Axl Rose: The Wasted Talent Resurfaces

In the last couple of months, the horribily reclusive Axl Rose has reemerged from his self imposed seclusion, for better or for worse. The former Guns n’ Roses front man has been making headlines recently. From appearing at a Korn record company party to adding more fuel to the legal situation with his old bandmates, Rose seems to be slowly slipping back into the spotlight; which, I should note, he does every two or three years.

He’s still looking like a cross between Joan Rivers and a chubby Busta Rhymes, with his corn rows and obvious plastic surgery. His cheeks are so puffy and gold that he almost looks like a moving House of Wax attraction. His actions, or lack thereof, over the last decade can only be classified as bizarre. He keeps promising the public a new GNR album, more specifically a double record called “Chinese Democracy”. But the project has been delayed and shelved so many times that it has become one of the longest ongoing jokes in the history of the music industry. Either Rose is just a mental case who fears the critical reaction to any of his new material or he is a marketing genius waiting to strike like cobra when he feels like the climate is just right. For some reason I feel it’s probably a combination of both

Either way, whenever and whatever Rose decides to release will sell, and sell big. He could yodel Ashley Simpson songs over the background of polka-fused accordian and he would go at least platinum. This is partially because fans remember how talented he was in the late 80’s and early 90’s, but mostly because he has become so strange in the past decade that there is an almost Michael Jackson-like curiosity surrounding him.

Axl Rose the great songwriter and frontman, and his subsequent downfall, were both the products of his genius growing out of control; an ego that ruined one of rock’s truly great bands. Today’s radio rock is so bland compared to the danger that GNR projected in their heyday. As emo and pop punks took over the airwaves and the screens of MTV, rock purists longed for the days when Axl Rose would jump into a crowd of thousands just to confront one man. There is nothing even close to that dynamic anywhere in rock now, as it only gets worse. Instead of escaping into a world that shouldn’t exist, fans want their idols to relate to their own mundane lives, sensitivity has replaced danger, the fun has been replaced by boredom. And the music has suffered.

That’s why we need Chinese Democracy and Axl Rose. It doesn’t even have to be good, it just has to exist to remind us of the better days. But the odds are that we’ll just have to wait a little longer. Axl knows what he’s doing. Doesn’t he?