Music | November 25, 2008 | 8 comments

Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy 'banned' in China

source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/3511767/Guns-N-Roses-Chinese-Democracy-...

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In an article Monday headlined "American band releases album venomously attacking China," the Global Times said unidentified Chinese Internet users had described the album as part of a plot by the West to "grasp and control the world using democracy as a pawn."

The album "turns its spear point on China," the article said.

Reports suggested that the China National Publications Import and Export Group, the state-owned monopoly responsible for importing all music, has told record shops not to bother trying to order the long-awaited album, which took the band 17 years to produce.

In addition, the album's official website, chinesedemocracy.com, has been blocked automatically by internet censors, while Baidu, the Chinese version of Google, is self-censoring any searches for the album.

Chinesedemocracy.com has responded with a poll asking visitors if they thought the Chinese should be allowed to access it and about 70 per cent of respondents said yes.
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8 comments // Guns N' Roses' Chinese Democracy 'banned' in China

  • chernobylheart
  • flaco85
  • KefKef
    • 0
      KefKef  

    • After about 20 years of everyone hearing about this album, thats all they can come up with? Didn't they prepare for that spear to turn since they had so much time? Really China, thats all you can come up with?

    • 3 years ago
  • purplefox
    • 0
      purplefox  

    • I wouldn't find that particularly surprising - take any Western product (especially counterculture rock-related stuff) with key words 'China' and 'democracy' on it somewhere and the censorship lights are sure to start flashing irrespective of content :p

    • 3 years ago
  • arcticspirit
  • Mr_Costello
    • 0
      Mr_Costello  

    • As The Guardian put it "The irony is, that for all the lavishing of money and time and technology, it's saved by something as old fashioned as a good tune"

      Personally, i though I.R.S was a good tune.

    • 3 years ago
  • richjm
    • 0
      richjm  

    • I vote we somehow ban Axl Rose's ginger dreadlocks in the UK.

      It's been interesting reading reviews of this album. By most accounts, it's quite good but doesn't live up to the ridiculous hype that 17 years of speculation generates. The interesting thing is how dated some songs sound because they were written a while ago but left on the shelf for ages. There's even some nu-metal in there. How very retro.

    • 3 years ago
  • abbym0308
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