Chinese Democracy

Template:Future album

Chinese Democracy is a long-delayed album from Guns N' Roses that is in production with no officially announced release date. The album marks a drastic change in line-up of the band, as many members left or were fired throughout the 1990s. This also marks the first Guns N' Roses album of original material since the 1991 double release Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II.

Music

New songs peformed by the Guns N' Roses touring band from 2001-2002 include "Chinese Democracy," "Madagascar," "Oh My God" (appeared on the End of Days soundtrack), "Rhiad and the Bedouins," "The Blues," and "Silkworms." In 2006, it was confirmed that the songs "Silkworms" and "Rhiad and the Bedouins" would not be on the upcoming album. [1]

Composer Marco Beltrami worked on orchestral arrangements for tracks titled "Thyme," "The General," "Leave Me Alone," and "Seven" in October 2002. Composer Paul Buckmaster did the same for "Madagascar," "The Blues," "There Was a Time," and "Prostitute."

Axl Rose said in a January 2006 interview with Rolling Stone that his favorite songs on the upcoming album are "Better," "There Was a Time," and "The Blues".[2]

"Ides of March" is another known title. The following names were mentioned throughout the past six years in various sources:

"Atlas Shrugged"
"Catcher in the Rye"
"The General"
"Closing in on You"
"Friend or Foes"
"Hearts Always Get Killed"
"Never Had It"
"No Love Remains"
"Oklahoma"
"Quick Song"
"Seven"
"Something Always"
"Strange Disease"
"Suckerpunched"
"The General"
"This I Love"
"Thyme"
"Today, Tomorrow, Forever"
"Zip It"
"Zodiac"

Sound

In 1999, a song then intended to appear on the album entitled "Oh My God" was released on the End of Days soundtrack. It featured current members Rose, Stinson, and Reed as well as Paul Tobias and then-drummer for the group Josh Freese. Dave Navarro and Gary Sunshine also did guitar work on the track. The song was very industrial-sounding.

Former Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash is reported to have left the band in large part because of the change in musical direction, which at the time was reported to be industrial music similar to Nine Inch Nails, which Rose had long been a fan of.

The songs which the band performed during the 2001–2002 tour varied heavily in sound. "The Blues" and "Madagascar" were "November Rain"–esque epics, while "Riyadh and the Bedouins" and "Silkworms" were progressive-industrial songs. "Chinese Democracy" can be best described as grunge. Rose said in an interview that the band hadn't yet brought out the "big guns" on the 2002 tour—which ended prematurely after a riot in Philadelphia.

In September 2003, radio DJ Eddie Trunk played a new Guns N' Roses song entitled "I.R.S." on his syndicated radio show Friday Night Rocks with Eddie Trunk at the insistence of New York Mets catcher Mike Piazza—which prompted the band's management to issue a verbal cease-and-desist order. Trunk described the song as "...Use Your Illusion-era stuff, with some modern flairs to it. The song had a loop track in the beginning, but then, when it kicked in, it was that same dramatic Guns N' Roses hard rock."

In April 2005, an excerpt of the song "I.R.S." (duration - 3:39) leaked on the Internet. The band's management referred to it as a "low quality demo", but it was most likely a recording of Eddie Trunk's broadcast of the song from 2003.

On January 13 2006, Axl Rose spoke about the album at Korn's tour launch party. He said:

"It's a very complex record, I'm trying to do something different. Some of the arrangements are kind of like Queen. Some people are going to say, 'It doesn't sound like Axl Rose, it doesn't sound like Guns N' Roses.' But you'll like at least a few songs on there."[3]

In February 2006, the full studio demo of "I.R.S.", clocking in at 4:16, surfaced online. Demos of the songs "Better" and "There Was A Time"/"T.W.A.T." were leaked soon after. Better was released in 3 segments, the first being 1:20, the second 2:06 and the final being the complete track, on March 8th an Instrumental version of "Better" also leaked. A number of days later, a 9-second clip of the track "Catcher in the Rye" was leaked. The source of the leaks is still unknown, but it was confirmed by Eddie Trunk that he was not the source. Soon thereafter, a longer version of "Catcher in the Rye" leaked with a running time of 5:37. Rumour has it that more tracks will leak soon, namely "Prostitute" and "The General."

Production and collaboration

Longtime Guns N' Roses producer, Mike Clink, is said to have worked on the album for a short time during the beginning of the conception of the album.

Former Killing Joke member and Verve producer Youth also worked on the album. Songwriter and producer Moby turned down an offer to work on the album.

