Hey, it's Kevin. Welcome back to another edition of the blog. Episode 61, I believe, is where
we're at. Is that the number? Yeah, forgive the disheveled look today. I wasn't quite
planning on making a trip yesterday from Tennessee to Ohio, but knew I had to get back here for
Thanksgiving and got the call that we were going to get the winter weather advisory,
which reminds me why I actually moved south. I got in just in time about midnight last
night and in time for the snow to start this morning. I won't be doing a blog from outside.
Today, though, the title of the blog is Chinese Democracy. We are talking about the new album
from Guns and Roses today. It's interesting and this is sort of topic, sort of music,
sort of where do I begin? I was not the biggest Guns and Roses fan. Axel Rose, Bill Bailey,
if you will, is a year younger than me. He's actually from West Lafayette, Indiana, which
is where my wife's parents live these days. So I'm familiar with the territory, blah,
blah, blah, blah. We weren't together back then, of course, and she never met him. So
I've always watched Guns and Roses with amusement. I'll be the first to admit I love Sweet Child
of Mine. I love Welcome to the Jungle. I wasn't a big fan of the Use Your Illusion one and
two albums. They were okay. I didn't mind his cover of Live and Let Die over the years,
but again, I wouldn't consider myself a huge fan. I think I do own all the albums. Maybe
one of the greatest hits, too, for that matter. That came out a few years ago. But I've always
been amused just by the whole process of the music business and the fact that it took Axel,
if you believe what you believe, 14 years to produce Chinese democracy. You can go on
the internet and read all the various struggles and stumbles and whatever. But I'm a music
guy. I love music and I don't mean music guy for music business. I mean, I just love music.
So if a guy's been working on an album for 14 years, I want to hear it. I ended up in
Best Buy on Saturday night because I was doing some shopping for my nephew for Christmas.
I can't tell you what we're getting paid. And I walked up to the girl at the cash register
as I was checking out. I said, hey, by the way, are any Best Buy's, which is the exclusive
provider of this album, are any Best Buy's going to be open at midnight tonight because
the album's coming out on Sunday. It's going to be kind of a cool to do a midnight release
party kind of thing. I like the old days. I said, are any Best Buy's open at midnight
tonight for the album release. And the little girl, 23, 24 years old, looking me like, no,
we're not open at midnight. I'm like, oh, I was hoping to get that Guns N' Roses album
when it went on sale. She's like, oh, well, you'll be able to pick it up at Walmart. They'll
be open at midnight. And I went, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't understand. You have
the exclusive. You're the only place I could buy this. She just runs her shoulders. I'm
sorry. I don't know anything about it. I should have known from that point. And I guess that
was kind of my, my, my bummer in the whole thing. You know, you know what, if an album's
been built for you, let's hype it. Let's do it like the good old days. If Guns N' Roses
truly is a celebration of the excesses of music business in more ways than one, let's
hype it. I'm one of those Best Buy, Premier, Platinum, Silver, Duda, Huda club members.
There should have been album preview parties. I know there were a few in major markets, but
I would have loved to have heard it. With that said, I spent the last couple of days
listening to the album. You know what? It's a good album. Is it great? I don't think it's
great. Do I believe you spent 14 years polishing that, that brass to make it totally shine?
Yeah, there's a part of it that's that. Do I believe that Axl Rose has become a parody
of himself? Absolutely. Do, do I hear more great production or more over the top production
than I do great songwriting? Yeah, I probably think that that too. If you're a Guns N'
Roses fan, I think any much, any, any guide now between the ages is like what? 35 and
45, which would be a target demographic for Guns N' Roses would think it's a good album.
You know what? I've listened to it again. Did I hear anything I want to hear like Sweet
Child of Mine or, you know, Welcome to the Jungle? No. Did I hear any anger left in the
rich man's voice? No. Good album, not great album. It'll go in the stack. Will it go
in the iPod? Probably not. That's it for today. Back tomorrow. I said all this week from Ohio.
I'm gonna warm up and it's cold up here and it's already started to snub. Have a good
day. Catch you tomorrow.
