Last music post for at least a few days, promise. But this one has to be shared. It’s ten years in the making!
I was at an Urban Outfitters this weekend and over the sound system they were blaring Guns n’ Roses’ “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” As I stood around waiting for my wife in the dressing room, I had the bizarre-yet-predictable experience of hearing a nearby girl singing along in that reflexive/obligatory Axl Impression™ that everyone must do when singing G’n’f’n’R, while at the same time looking across the store and seeing another girl earnestly lip synching and air guitaring her heart out. It was a true Urban Outfitters moment: guilty pleasure wrapped up in faux-vintage irony.
Of course, there really was something about Guns n’ Roses. “It’s So Easy,” “Mr. Brownstone,” “Welcome to the Jungle”—come on, who doesn’t get totally amped when those first notes of “Welcome to the Jungle” start up?—they really were a special band, even if for one lightning-in-a-bottle album. So it is with a touch of giddy dread that I was met with the latest post at Stereogum: Chinese Democracy is finally near completion. Supposedly. I’ll let Stereogum give the rundown, but the bottom line is that they’ve got two new mp3s, and supposedly there are more floating around the cyberweb.
And, ten years in the making, I’m happy/sorry to report: dude, these songs fucking suck. As much as I’d love this to be the comeback of all comebacks of rock history, it is instead going to be the most legendary—scratch that, Thee Most LLLegendary—tragic flop of all time. My prediction: Axl Rose will commit suicide by the end of the year after he is critically flogged by everyone from his own mother to Chinese President Hu Jintao. Then, he will cause a riot in heaven when he gets pissy and decides not to show.
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