Hehe, BILD hat mal recht, bisher wirklich auffällig, wie unterschiedlich die Platte in der deutschen und der englischsprachigen Presse aufgenommen wurde.
Eine richig gute Review kommt von allmusic. Das Citizen Kane/Xanadu-Gleichnis finde ich klasse:
Like Xanadu, Chinese Democracy is a monument to man’s might, but where Kane sought to bring the world underneath his roof, Axl labored to create an ideal version of his inner world, working endlessly on a set of songs about his heartbreak, persecution, and paranoia, topics well mined on the Illusions.
Auch dieser Abschnitt trifft den Nagel auf den Kopf:
The production is so dense that it’s hard to warm to, but it fits the music. These aren’t songs that grab and hold; they’re songs that unfold, so much so that Chinese Democracy may seem a little underwhelming upon its first listen. It’s not just the years of pent-up anticipation, it’s that Axl spent so much time creating the music — constructing the structure and then filling out the frame — that there’s no easy way into the album. That, combined with the realization that Axl isn’t trying to reinvent GNR, but just finishing what he started on the Illusions, can make Chinese Democracy seem mildly anticlimactic, but Rose spent a decade-plus working on this — he deserves to not have it dismissed on a cursory listen. Give it time, listening like it was 1998 and not 2008, and the album does give up some terrific music — music that is overblown but not overdone.
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