From the A/V Club, by Chuck Klosterman. It includes this excellent paragraph:
Throughout Chinese Democracy, the most compelling question is never, “What was Axl doing here?” but “What did Axl think he was doing here?” The tune “If The World” sounds like it should be the theme to a Roger Moore-era James Bond movie, all the way down to the title. On “Scraped,” there’s a vocal bridge that sounds strikingly similar to a vocal bridge from the 1990 Extreme song “Get The Funk Out.” On the aforementioned “Sorry,” Rose suddenly sings an otherwise innocuous line (“But I don’t want to do it”) in some bizarre, quasi-Transylvanian accent, and I cannot begin to speculate as to why. I mean, one has to assume Axl thought about all of these individual choices a minimum of a thousand times over the past 15 years. Somewhere in Los Angles, there’s gotta be 400 hours of DAT tape with nothing on it except multiple versions of the “Sorry” vocal. So why is this the one we finally hear? What finally made him decide, “You know, I’ve weighed all my options and all their potential consequences, and I’m going with the Mexican vampire accent.”
I am a little disappointed that not one of the GNR band members has not expired from unnatural causes or found the comfy spot in the back of a jail cell. Now their status or Rock Gods is minimized by some shit count chocula voice over. Appetite for destruction my arse.
In related rock news last night I went to Metallica. Nineteen years ago I witnessed And Justice For all ( The Cult opened) then at the Lakewood Church. It only took them 19 years to put out another Album I liked. Thankfully they spared us all the psuedo-shit-grunge period and played plenty of Master of Puppets, Ride the Lightning and other thrash gems, finishing the last encore with Seek and Destroy while dropping some “Pretty Spookey Metallica Beach Balls” from the ceiling. Not exactly the build and collapse of Lady Justice like 19 years ago, did not witness any sex acts like I saw multiple times back in the Church. Not much bud burning, no cigarettes, they actually stopped selling beer when Metallica started playing. All in all, while the music was tight, the experience compared to 19 years ago was antiseptic. Having just hit the tender age of 37 I thought perhaps it was just me aging, but James and his cane and the Rock Industry have turned into a bag of pussies. Not even the boss lasers, the pyro flares and the giant suspended coffins can take away the scene when the lads in the mosh pit started running out with the “spookey beach balls”, imagine the mayhem if they actually sold fucking beer.