Guns n' Roses - Chinese Democracy (2001)

After four years of demos, rehearsals, and the departure of all members of the band with the exception of Dizzy Reed and Axl Rose, recording in earnest for the sixth Guns n' Roses album began in early 1998 at Rumbo Recorders. Alongside Axl and Dizzy, guitarists Paul Tobias and Robin Finck, keyboardist Chris Pitman and drummer John Freese completed this new lineup of the band. Recording with the seven of them went on for a while, with Axl being described as "a couple of weeks on, a couple of weeks off" during this period, and the band being in "writing mode", with much more writing than recording going on at that time. Producers such as Youth were considered, with him doing some pre-production work on the album right around this time, before being replaced by Sean Beavan, who'd produced Marilyn Manson and Nine Inch Nails before joining the project in July 1998. During this timeframe the band wrote and recorded much new material, filling many CDs with ideas and fragments of songs, as well as recording many fully fledged songs, such as "Madagascar" and "Prostitute", which Pitman and Rose had begun writing early in '98. This new material was very inspired by hip hop and industrial music, with the influence of Nine Inch Nails clearly showing in the music, but not many vocals were recorded during this first year of recording, though, with Axl mostly laying down ideas rather than finished vocals, leaving the material unfinished until then.

So it seems that between mid-1998 and early 1999, the band was now in "recording mode", recording the basic tracks to many songs that would be worked on further during this period. By mid-1999, work had slowed down a bit, with work on the instrumental parts being mostly done by then but no finished vocals in sight just yet. Guitarist Robin Finck left to tour again with Nine Inch Nails, while Axl finally began recording lead vocals for the album in August 1999, practically finishing recording them by November. With Finck gone, Axl had Queen guitarist Brian May overdub guitar solos onto three or four songs the band had been working on at the time, without yet focusing on finding a full-time replacement for Finck. At roughly the same time, the first results of the sessions were released, the very industrial "Oh My God" on the soundtrack to the film End of Days in November. It seems that by the time 1999 ended, the basic tracks of the record were virtually finished, with only some overdubbing and mixing left to be worked on. Even the album title was decided at this instance, with Axl commenting on interviews that the new album had been christened Chinese Democracy, after the song of the same name. Songs such as "Catcher in the Rye", "I.R.S.", "If the World" and "There Was a Time" were even previewed for Rolling Stone magazine that November, most of them seemingly in an advanced state of recording and showing a lot of promise for the future of the band.

With 2000 coming, more lineup changes came: guitarist Buckethead joined the band as Finck's replacement, while drummer Josh Freese finally got fed up with waiting for the album to get ready and left to form A Perfect Circle, replaced with frequent Buckethead collaborator Brain a few months down the line. Buckethead joined the project and immediately started recording demos and ideas for new songs at his notoriously fast pace, while Brain seemingly didn't replace Freese's drum tracks then. In April, and with the album apparently in its final stages of completion, producer Sean Beavan was replaced with former Queen and The Cars producer Roy Thomas Baker, with label Interscope Records and their boss Jimmy Iovine seemingly unhappy with the sound of the album under Beaven's helm. Further mixing and overdubbing took place from then until November, with Bucket adding guitar to songs worked on previously such as "Madagascar" and "Rhiad and the Bedouins". Plans were even made for the band to tour in the summer of 2001, with warmup shows scheduled at the House of Blues in Las Vegas and the Rock in Rio 3 festival in Rio de Janeiro that January. It seemed like a mid-2001 release with a tour to follow in the Summer was slowly becoming a reality for Chinese Democracy, with the record seemingly only needing mastering and artwork to be ready. But as you probably already know, things weren't going to be that simple for Axl and his bandmates.

In November 2000, Bob Ezrin, formerly producer of Alice Cooper and Pink Floyd, signed on as A&R man for the album and listened to what the band had made so far. He came out of it claiming they had only come up with "three good songs". The album proceeds to go into development hell for eight years, with Axl essentially losing his sanity in the process. That leaves us with the question: what if Axl had released Chinese Democracy in the summer of 2001? Luckily for us, four discs of Rough Mixes in varying degrees of completion dating from both Beavan's March 2000 and Roy Thomas Baker's October/November 2000 mixing sessions, as well as instrumental demos and other curios were created in March 2001, and very infamously leaked in 2019. That means whatever was under consideration for GnR's sixth record was probably in those CDs, leaving for us the mission of making an album out of those. The first disc is clearly the ten most finished songs at the time, with a couple of other finished songs sprinkled throughout the other three discs, some of which would even make the album in 2008, in a heavily different form. Speaking of which, one of the few things Axl eventually got right in '08 was the album's sequencing, which means we'll emulate it as much as we can here, replacing eventual absentees with available songs that have the same vibe. We'll also be aiming at about 14 songs to make the album, as most GnR releases do. With all of that, let's have a look at what we've come up with:

Chinese Democracy (Rough Mixes CD-1)
Hard School (Rough Mixes CD-3)
Perhaps (Rough Mixes CD-1)
Street of Dreams (Rough Mixes CD-1)
If the World (Rough Mixes CD-2)
There Was a Time (Rough Mixes CD-1)
Catcher in the Rye (Rough Mixes CD-1)

State of Grace (Rough Mixes CD-3)
Rhiad and the Bedouins (Rough Mixes CD-1)
Silkworms (Rough Mixes CD-1)
I.R.S. (Rough Mixes CD-3)
Madagascar (Rough Mixes CD-1)
Atlas Shrugged (Rough Mixes CD-1)
Prostitute (Rough Mixes CD-1)

