St. Anger vs. Chinese Democracy, which album was worse/more disappointing?

Worst of the Worst: Metallica's "St. Anger" or Guns N' Roses's "Chinese Democracy"


  • Total voters
    56
Both just awful. I expected the GNR album to suck.. but I'm not surprised with St Anger since Load and Reload were straight trash too.
 
wheres the option for both sucking ass?
 
Chinese Democracy loses. Based on the time and money spent and expectations. It had 2 good songs IMO, 'Better' and 'If The World'.

Sadly St. Anger had more uhh 'good' songs on it.
Some kind of monster, Frantic, My World were good to jam. The documentary is awesome too.

The snare is a horrible tin can and James/Kirk didn't spend enough time writing in Drop C from being a standard/e flat tuning band for so many years. The riffs are pretty muddy because they didn't adjust their style of riffs for the low tunings.

I'm not even a big Metallica fan but i thought they made up for St. Anger with Death Magnetic.
 
I went St. Anger. Wow how bad is Lars? He is just not a good drummer. Metallica was trying to recapture the 80s and missed. Lars was the worst part of that album. Bet James and Kirk wish they could boot that midget.
 
As a HUGE fanboi, it pains me to say this, but GnR for sure. They left on a good note, so to go from Use Your Illusion 1+2 to that crap is a much bigger disappointment compared to Metallica. They were producing junk for the past few previous albums.
the Spaghetti incident was still better than anything on CD.
 
Neither was good but St Anger was worse imo.

Even worse again that either of these is the album Metallica made with Lou Reed. Awful. Just awful.
 
St. Anger by far.

By the time Chinese Democracy was released the hype wasn't at its peak and how can you have a GNR album without Slash?

St. Anger is so terrible. I remember throwing it out the window after buying it. It just couldn't be. I could write better riffs. Load and Reload were different but this was terrible.
Terrible logic. The peak for Metallica had been wayyyyy past, as well.
 
Both just awful. I expected the GNR album to suck.. but I'm not surprised with St Anger since Load and Reload were straight trash too.
There were some decent songs on those albums.
 
Terrible logic. The peak for Metallica had been wayyyyy past, as well.
Terrible logic?

TBA or losing Cliff whichever, was the beginning of the end. I think the latter. Terrible logic? You're statement has no issue with mine. I think St Anger bombed harder than a fake GnR.
 
Both of these albums were massively disappointing and released after long delays from popular bands.

Metallica's St. Anger came out six years after Reload came out in 97.

Guns N' Roses's Chinese Democracy came out 15 years after their cover album The Spaghetti Incident and 17 years after their Use Your Illusion II release.

Which was worse? It's a tougher call than I thought it would be.


St. Anger vs. Chinese Democracy, head to head, which one is worse?

View attachment 311827 VS View attachment 311829

vs

I won't go into the specifics as you've probably heard enough about each in your lifetime.

Who takes it for worst of the worst?


St. Anger was worse. Metallica tried to return to their faster-paced "Kill 'em All" roots and the music was really just sub par.
 
Neither was good but St Anger was worse imo.

Even worse again that either of these is the album Metallica made with Lou Reed. Awful. Just awful.

Lulu was a brick But fairly easy listening as long as you don’t intend to get to immersed in it like I tried on the first couple of listens. I think of it as a Lou Reed album first and foremost. Since he wrote all the lyrics and the music was structured around his vocal style. It seemed like his vision. Metallica was a backing band and the table.

Musically, it’s superior to St. Anger. It’s kind of forgettable Metallica stuff behind Lou Reed rants but it’s edible...I prefer it over St. Anger.

St. Angers biggest sin is that it’s a truly fuckin annoying record. It’s pure racket. It won’t please you but it won’t be ignored either. I could put on Lulu and carry on with a drive, work, or simple background music and atleast be able to ignore it or appreciate it as background noise. St. Anger doesn’t even allow you that. It’s an awful record. Lulu brings the lolz lyrically as well, so it’s not even like St. Anger has the mockable lyrics over Lulu.
 
I just picked up Chinese Democracy the other day. Previously I had only listened to portions of songs on iTunes. I actually found that, although the style is pretty different from what GNR had done in the past, I found myself really liking a handful of tunes on that album. I didn't think Chinese Democracy is a bad album at all.

St. Anger is pretty underwhelming, so I definitely maintain that it is worse (by a large margin).
 
I'd say St.Anger mostly because nobody really expects anything from Guns N Roses. They made one decent album and everything else was garbage so expectations were at zero anyway. Metallica have been making fucking awful records since the Black Album and there's no reason for it apart from lazyness. We know they're excellent musicians, we know they can play live, they're one of the biggest bands in the world and they could easily hire the best songwriters if they wanted too. Instead they've continued to churn out lazy hack shite for 27 years. They're literally the DeNiro's of metal.
 
I actually listened to a song from St. Anger the other day, it came on my infinite shuffle playlist. It was terrible. The snare drum makes me cringe every time he hits it.
 
Chinese Democracy isn't a bad album. It'd probably have been better received it was released as an Axl Rose solo project album, which is what it is, rather than a 'Guns n' Roses' album.

That would also help with confusion such as 'their first album since the Spaghetti Incident' or 'They released one good album and then nothing' comments. After all, Velvet Revolver was more three times more GnR than Chinese Democracy was. What's in a name?
 
St. Anger. I actually kind of liked Chinese Democracy, or at least parts of it. I think most of the hate comes from the ungodly long wait Axl put everyone through. After 17 years, unless it was absolutely perfect, it would be a disappointment.
 
I don't like the sound of Lars loudly banging on a trash can, so just by virtue of that Chinese Democracy is better.
 
St. Anger is worse for that dreadful snare drum alone.

Chinese Democracy has some decent songs on it.
 
Back
Top