Guns n' Roses - Chinese Democracy: A convoluted album of genius

Nov 21 2008 By Steve Wollaston

Guns n' Roses: Chinese Democracy (Geffen/Black Frog)

No album should take 15-years to make…fact.

No album should cost $13m to make…fact.

Axl Rose is a perfectionist and a few too many loaves short of a bakery… fact

A Guns n' Roses album is not a Guns n' Roses album without Slash, Duff and Izzy…fact.

Ok with that out of the way let’s have a look at the most eagerly awaited, expensive and constantly ridiculed album of all time.

Critics will rightly question why the album took so long to create, it may however after the mockery be applauded for what it is – and that’s a very complex record that is at best groundbreaking and at worst a strange hybrid of styles.

Axl Rose was 31 when he started the journey, times have changed and so has music, sometimes the styles seem dated, the music has come from such a varied time span that industrial style rockers like ‘Shackler’s Revenge’