November 24, 2008

By Lauren Johnston/Daily News Staff Writer

Chinese media has blasted the latest Guns ‘n Roses release “Chinese Democracy.”

Axl Rose isn’t exactly the renegade rocker he was in the late 1980s, but he’s still rock ‘n roll enough stir up a controversy.

An article in a Chinese newspaper today blasted the singer’s new album “Chinese Democracy”as a “venomous attack”on the nation and suggested the long-awaited Guns ‘N Roses release “turns its spear point on China.”

The story was printed in a publication put out by China’s ruling Communist Party, and quoted unnamed sources from Internet message boards that suggested the lyrics were inflammatory and critical of China.

Excerpts from these online chats slammed the album as a plot by Western adversaries to “grasp and control the world using democracy as a pawn,”the Associated Press reported. The new album dropped Sunday after fans held on through 17 years of myriad false starts and production delays after Guns ‘N Roses began recording in 1994.

The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that the album would almost certainly be banned in China, where films, music and books are tightly censored by the state.

An official at the Chinese Ministry of Culture reportedly sent word that record distributors shouldn’t bother stocking the album, stating that any title with the word democracy is “not going to work,”the Journal reported.

The title track from the album includes lyrics that references to Falun Gong, a meditation practice banned in China, and the line “if your Great Wall rocks blame yourself,”which has been interpreted as a critique of the Chinese government’s authoritarian rule.

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music/2008/11/24/2008-11-24_chinese_media_calls_guns_n_roses_chinese.html