Chinese Democracy: A Lesson in Outsourcing
Guns N Roses fans have waited patiently for over a decade now for the release of new Guns N Roses’ material, in the form of the mythical Chinese Democracy album. In the time since their last release, The Spaghetti Incident? Axl Rose has managed to take one of the greatest bands in the history of rock and roll and slowly but surely wrench it apart. With rumors of the new album stringing all the way back to 1999, it seems that the Chinese Democracy will never become a reality.
However, as sad as this might be, it also provides an excellent lesson in outsourcing. Yes indeed, if silly Axl had taken an economics class or two, maybe he’d know that sending your production elsewhere is a bad thing. Instead of keeping things as they were circa Appetite for Destruction, Axl decided he had to have his way, and damn all his band-mates and anything they might think. Instead of sticking to the hard, gritty sound that won over so many fans (myself included) off their debut album, Axl wanted to appeal to a broader public audience, and so the byproduct was a softer sound on the Use Your Illusion albums. This was not bad – “November Rain,” I’m ashamed to say, is a great song, and “Don’t Cry” (the original version) and “Patience” are two of my favorite GNR songs. But in his quest for public appeal, and ultimately, more money, backfired in that he failed to realize that his band-mates weren’t on-par with his way of thinking, and in the end, Guns N Roses was made into much less than it once was. Such is the case with so many good American businesses, and so I find GNR’s naming this new album Chinese Democracy just a tad ironic. Think about it – how many corporations started off small, enjoyed success, and then screwed over their workers to move to China. It makes me mad that Axl Rose, who is still a great musician in spite of all of this, treated his band in such a way. In the same sense, it makes me mad that corporate CEO’s screw over their workers just so they can buy a gold toilet and gold-plated toilet paper to wipe their asses with. Below, I’ve given this a more simple representation:
Outsourcing
1.) Small company – focuses on quality.
2.) As company gets bigger, looks for cost-cutting techniques to increase profit.
3.) In effort to make more profit, work is shipped overseas for cheaper labor of lesser quality.
Axlsourcing
1.) Appetite for Destruction = amazing
2.) Rise to Fame – Axl gets an ego, looks for new appeal to broader audience and money.
3.) Axl continues to search for new public appeal and money. Quality declines as he ships away all former members of the band who disagree with him.
As you can see, Axl Rose has completely outsourced, or as I like to call it, “Axlsourced,” his band. When the rest of Guns N Roses began to dislike Rose and his inflated personality, he simply sent them away. He sent Slash and his top hat packing faster than they sent production of Hershey chocolate to Mexico. And we can see the results: GNR members Slash, Duff McKagan, and Matt Sorum went on to form the band Velvet Revolver with Stone Temple Pilots’ Scott Weiland on lead vocals. Velvet Revolver has produced two albums to good critical praise, and toured with a reformed Alice in Chains this summer. Guns N Roses has produced no new albums to no critical praise, and toured with Axl Rose sporting cornrows and baggy football jerseys, sniffing oxygen every twenty minutes, because he smoked enough cigarettes in the 90’s to literally be the chemical equivalent of the Marlboro Man. In addition, let’s take a moment to look at Slash’s replacement – the current guitarist, Bumblefoot. Like Slash he does have an alias, but it is immensely inferior. Bumblefoot – what, did he step on a bee? Actually, I looked this up, and it’s really an infection on the foot of a bird of prey, but who gives a flying fudge! Nobody’s going to mess with a guy named Slash. Secondly, Bumblefoot uses a Gibson Les Paul, but only because SLASH did first! He was actually required to switch to the Les Paul to be allowed to play in the band. Third, and most importantly, Slash has a top hat, and Bumblefoot does not, which automatically makes Slash about ten times more amazing.
So what’s the moral of this story? Don’t send work to China because outsourcing is bad!
And don’t mess with Slash, or his top-hat.
Emily Reigart said,
October 28, 2007 at 11:17 pm
how you manage to be both thought provoking and humorous simultaneously is awe-inspiring. you sir, are a writing god.
ERoot said,
October 31, 2007 at 4:29 pm
If you had ever taken an economics course ( as you suggest Mr Rose should) you would have learned that outsourcing helps the economies of both countries and things such as tariffs and quotas on imports that governments use to “protect” domestic jobs hurt the economy by causing dead weight loss. The problem that axl has is that he stopped making new music after GNR broke up. If he had formed a new, good band then we would have two good bands (new GNR and VR) where before we only had one. So you see, outsourcing is good ass long as the people doing it aren’t drunk, lazy idiots. And Styx rocks.