Chinese Democracy a "toe-tapper". Early Guns N' Roses guitarist Tracii Guns said he thought it was "over-indulgent, sterile and not that exciting". "Chinese Democracy"'s protracted recording process attracted extensive media coverage. According to "Spin", a cottage industry grew around covering its development; "the only way the record could have lived up to its legend would have been to never come out at all". Five years after its release, "Grantland" journalist Steven Hyden wrote: "For years, it was widely assumed "Chinese Democracy" would never come out; in retrospect, the delay is all anybody cares about ... As music, "Chinese Democracy" is merely the
Guns N' Roses before its official release, the band streamed the entire "Chinese Democracy" album on the group's Myspace page. The album was streamed over three million times, breaking the Myspace record for most streamed album ever. "Chinese Democracy", the band's sixth studio album and its first since 1993's ""The Spaghetti Incident?"", was released on November 22, 2008, in Europe and Australia, in North America on November 23, 2008, and in the United Kingdom on November 24, 2008. The album had an estimated $14 million in production costs, making it the most expensive rock album to ever be produced in music history. It