In 1997, former Nine Inch Nails and Pantera producer Sean Beavan, along with Axl himself, assumed the production duties (at this stage the album was focused on an industrial sound). Beavan was out of the project in 1999, after which former Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker was brought in to co-produce with Rose. Baker left the project in February of 2002 after re-recording the album with intentions of producing a more epic sound. Rose became sole producer of the project, re-recording the album yet again.

The band has also worked with numerous collaborators over the years, including guitarists Brian May (Queen) and Dave Navarro (Jane's Addiction). In March 2006, Brian May confirmed that he played guitar for the track "Catcher in the Rye". As mentioned above, Marco Beltrami and Paul Buckmaster worked on orchestral arrangements for the album.

NBA star Shaquille O'Neal guest rapped with the band in the studio. After a chance meeting with the band in a recording studio, the hoops great took a break from his own session and rapped over a GNR track with the band. "I saw Guns N' Roses listed on the bulletin board in the lobby of the studio so I stuck my head in to check it out," says O'Neal. "They asked me to join them, so I started freestylin' over their track. It was the first time I ever performed with a rock group, and it felt good." The track O'Neal worked on will reportedly not be included on Chinese Democracy, but instead, one of its "sequels" to the album that Axl has planned.

Length

There has been some conflicting information about the length of the album. At London, Docklands UK in August 2002, in which Guns N' Roses played a set, Rose stated that the album was to contain eighteen songs with ten bonus tracks. Bassist Stinson, however, said in an interview in November 2004 that the album contained "ten or eleven" songs.

Rose said in January 2006 that the band was working on 32 songs, of which 26 were near completion. Of those 26 songs, Rose said 13 will be featured on Chinese Democracy.

Current status

When guitarist Buckethead left Guns N' Roses in March 2004, Rose issued a statement on the matter that included a notice that an announcement concerning the album's release date would arrive in a "few months."

In December 2004, Guns N' Roses' manager Merck Mercuriadis became the CEO of Sanctuary Music Group. In January 2005, Rose signed a publishing deal with Sanctuary, which covered past and future work by Rose, including "dozens of new tracks Rose has recently recorded for Universal Music."

According to a March 2005 New York Times article [4], production costs for the album have reached $13 million, probably the most expensive recording ever. Mercuriadis, however, refuted the article in a letter [5] to the Times and claimed that the newspaper's sources for the article had not been involved in the project for "six to nine years."

In September 2005, Rose reportedly told a group of fans in Malibu that the album might be released in early 2006 and that the band is looking to put a song on the soundtrack for the movie The Da Vinci Code [6].

In December 2005, Amazon.com had a listing for Chinese Democracy. The price was marked at $21.49 and the release date was December 31, 2025, which was the temporary date set for all new unconfirmed releases. However, no tracklisting or label information was provided. The listing was removed a few days later. That same month, Slash spoke to WMMR in Philadelphia and said that he can't wait to hear Axl's new record in March. When asked by the host if he meant the long awaited Chinese Democracy album would be out in March, Slash clarified that the March release date should hold up, despite Axl's track record with failing to meet prior release dates.

Rose implied during a January 2006 interview with Rolling Stone that the album would be released in 2006. This claim was recently confirmed by Slash who indicated to British music magazine the New Musical Express that the album would be released in March 2006.[7]

On March 3rd, 2006, Axl Rose filed court papers to ask for "ownership of all creative works" [8] by Guns n' Roses. This is not expected to delay the albums release, and according to Guns n Roses manager, Merck Mercuriadis, "This will not delay the new album - quite the opposite - tying up these loose ends allows us to get on with it"

Other bands

In 2003, punk band The Offspring announced that they would be naming their upcoming album Chinese Democracy in a dig on the long delayed GNR title [9]. "You snooze, you lose. Axl ripped off my braids, I ripped off his album title" Offspring singer Dexter Holland was quoted as saying, in reference to the similarity in hairstyle between Axl's and Dexter's a few years earlier. However, Axl Rose filed a cease and desist order against the Offspring, and a few months later The Offspring retracted their threat and went on to name their album Splinter.

In July 2005, The Ants, a band from Kansas, and Nashville's Ole Mossy Face released a split EP entitled Chinese Democracy. According to the press release (PDF), the album has "everything and nothing to do with the delayed and yet to be released Guns N' Roses album of the same name."

In September 2005, the Finnish flashrock band The Dogshit Boys released their fifth album, which also bears the name Chinese Democracy.

Sources