Miss Piggy Lunchbox

Maybe I should wait 17 years to review this….

Seriously, though, how can you sum up 17 years of colossal expectations in 71 minutes? Axl Rose gives it his best shot here on Chinese Democracy and does a fine job, but it’s basically asking the impossible. I kind of throw up my hands at trying to summarize his summary in only a few paragraphs, but maybe I’ll look to Rose for inspiration.

I could take the martyr route, as Rose does on “Madagascar” and “Prostitute” at the end of the disc. “Prostitute” is a great song, but its attack of Rose’s critics is too literal and one-sided to really get into. It is sure to be pulled out on the band’s upcoming tour, but the thought of people 20,000 people rocking out to Rose’s martyrdom is incongruent with any idea of a rock and roll show I have. When he sings “Ask yourself why I would choose/To prostitute myself/To live with fortune and fame/…/When you should have turned to the hearts/Of the ones that you could not save,” I don’t question his sincerity, but rather his self-awareness. Really, Axl? You really think you’re the one out there standing up for the fans? You view yourself as some kind of spokesman for us against the press? Really? You’re an amazing musician, but you’re just a rock star. Either make albums or don’t.

His messianic complex reaches its apex a couple of songs prior on “Madagascar,” which, besides being littered with excerpts from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech, features the line “Forgive them that tear down my soul/And bless them that they might grow old.” Imagine yourself as the savior of humanity much, Axl? Your tolerance of us lowly sinners is admirable.

But I can’t take the martyr route, not only because I don’t feel like one, but because I see the degradation it causes. “Prostiute” is a great song I can’t mix it for anybody due to its lyrics, and “Madagascar” is a decent song made completely unlistenable by its eye-roll-inducing commentary.

Another Axl-inspired reviewing route I could take is the bitter, “Stephanie Seymour is a crazy, conniving bitch” one. Rose goes that way on “Better,” one of the select great songs here. In fact, it fits smack dab in the middle of the great stretch from tracks two to four, which ends with “Street Of Dreams,” where Axl takes the passive-aggressive, and outrageously ironic, “I feel sorry for Stephanie Seymour and her lack of self-awareness” route. Even though those lead to some of the best tracks on the album (and re-appear insufferably throughout it), I don’t know Stephanie Seymour, so I really can’t rant about her.

In the end, I think I’m left with what we’re all left with…the historical route. What else is there? It’s impossible to separate this album from its artist, his exploits with the press, the seventeen-year gap between it and Use Your Illusion I and II, or from the genius of those discs and Appetite For Destruction.

I spent some time this last weekend with GnR’s prior output and was struck by how good Use Your Illusion really is. When it was released in 1991, after years of expectations and battles with the press (and literally with fans in St. Louis…ugh), I felt it was a bloated let-down (what wouldn’t be after Appetite?) that was about 60% – 70% completely awesome. I now have much more positive associations with those discs. I still think more than 10% of the 30 tracks should never have seen the light of day, but I have an even greater appreciation for the songs I loved then (“Coma” is the band’s best ever) as well as the ones I merely liked then. Combined, they’re probably 4.5 lunchboxes and the first disc might be five lunchboxes on its own.

I’m not going to kid myself that I can see this album for what it is in the moment…that will come…but I do think it’s important to try to document how these milestones capture the now into which they appeared.

With all that said, I’m left feeling much the same way about the monumental album I’m facing off with now that I did about those two albums then. I think about 50% of this is pure genius and an absolute gift to our ears from the universe, 30% is good bordering on very good, and 20% is absolute s**t. Highlights are the mixers plus the verses of “There Was A Time” and “Prostitute.” My biggest complaint is that it’s not varied enough. It’s a bit monochromatic and by the time I get to track nine, “Riad N’ The Bedouins,” my ears are suffereing from a bit of fatigue. It’s a good song, but my cilia are completely exhausted from registering those same pitches and timbres for about 40 straight minutes. The worst track is “Sorry,” which brings the passive-aggressive approach mentioned above to its ridiculous consulsion: “I’m sorry for you/Not sorry for me.”

Now remind me in 2025 (when I turn 51!) to come back and see how that assessment stands up. It’s fitting that the only member of the 80’s melodic metal scene left carrying the torch was also the best one and that a band that basically ushered in the CD boom is there to throw the format one last huge party as it enters the decline of old age. The band will be eligible for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, 25 years after the release of Appetite For Destruction. Their entry was secured with that release, and it’s cemeted with this one.

Rating:

Mixers: “Shackler’s Revenge,” “Better,” “Street Of Dreams,” “Catcher In The Rye”
Non-keepers: “If The World,” “Sorry,” “Madagascar”
Filed Between: GnR’s Use Your Illusion II and The Gutter Twins (Saturnalia)

Tags: 2008, 4 lunchboxes, CD reviews, music

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 9th, 2008 at 3:12 pm and is filed under CD reviews, music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.