10 Perfect Rock Songs Wasted On Terrible Albums

By the time that Guns N Roses finally released Chinese Democracy, even diehard fans knew to keep their expectations pretty low. This thing had been in the oven for over a decade, and no one was really expecting the kind of bombastic rock and roll that the World’s Most Dangerous Band was used to releasing back in the late ‘80s. Even though most of the album was forgettable, it did at least put its best foot forward in the first few tracks.

While there were already problems with the title track trying to get through what Axl Rose was saying, Shackler’s Revenge checks out more with this version of the band, starting off with guitar stabs that seem like they’re ripped straight out of a horror movie. Although Axl doesn’t sound remotely close to the madman that we heard back in the days of Appetite For Destruction, the lower register that he has in the verses is actually a much better move, along with the shredding solos from Buckethead, which fit in just right here better than any other song on the project.

A song like this was never going to be enough to save the entire album though, as Axl spends the rest of the time rehashing the same kind of bombastic sounds that the first track had and coming up short almost every single time. Shackler’s Revenge is a great song, but there comes a point where you have to ask if it was good enough to warrant a decade long wait.