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Re: Would the real Chinese Democracy please stand up?
Who produced the Mike Piazza leak sessions? The smart money is on Roy Thomas Baker.
I was listening to "There Was A Time" during my workout the other day and long story short, I listened to all 7 main versions in a row.
The 2000 stuff from The Village is like an art-house rock band just hitting the mainstream. TWAT is the perfect example of this: it's polished but there's an edge, there's some bizarre and artful choices (Robin's slide guitar reminds me of a traveling bard strumming away, like he's telling you An Olde Tale, About the Guns and the Roses), and its bursting at the seams with energy. The bass is really heavy here which is cool because it's buried on the final album and provides some extra thump. Maybe a decibel too loud but still appreciated nonetheless. It's also another sign of the times new metal tentpole sort of thing. Of course the bass was gonna be loud - Korn was owning the rock charts at the time.
The 2006 stuff, or the Mike Piazza stuff, so 2003 stuff I guess, is like a big rock band. It's much more polished, the bass is dialed back. The weird stuff is dialed back. It's got that New York cool, a "Has Anyone Seen My Baby" sexy vibe to it. I also think that RTB or whoever made a conscious effort to lean into the trip-hop sound. Brain's drumming is heavy and pretty distorted here. But the mixes sound clean. The songs rock hard but they go down smoothly.
The Andy Wallace leaks, the Antiquiet leaks, the final album, even the 2001 stuff from the Brain discs all sounds too try hard. The flow is ruined, parts of songs are ruined, too much tinkering - Dizzy Reed is allowed to play bongos. It's a mess.
But some positives: the 2007 version has some really cool distortion on the guitar from 2:40 to 3:20. It's similar to Three Dollar Pyramid (Take 2). I never noticed Bucket doing a weird noodle for 1 second at 1:48-1:52ish, most noticeable on the 2007 leak imo. Or a walkdown thing at 4:45, 5:15, and 5:40 during soloing.
2000 and 2003. Those are the real Chinese Democracy.
Put. Them. Out.
For.
Fucks.
Sake.
Its.
Twenty.
Twenty.
Re: Would the real Chinese Democracy please stand up?
Great post.
You still have every single leak? How many others here do?
I haven't heard the 2006-07 leaks in a coon's age.
Only old leaks I still have (I think) are the skwerl leaks. For years, any time I wanted to hear CD, I would listen to those instead of the album.
Every single leak.... regardless of when it leaked....is superior to the album. The actual album is verging on unlistenable. I still can't believe it was allowed to be wrapped in cellophane.
I no longer have it, but I remember a 2007 leak of Better that had Pitman really high in the mix. That was amazing. I don't remember the source of that leak.
In 2019 and beyond, if I ever desire to listen to Chinese Democracy, it will be my cherry picked Village Sessions.... maybe throw in Better.
Before I'm dead I would love to hear EVERYTHING they worked on 2000-04. Anything past that...how little there is...
is irrelevant.
Re: Would the real Chinese Democracy please stand up?
I couldn't tell you the last time I listened to Chinese Democracy, the album.
It is absolutely unlistenable. It's the Inception horn blaring in your ears in disc form.
I've listened to maybe 1 song here and there every... 2-3 years in situations like this.
When I do listen to songs from Chinese Democracy, which is decreasingly frequent, it's always been the 2006/2003 leaks. And now I add in a handful of 2000 Village cuts because those actually kick some ass, i.e. the title cut and Riad.
I need the 2002-2003 sessions and then I can finally move on from this shit show.
I don't think the odds of it leaking are great but I don't really know. I hope I'm wrong. And I hope soon.
It's all so tiresome.
Re: Would the real Chinese Democracy please stand up?
I sadly have to agree that Chinese Democracy is hard to listen to now. I’ve had people ask me to play some because they know what a GnR nut i am...they usually don’t get too far.
I remember one friend awhile back saying, ‘you waited 15 years for this?!’
Track 2...can’t even remember the name of it...really turned people off after a so-so start with track 1 Chinese Democracy...I’ve been asked more than once to turn it off during track 2.
I wonder what Axl really thinks of himself behind closed doors. If he really has the self awareness to really evaluate himself and all this shit that’s gone down since the early 90s. I feel like he had to wrestle with that some when he agreed to the reunion.
Re: Would the real Chinese Democracy please stand up?
^^ I had to look it up, Shacklers. I had to youtube the song to remember it. Guess what? You're friends are right.
Alot of the album does seem fairly terrible. Throwaway 1999-2003ish tracks.
I've been highly tempted to skip that track (shackler's) because the album picks up some after that until tracks 8 and 9 (Riad and Scraped).
Another song I forgot to mention that I thought was way better during demos was Madagascar. The album version seemed, like the others, really watered down and lacking the power of the demos and even the MTV VMA performance in, was it 2001?
- metallex78
- Rep: 194
Re: Would the real Chinese Democracy please stand up?
I’m hindsight, I think some of the songs from Snakepit 1 (1995) and Duff’s Beautiful Disease (1997) album stand up better today than the mess that is most of CD. Hell, you could throw in the better tunes from Gilby’s Pawnshop (1994) album and add them to the list for a great mid-late 90’s GN’R album.
But Axl was all about ‘reinventing’ the sound... that same sound he’s touring on now, 30 years later, that everyone still loves
- elevendayempire
- Rep: 96
Re: Would the real Chinese Democracy please stand up?
Ah, we've reached the "Chinese Democracy wasn't that good, actually" stage of its life cycle. It'll come back around.
For most of the tracks, I'm inclined to agree that one or other of the leaks was better. The Blues should never have had that sappy acoustic intro slapped on it. The versions of Chinese Democracy and IRS - from the storage unit batch - are much more raw and energetic than the final product, though both could've done with the Buckethead solos for a little extra stardust. I much prefer the leaked version of If The World. They should've kept the Brian May solo on Catcher. The first (second?) leak of TWAT was the best, with the jangly guitar in the chorus, the strummed bits higher in the mix under the "yeah there was a time..." vocals and the full-length Bucket outro.
Still a perfectly good album though.
Re: Would the real Chinese Democracy please stand up?
Ah, we've reached the "Chinese Democracy wasn't that good, actually" stage of its life cycle. It'll come back around.
For most of the tracks, I'm inclined to agree that one or other of the leaks was better. The Blues should never have had that sappy acoustic intro slapped on it. The versions of Chinese Democracy and IRS - from the storage unit batch - are much more raw and energetic than the final product, though both could've done with the Buckethead solos for a little extra stardust. I much prefer the leaked version of If The World. They should've kept the Brian May solo on Catcher. The first (second?) leak of TWAT was the best, with the jangly guitar in the chorus, the strummed bits higher in the mix under the "yeah there was a time..." vocals and the full-length Bucket outro.
Still a perfectly good album though.
There are 3 tracks I’ve never liked since the get go and i really think it’s because of how they were mixed and produced. Scraped, Riad and shacker’s.
I wonder what the demos of those songs sounded like.
As far as it being a good album, I guess I go back-and-forth on that. It really sounds like Use your illusions 3 only the final versions that made it to the album were the most generic and bland.
Re: Would the real Chinese Democracy please stand up?
Yeah, those 3 are awful. Take them out, add in Hard School & Going Down, you're going somewhere. I get it they probably didn't fit, but redo The Blues to more piano rock, and CITR to a better produced song, as well as 1 or 2 more tweaked to more rock friendly, and its a better album. Swap in 1 more track with another and its a better album.
I agree those 3 bring it down, 2 or 3 more keep it irrelevant. We're down to about 5 good songs, some of which probably still needed to be redone.
