Well for this pick, we're going to go off the board. WAY off the board. To an album that, I suppose, doesn't technically exist in a physical sense until Sunday.... However it is an album that we ALL know. One that can be defined as a cultural phenomenon in every sense of the word. And that is why I'm going with this pick, for its cultural footprint alone.
In honour of this weekend's end to the longest, most talked-about sagas in modern rock history, in the category of 06-08... Guns 'N Roses
Chinese Democracy!
Can you actually believe it? It is actually set to be released this week. Seriously. For real. No jokes! 15 years, like 10+ band-members and $13 million dollars later... It's arrived.
It's a difficult thing to try and articulate to anyone outside of the "Rock world" just how big a deal this is in said world... How to explain the 15-year process by which "Chinese Democracy" itself has become this bizarre phrase in the cultural lexicon, synonymous with chronic, unbelievable tardiness in the name of artistic indulgence, and just overall rock and roll ridiculousness in general? (i.e. What happened to Wolfmother? They first went all Chinese Democracy, then they really went all Chinese Democracy.) Not to mention all the inherent irony with the phrase and its now double-yet-still-somehow-singular meaning: art imitating life, life imitating art. It's been pointed out before, but remains as amazing as ever that actual democracy in China nearly beat the album to existence.
But the ridiculous parallel Axl somehow managed to create (I am sure entirely unintentionally... at least I'd hope unintentionally), making us all wait with baited breath for Chinese Democracy while simultaneously waiting with bated breath for Chinese Democracy, is really something that could only happen in Rock and Roll. And that, in one sentence, is as close as you can get to defining what is so f-ing awesome about Rock and Roll.
The album really has formed a cultural footprint like nothing in recent memory... The proverbial 800 pound gorilla in the room that has withstood all the technological innovation and changes in the music industry over the past 15 years. Through it all, the one constant has remained Chinese Democracy. It was the shining hope, the ivory tower of rock. First, representing hope for GNR fans that the band could withstand all the turmoil and Axl Rose's Appetite for Self-Destruction. But as the delays mounted, the mythology formed, and the music business crumbled under the weight of the digital revolution, Chinese Democracy became something else. It came to encompass all those feelings of nostalgia for album rock. For the music business as it used to be. For real rock and roll stars, and all the indulgence and iconography they represented.
I like what Chuck Klosterman says in his review about how Chinese Democracy finally coming out represents the true end of history for album rock and all that went along with it. It's over. This is the last hurrah. So in my mind, it may go down as being one of the most important records in rock history - regardless of how good it actually is.