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Re: Chinese Democracy alternative album covers
Not bad at all. You're right....its an improvement.
I was in shock when seeing the album cover for the first time. Yes we had the description for years and of course loads of fakes but when seeing the real thing for the first time......ugh.
Not how I had pictured it.
Not a huge fan of the alt covers either but they were a lot better than the bike and the bike should've been ditched. If anything, release the bike cover as the rare alternate version for hardcore fans.
Re: Chinese Democracy alternative album covers
Not bad at all. You're right....its an improvement.
Thanks.
The bike could've been a good cover but whomever took the picture (Terry Hardin, whoever that is) is clearly not a trained photographer. It looks like it's a cover for a record called The Golden Basket.
The Red Hand is the best cover and even recalls Appetite For Destruction's original cover however it doesn't fit the songs on the album.
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Chinese Democracy alternative album covers
Always thought that red hand cover was amazing...way better than what we got.
The original bike with graffiti idea is a decent concept but the execution just wasn't quite right....in that sense it fits the album well hahahahah
Although I do love CD it's one of my fav albums really...but it's amazing that from the mix to the art to the promo to the production time everything about it was always like "well this is cool as shit...but...."
Re: Chinese Democracy alternative album covers
I've always said the bike cover was a lovely artistic statement obscured by a giant bike. It's a shame that, like the album, it was destined to be glossed over and treated with distain and indifference.
The shot was snapped in Kowloon Alley in Kowloon Walled City. The picture is a functional metaphor on multiple levels. The first being that someone risked their neck to graffiti Axl's band name in the middle of a controlled arguably totalitarian state. It's something so far detached from the luxuries of American life that it's hardly to be believed.
From there, the walled-off city could double as a metaphor for Axl himself, walled up in his own mansion. Isolated, quickly returning to dust with unsettling pace. The general artifice of the place doesn't inspire confidence. An old decrepit building housing the low and the forgotten, best avoided at all costs. It could something mirror the Guns N' Roses brand itself. An old house on a hill held together by sheer will and a labyrinthian maze of tenuous connections. Something that was, if but for a moment.
Terry Hardin stumbling upon that message is about as rare as it gets. Truly a once in a lifetime sort of thing. You easily take two lefts instead of a right and well, the writing isn't on the wall, but he did and he was able to capture a relative miracle.
Re: Chinese Democracy alternative album covers
I think when I looked into it back in the day that the 2nd cover Apex posted above is also Japanese in origin.
It wasn't the first time.
https://i.imgur.com/Ne6TtwBm.jpg https://i.imgur.com/G6EE4kDm.jpg
OMG, either I never looked close enough, or I just have a vivid imagination, but I always thought it was a bunny on that poster... 
Re: Chinese Democracy alternative album covers
Wagszilla, thanks for the background. That puts the cover art in a while new light.
I've given up on my hopes of the grenade and red hand covers ever getting an official release, but I still dream of finding the promo copies some day!
apex-twin, I remember and loved those two fakes! Thanks for digging those out!
Re: Chinese Democracy alternative album covers
This one captures the meaning of the title on more than one level.
I think when I looked into it back in the day that the 2nd cover Apex posted above is also Japanese in origin.
OMG, either I never looked close enough, or I just have a vivid imagination, but I always thought it was a bunny on that poster...
Wagszilla, thanks for the background. That puts the cover art in a while new light.
I stand corrected. It is Chinese in origin.
The artwork is "Beating The Princess" from "Peking Opera" series, 1997 by Liu Zheng.
Interesting year. Interesting backstory,.
