SpiralTruth

This Sunday, Axl Rose finally made good on promises of Chinese Democracy. It’s been seventeen years since the last batch of original music released by Guns n’ Roses and nine years since the title started floating around. Rose’s efforts to record the most expensive album ever have at the very least secured him a legendary role in pop culture. Chinese Democracy is now even defined in Urban Dictionary as: “A promise, often made more than once over an extended period of time, which the person is either unwilling or unable to keep.” While the album could never live up to seventeen years of expectations, it is growing on me. It has a ton of faults along with the scattered (yet numerous) flashes of brilliance, but at the very least, you’ve got to respect the perseverance. The pressure must have been unreal, and to release anything at all at this point shows balls. Hopefully Axl will continue his experimentation and allow videos like this to exist:

Why wouldn’t he? Well, technically, it’s a violation of copyright. The title track of his album is almost certainly being used without permission. It’s obviously made by a fan, and it’s also damn good for an amateur music video made from random clips. And anyone with an ounce of sense will realize that having videos like this made for your album and spread around YouTube amounts to some awesome free advertising. Unfortunately lawyers and organizations like the RIAA don’t care about common sense. I’m betting this video has a few months tops before it’s taken down. Pretty cool, though, isn’t it? Imagine how cool it will be in a few years when the technology to put sound and video together like this gets even better. Even cooler if the laws that make it illegal get relaxed a bit.