Better sounds like some late nineties trip hop, though I’ll admit that it is one of the more accomplished experiments here. The rest is basically Axl Rose singing with a G N’ R tribute band and trying his hand at a bunch of expired trends.

Chinese Democracy is about a decade too late, primarily comprising of music styles that have already been long out of fashion. There’s hair metal that was already stale by 1990, there’s trip hop, which was part of the nineties zeitgeist and there’s nu metal, which was already passé when Metallica released St. Anger in 2003. But, even if Chinese Democracy released ten years sooner, it would still suck.

Like The Velvet Underground’s Squeeze, Chinese Democracy is a Guns N’ Roses album in name only.

For credit breakdowns and historic release details, view Guns N’ Roses on Discogs.

Back to the 2008 Album Guide or the Guns N’ Roses Reviews page.

Written by Brett Nippard