Will this be the next big defining moment for rock?
Move the clock back to 1994 when MTV ruled in the Indian TV sets with their original English programmes much before they took the bait and tuned to a Hindi channel.
They used to play many of the contemporary English music videos of that era and one video that stood out for me was “Estranged” by GNR. I just couldn’t get enough of it. Then there was “November Rain”, “Yesterday”,”Dont Cry” etc from the two “Use your illusion” albums.
It was then that I began to discover this titanic hard rock band in its true awesome form. Starting off right from AFD and ending with the sphagetti incident. I loved all the songs and all the band members including the original lineup and the replacements who crept in later. Slash was the other icon in this band who got instant worldwide recognition.
But most of all, I adored Axl Rose. He was without a shadow of a doubt, the most enigmatic and greatest frontman of all time. No matter how much you diss him and no matter what, I will always feel this way aboout about his talent and abilities.
The biggest anguish for me was that just as I had discovered them as a great band, they had already broken apart like a supernova and had now become a black hole – a pale shadow of their former self. The usual culprits like ego and drugs had taken their toll on this band.
From 2000, I had never ending trips to the internet parlours browsing sites like www.mygnr.com and www.heretodaygonetohell.com and countless other websites, forums and online groups. And when I did’t have enough of them. I went ahead and made my own one page tribute to Axl Rose in 2002 when he and the new lineup made a spectacular return at the MTV music awards and teased a possible return and the new album “Chinese Democracy’s imminent release. I was prophetic in my webpage when I said it was gonna be a November release. But who would have know that it would be the November 6 years later!!!!
Yes, its true people, Axl Rose is gonna release his band’s new album “Chinese Democracy” on Nov 23rd, 2008. You can pre-order the album from Bestbuy.
In these last 6 years, I moved on to heavy metal. I still listen to rock once in a while and while GNR nearly blurred the difference between rock and metal, they will always be my favorites and no matter what people say about this album, I look forward to it.
A long wait finally comes to an end!!! Will this mark the return of the phenomenon called Axl Rose? Only time will tell…A time of ~ 25 days.
Track Listing for Chinese Democracy:
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1. Chinese Democracy
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2. Shackler’s Revenge
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3. Better
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4. Street Of Dreams
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5. If The World
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6. There Was A Time
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7. Catcher N’ The Rye
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8. Scraped
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9. Riad N’ The Bedouins
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10. Sorry
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11. I.R.S.
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12. Madagascar
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13. This I Love
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14. Prostitute
