Guns N' Roses, of course, always aimed to enter the pantheon of classic rock, signposting their ambition with ballsy, overblown covers of songs by Bob Dylan, the Sex Pistols and Paul McCartney and attempting to top the success of "Appetite for Destruction" with the hubris and gigantism of "Use Your Illusion I" and "II." "Chinese Democracy" and "808s & Heartbreak" are each full of rage and anguish, of the sort you'd half-think megastars would be able to pay somebody else to feel on their behalf: Axl strikes typically embattled, I-won't-change-for-you (and certainly won't speed up my work-rate) postures, while West's torment emerges out of romantic pain and "It's lonely at the top" self-pity. At the American Music Awards, he proclaimed, "We're going to push this music to the point where it was like in the '60s, in the '70s." On the song "Welcome to Heartbreak," he declares, "I can't stop having these visions," while his MySpace page features the pompous motto "Our work is never over." West has paved the way for "808s" with talk of his compulsion to make "pop art" and his desire to take hip-hop to the level of the Beatles, Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. Kanye West didn't keep anybody hanging around (he likes being in the public eye and ear), but he has defied expectations with this, his fourth album in five years: He's a rapper, but on "808s & Heartbreak," he sings, and instead of his usual up-tempo, uplifting hip-hop, the album largely consists of morose ballads.īoth performers intend their albums to be received as masterworks of "capital A" Art. Just how mavericky are these guys? Axl Rose made his fans and record company wait nearly two decades for the follow-up to "Use Your Illusion I" and "II," funneling millions of man-hours and dollars into a project that always had about a million-to-one chance of not failing to live up to expectations - the "Heaven's Gate" of hard rock. They both see themselves as arch-individualists in a pop world of industry-reared sheep. On first glance about as distant from each other as imaginable, Axl Rose and Kanye West have a surprising amount in common. ![]() ![]() Earlier this week, Guns N' Roses' long-awaited "Chinese Democracy" and Kanye West's "808s & Heartbreak" were released on consecutive days, setting up a titanic struggle for the Billboard No.
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