Do you still hate Chinese Democracy?

[Bono Nettencourt]

I never listened to it.
The whole, Axl being a dick for the ten years it took to record it, put me off a little bit.
I more hate the thought of Chinese Democracy, than the actual album that I have never heard.

This all day. He drained away any interest that there would've been.

[CrankerBait]

I don't care enough about it to hate it.

[Tommy2Tone84]

All the Axl fans have a thread to break bread in.

Yep, I just listened to it a couple weeks ago and it still sucks. Slash, Izzy and Duff’s solo projects are way better. So are Gilby’s. Hell, Adler is better than ChinDem.

[MotleyKaos]

I believe it took longer for me to finally get around to listening to this album than for Axl to make and release it. Finally listened to most of it last Saturday.

That already says a lot about my opinion, I guess. I think I have 2 or 3 songs left, but I haven't felt inclined to finish it so I can't say I really enjoyed the experience. I don't hate it. I had it playing in the background while I was playing a game. It was interesting, well put together for what it's worth. My favorite song on the album is "Better". That's a strange falsetto part for Axl to be singing. Nothing else really caught my ear enough for me to remember it two days later.

I guess this is Axl's magnum opus for him to have been so reportedly obsessed with every minute detail. Then again, did he spend the full 20+ years working on it? I wonder if most of the work was done in the 2000s and if he spent the rest of the 90s, after the UYI tours, struggling to come up with "the next album" and drawing a blank. Maybe he pretended he was working on "the next album" in the 90s only as an excuse to keep a record contract while he hid himself away. Pretty sure that guy was just burned out.

[str]

Never hated it ,
Was gonna bring it to a friend in the hospital when it came out but another friend already did

[daveg]

I believe it took longer for me to finally get around to listening to this album than for Axl to make and release it. Finally listened to most of it last Saturday.

That already says a lot about my opinion, I guess. I think I have 2 or 3 songs left, but I haven't felt inclined to finish it so I can't say I really enjoyed the experience. I don't hate it. I had it playing in the background while I was playing a game. It was interesting, well put together for what it's worth. My favorite song on the album is "Better". That's a strange falsetto part for Axl to be singing. Nothing else really caught my ear enough for me to remember it two days later.

I guess this is Axl's magnum opus for him to have been so reportedly obsessed with every minute detail. Then again, did he spend the full 20+ years working on it? I wonder if most of the work was done in the 2000s and if he spent the rest of the 90s, after the UYI tours, struggling to come up with "the next album" and drawing a blank. Maybe he pretended he was working on "the next album" in the 90s only as an excuse to keep a record contract while he hid himself away. Pretty sure that guy was just burned out.

I 100% get what you are saying. Took me probably months to get through it all. It really is an album that grows on you, and I really like it now.

[MotleyKaos]

I believe it took longer for me to finally get around to listening to this album than for Axl to make and release it. Finally listened to most of it last Saturday.

That already says a lot about my opinion, I guess. I think I have 2 or 3 songs left, but I haven't felt inclined to finish it so I can't say I really enjoyed the experience. I don't hate it. I had it playing in the background while I was playing a game. It was interesting, well put together for what it's worth. My favorite song on the album is "Better". That's a strange falsetto part for Axl to be singing. Nothing else really caught my ear enough for me to remember it two days later.

I guess this is Axl's magnum opus for him to have been so reportedly obsessed with every minute detail. Then again, did he spend the full 20+ years working on it? I wonder if most of the work was done in the 2000s and if he spent the rest of the 90s, after the UYI tours, struggling to come up with "the next album" and drawing a blank. Maybe he pretended he was working on "the next album" in the 90s only as an excuse to keep a record contract while he hid himself away. Pretty sure that guy was just burned out.

I 100% get what you are saying. Took me probably months to get through it all. It really is an album that grows on you, and I really like it now.

Yeah, I might come around to it again. When it first came out, I'm pretty sure my hesitation to listen to the album was due to, "But this isn't really Guns N Roses. It's just Axl using the name." And that is indeed true; however, I was still hung up on wanting to hear an "actual GnR" album.

But what was an "actual GnR" album at that point? The UYIs were very different from AFD. And really the only similarity between Chinese Democracy and previous GnR albums is Axl's voice, and even that isn't quite the same on CD. Of course, at this point, after seeing this thread, my curiosity won over any past hesitation, and my interest in "actual GnR" has greatly waned in the past decade. "Oh, Slash and Duff are back playing with Axl again? Huh. That's nice..." *goes about my business*

Also, I had forgotten this came out in 2008. I was thinking it had been released in the past 10 years rather than 15 years ago! Time just keeps flying...

[SchenkerFan]

I believe it took longer for me to finally get around to listening to this album than for Axl to make and release it. Finally listened to most of it last Saturday.

That already says a lot about my opinion, I guess. I think I have 2 or 3 songs left, but I haven't felt inclined to finish it so I can't say I really enjoyed the experience. I don't hate it. I had it playing in the background while I was playing a game. It was interesting, well put together for what it's worth. My favorite song on the album is "Better". That's a strange falsetto part for Axl to be singing. Nothing else really caught my ear enough for me to remember it two days later.

I guess this is Axl's magnum opus for him to have been so reportedly obsessed with every minute detail. Then again, did he spend the full 20+ years working on it? I wonder if most of the work was done in the 2000s and if he spent the rest of the 90s, after the UYI tours, struggling to come up with "the next album" and drawing a blank. Maybe he pretended he was working on "the next album" in the 90s only as an excuse to keep a record contract while he hid himself away. Pretty sure that guy was just burned out.

From what I've read, most of it was written late 90s/early 00s. They wrote some stuff when the old line-up was still intact (somwhere from 1993 to 1997), but my impression is that all of that was abandoned. Some of it may have ended up on the Snakepit album. I doubt much writing was done after the early 00s. Most of it was probably endless finetuning. I wonder if Axl has written even just 5 songs ever since.

[NineteenEightyFour]

Never hated it, though there are 2 or 3 songs they should have left off of it.

[Ryan81]

I quite like most of it. A few of the songs are up there with the best stuff Guns N Roses ever did. Then when you take into consideration it was pretty much just Axl that makes it even more impressive.

I wouldn't have minded if Axl had just stayed on his own and released the rumored other two albums worth of material with his own band. I'm sure there would have to be at least another 5 to 7 really good songs out of the bunch.

Chinese Democracy was definitely a grower of an album. At first most of it didn't do much for me, but after a while I got to where I really liked it. For example, when I first heard If The World I was like "what in the hell is this?" Now it's one of my favorite songs. So while Appetite was a shower that was great on first listen. CD was a grower that required a little bit of effort to get up and going. Which is a bit like myself.

[VinnieVincentsVag]

I have never heard it.

[DemonFilth2001]

I have never heard it.

It’s great. Listen to it!

[tooth]

I hadn't listened to it in years but did recently cuz of this thread. It still sounds like a bunch of different people playing on it at different times, resulting in a lack of cohesion.

[kc primo]

I get why people assume it’s an Axl solo record, but if you look at the writing credits… he involved his band. He has enough money to buy those credits (Ozzy) but gave the scabs credit
It’s obviously his show, but I wish he would’ve called it Axl and not GNR. Btw….the new songs blow

[500DaysofNight]

It's okay at best. "Better" is a good one and there's a couple more on there too, but there's no way it could've lived up to the hype surrounding it.