Bonus tracks:
Oh My God (The End of Days OST)

Eye on You (Rough Mixes CD-2)

Nothing (Rough Mixes CD-4)

Axl Rose and Buckethead performing during the 2002 VMAs

Starting off the album the only way we possibly can we have the great version of "Chinese Democracy" mixed by Roy Thomas Baker in November 2000, starting off the album with its title track and with a great rocker, that would sound right at home with some of Guns n' Roses' more famous output. Released a couple of years ago by the Axl/Slash/Duff lineup by all people, "Hard School" serves the function of being one of the few authentic rockers on the album, that being the reason I pulled this November '00 Baker mix off the third CD and slotted it into the equally aggressive "Shackler's Revenge"'s place. Following is the first song on the album that's still officially unreleased, "Perhaps" was mixed in March 2000 by Beaven and is the closest this version of the album can come to an obvious first single. Sequenced as track no. 3 as it's equally as poppy and accessible as "Better", and it works well in that role. Since Sean Beavan confirmed that "The Blues" was only a working title in an interview this year, we can retitle this to its eventual name, "Street of Dreams". An October 2000 mix by Roy Thomas Baker, this ballad was already one of the highlights of the 2008 album, and is even better here. As track five we have another song that would eventually make the album in a superior, earlier version, "If the World" was mixed in November 2000 by Roy Thomas Baker and taken from the second disc of Rough Mixes, taking up the same spot it always did in CD's tracklist.

While many fans miss Buckethead's solo that we got in the song's finished version, I like this mix of "There Was a Time" just fine, in an October 2000 mix by Roy Thomas Baker, a nice change of pace from the hip hop weirdness of "If the World". As the seventh song on the album, "Catcher in the Rye" is another power ballad with the services of Brian May on guitar,  given to us in a March 2000 mix by Sean Beavan, which again is much better than the eventual replacement. Given that we have thirteen more or less finished songs, we have one spot open. And out of the remaining unfinished songs that have vocals ("Eye on You", "Nothing" and "State of Grace"), the one that's most release-worthy and finished-sounding is by far "State of Grace", which grants its spot as the eighth track on the album, replacing the similarly industrial "Scraped". Mixed in March 2000 by Sean Beavan. Up next is "Rhiad and the Bedouins", in a November '00 Baker mix which is miles better than the Chinese Democracy version and the best rocker of the album. A song that was given a rather atrocious reworking by Slash and Duff, "Silkworms" comes in a November '00 mix by RTB from CD1 of Rough Mixes. By far the song that's most far removed from the original Guns n' Roses sound, it takes the place of Buckethead oddity "Sorry" in the tracklist. It's missing its bridge vocals, as we'd grown used to in the 2001 Rock in Rio version, but other than that it's a pretty solid mix. About half an hour's work is needed!

Taken from CD3 of the Rough Mixes in a March 2000 Sean Beavan mix, "I.R.S." is a much-needed rocker, which alongside "Hard School" breaks the rather slow pace of the CD1 material and gives us some authentic Gn'R rock. The song earmarked to be "the epic" of the album comes next in the form of "Madagascar", in a November '00 Baker mix which closely resembles the version of the song performed at Rock in Rio in 2001, MLK speech and all. As the second to last track of the album, we have the last song in this reconstruction that is still officially unreleased "Atlas Shrugged", in a March 2000 Beavan mix. Also, the last song to feature a Brian May solo, it takes the place of the ballad "This I Love", which in turn was only added to the album at the eleventh hour, replacing "Atlas Shrugged". Historic reparations! Closing things off is "Prostitute", coming again in a much superior version to what we ended up getting in 2008. Coming in a March 2000 Beavan mix, it delivers a pretty balanced album, with an 8 to 6 ratio between Baker and Beavan mixes, respectively. Released nearly two years before this album would hypothetically come out, "Oh My God" didn't make much of an impression on anybody, and wasn't worked on further as demonstrated by the Rough Mixes CDs. All of that leads me to think this song wasn't meant for inclusion on the album at this stage. It's still good enough for a bonus track and non-album B-side, though, which is what it becomes here.

Clocking in at about an hour and four minutes, this version of Chinese Democracy would most certainly benefit from the timing of its release. Hip Hop and Industrial-influenced based bands like Limp Biskit were all the rage back in '01, and this album would sound right at home on modern rock radio at the time, both hip and nostalgic. Critically, seven fewer years of hype and unrealistic expectations would certainly soften the reception to the album, and releasing an album that's actually way better than the one we got would also help things too. There's no understating what damage the eight years of promises and delays did to Guns n' Roses Mk II, turning the album and the new lineup into a joke before anyone even heard a note from them. We also use one of the many alternate covers proposed for Chinese Democracy before the record's release, and the one that I've always liked best, as corny as it is. One of the main problems of the album, and what's probably the reason that Interscope didn't want to release it, is that it has no clear lead single. If I had to nominate one, though, I'd be tempted to go with "Atlas Shrugged" or "Perhaps", the two poppiest songs on the album. It really is a shame what was supposed to be a creative rebirth to one of the most successful bands of the world ended up essentially becoming its death sentence and transformation into an "oldies" act through a further eight years of misery and promises. Both this material and the fans deserved a lot better.

Sources:

- Guns n' Roses - Rough Mixes (CDs 1 - 4)

- Music From the Motion Picture End of Days

- Chinese Whispers - The Secret History of the New Studio Album