ScottMcDaniel dot org

No one told me it was on vinyl too.
:(

Maybe Santa will bring me a nicer record player for Christmas…

Tomorrow, tomorrow, I’ll buy you, tomorrow…

Simply, hilariously awesome.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27829616/

LOS ANGELES – Dr Pepper is making good on its promise of free soda now that the release of Guns N’ Roses’ “Chinese Democracy” is a reality.

The soft-drink maker said in March that it would give a free soda to everyone in America if the album dropped in 2008. “Chinese Democracy,” infamously delayed since recording began in 1994, goes on sale Sunday.

“We never thought this day would come,” Tony Jacobs, Dr Pepper’s vice president of marketing, said in a statement. “But now that it’s here, all we can say is: The Dr Pepper’s on us.”

Beginning Sunday at 12:01 a.m., coupons for a free 20-ounce soda will be available for 24 hours on Dr Pepper’s Web site. They’ll be honored until Feb. 28.

As readers well know, I am a little obsessed with this record. It finally comes out next week, but it actually leaked in full last night.

It’s good. It’s not classic GnR, but it is really good.

That said, this review sums it up and I think I agree with almost every word of it.

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. This is the vision I will embrace. But only on that one line! The rest of it will just be sung like a non-dead human.” Often, I don’t even care if his choices work or if they fail. I just want to know what Rose hoped they would do.

————–

Still, I find myself impressed by how close Chinese Democracy comes to fulfilling the absurdly impossible expectation it self-generated, and I not-so-secretly wish this had actually been a triple album. I’ve maintained a decent living by making easy jokes about Axl Rose for the past 10 years, but what’s the final truth? The final truth is this: He makes the best songs. They sound the way I want songs to sound. A few of them seem idiotic at the beginning, but I love the way they end. Axl Rose put so much time and effort into proving that he was super-talented that the rest of humanity forgot he always had been. And that will hurt him. This record may tank commercially. Some people will slaughter Chinese Democracy, and for all the reasons you expect. But he did a good thing here.

————–

The explanation as to why Chinese Democracy took so long to complete is not simply because Axl Rose is an insecure perfectionist; it’s because Axl Rose self-identifies as a serious, unnatural artist. He can’t stop himself from anticipating every possible reaction and interpretation of his work. I suspect he cares less about the degree to which people like his music, and more about how it is taken, regardless of the listener’s ultimate judgment.

Blogger arrested over Guns N’ Roses song leak

Holy crap.

A blogger suspected of streaming songs from the unreleased Guns N’ Roses album “Chinese Democracy” on his Web site was arrested Wednesday and appeared in court, where his bail was set at $10,000.

FBI agents arrested 27-year-old Kevin Cogill on Wednesday morning on suspicion of violating federal copyright laws. Cogill appeared in court in the afternoon wearing a T-shirt; his girlfriend sat court and afterward said, “Rally the troops,” but declined further comment.

Federal authorities say Cogill posted nine unreleased Guns N’ Roses songs on his Web site in June. The songs were later removed.

In later posts, Cogill wrote that the FBI had questioned him and asked his readers if any of them knew a good attorney. He was represented Wednesday by a federal public defender.

According to an arrest affidavit, Cogill admitted to agents that he posted the songs on his Web site. Prosecutors said Wednesday the leak could result in a “significant” financial loss for the band.

Cogill will not face any special Internet restrictions, but was ordered to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on Sept. 17.

“Guns N’ Roses representatives have been made aware of the arrests and are leaving the matter to the authorities,” said Larry Solters, the band’s spokesman.

“Chinese Democracy” is a much anticipated — and repeatedly delayed — new album by Guns N’ Roses that is more than 10 years in the making. At least one of the album’s songs could be heard legally: The band wrote on its Web site in July that its track, “Shackler’s Revenge” will be featured on the video game Rock Band 2, slated for release in September.