My "Chinese Democracy" Write-Up On Running Downhill

I'm doing a four-part exegesis of the Guns 'n' Roses album "Chinese Democracy" for the blog Running Downhill. Here's the first section, more to follow.

9/22/09: Part 2 up now here.

From the intro:

"Guns ‘n’ Roses’ “Chinese Democracy” took the better part of two decades to record and release. It’s a dense, bewildering album that can’t be judged as a whole because there is so much going on, a lot of which is brilliant, but plenty of which is schlock. In an effort to figure out what is going on in this record, and to decide if I like it, I went through it, cataloging and responding to every part of every song."