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I think perhaps the biggest shocker of the year in music is that Guns N’ Roses’ new album, Chinese Democracy, which has been 13 years in the making, is pretty good.  This of course highly depends on whether you like Guns N’ Roses or not, more specifically if you like Axl Rose’s voice.  I can imagine that lots of people don’t like the way he sounds, but I’m not sure.  I like it, I find it very unique, and I enjoyed the Use Your Illusion albums in the very early 90s - they were some of my first rock-music-that-I-actually-like-and-want-to-buy experiences.  Appetite for Destruction of course also had some good tracks.  I didn’t like 80s hair glam rock, and I never really regarded GnR to be part of that category, though perhaps some members sported the style.  At the very least GnR were a small part of the bridge between 80s rock and 90s alternative.

Now the thing to keep in mind is that as a whole, the Use Your Illusion albums weren’t really *that* great, nor was Appetite for Destruction.  They weren’t bad, they had some stand out tracks, and when they stood out, they stood out, with really great music videos to complement the Use Your Illusion singles.  But they also had some so-so tracks as well as some duds on there, which made for not continuously good albums.  In this context, Chinese Democracy does not disappoint.  I’m not even sure it’s not the best GnR album - probably not, but I’m not sure.  It feels like a far more epic and deep album.  I’m happily surprised to find that it has sincerity.  When Axl sings, it sounds like he is being sincere and not just trying real hard.  I find most of the tracks on Chinese Democracy to be good.  It’s a very good Guns N’ Roses album.  The super awesome stand-out memorable songs are not really there, but nor are the duds.  This great and poor has been replaced with a constant good.

There’s not too much about it that sounds specifically modern either.  This album could have come out in 1994, and if you heard it today you’d say “yeah, that’s the ‘94 Guns N’ Roses album..”  Unfortunately Chinese Democracy is overshadowed by the well known fact that it’s been 13 years in making.  So instead of purely enjoying the music, you can’t help occasionally wondering why it took so long if it sounds like it could easily be from 1994 (had the band not split, of course).  Was Axl retooling it for so long, and working on it so hard that it took so many years of his effort to get it to sound like an actual GnR album?  Has he lost it except when he spends 13 years to make an album?  The most fascinating experiment possible right now would be to find where Axl’s been hiding for all these recent weeks, kidnap him, get the rest of the band, lock them in a studio for two weeks and force them to release a new album in that time.  What would that sound like? Would it be horrible, another good GnR album, or something even better?

Either way, good job on Chinese Democracy, Axl, but it would benefit from some publicity.  You’re not Tool.