Scatterguns and thorny roses

From the Baghdad street musician picking out the opening chords of Paradise City on his kanun, to the Papuan cannibal tribesman humming Welcome To The Jungle softly to himself as a fresh batch of tasty missionaries approach, EVERYONE is going to have an opinion on the new Guns'n'Roses album, Chinese Democracy. But screw it, here's mine too.

It'd be largely pointless for me to mention just how lengthy and expensive the process of making what is only G'n'R's fourth full-length record in 20 years, released this week, has been. Suffice to say that, despite the absence of any original members bar squawky idiot-genius frontman W.Axl Rose - and that, of course, includes Iconic (with a capital 'Iconic') Stoke-on-Trent-raised guitarist Saul 'Slash' Hudson - this is the biggest record of the year.

And...it's absolute pants.

Rose, of course, has been able to roll in the adulation and royalty cheques of a decade and a half of inactivity due to three principle factors.

Firstly, about six truly great tunes. 1987 Debut album Appetite For The Destruction had growly calling card Welcome To The Jungle, the hazy singalong cheese-rock genius of Paradise City, and American number one and wedding reception standard Sweet Child O' Mine. The simultaenously released Use Your Illusions I and II had gloriously overblown, laughably vague 'political' rocker Civil War, even more ridiculously overblown power ballad November Rain, and probably the best version of Bob Dylan's Knockin' On Heaven's Door ever made. But these apart, how many Slash/Rose works could the average, well-informed music fan name?

Secondly, G'n'R's uncompromising 'big rock' sound - crunching riffs, widdly solos, and simple-in-a-good-way (if sometimes a little misogynistic) lyrics - is ecstasy to the ears of certain demographics: guitar fanatics, geeks, bikers, rock chicks. And that's a lot of people, all together. It's sustained Metallica through the lean times, too - St.Anger still sold 2 million copies in the US, despite being one of the most pointless and directionless records ever committed to tape by a major rock group. Chinese Democracy will doubtless prove a massive commercial success.

And thirdly, the Guns 'n' Roses myth itself. Sex, drugs, rock, roll...you get the idea. Rose's legendary diva tendencies, disregard for his fanbase, and general obnoxiousness, mark him out as the ultimate embodiment of hair metal, Spinal Tap, classic rock decadence. For better or worse, millions want him, or want to be him. Probably mainly the latter, to be fair. He's getting on a bit.

Anyway, the album. From the title track's bad Smashing Pumpkins rip-off (even Billy Corgan's voice) to the Martin Luther King-sampling pomposity of Madagascar, it's an utter disaster from start to finish. The opening riff sounds like a half-finished I Believe In A Thing Called Love, and it's all downhill from there. Rose has not so much thrown the kitchen sink at the production as the entire kitchen, house, garden, and possibly some neigbouring properties as well. But no amount of pointless overdubs can squeeze a good tune from a mess of half-finished ideas, and the lyrics - with meaningless nonsense like "the Catcher in the Rye again / won't let ya get away from him /It's just another day like today" pretty much par for the course - are equally poor.

Pop this one in the cannibal's pot. A record as bad as Chinese Democracy should be boiled to death.