Let's take just a moment to mourn the death of "Chinese Democracy" as a phrase. For those of us not sold on the brilliance of Guns N' Roses, those two words have long served asshorthand for a kind of averted disaster, like "Y2K" or "2006 transatlantic aircraft plot." For the last decade, Chinese Democracy (the album) existed only as a concept; a joke about its own unlikelihood; a statement about writer's block, perfectionism, obsession, and reclusion. The reclusion part was nice. It was nice not hearing from vocalist and franchise-owner Axl Rose for a while. Even when the reconstituted band started playing out in 2001 (to 190,000 people in Rio), Chinese Democracy the album remained a theory, something transpiring only deep in the recesses of Rose's mansions and studios, never to be seen or heard. It's been 17 sweet years since an original studio album from GN'R, and 15 years since an album, period. Until this month, it seemed possible that this happy era could continue indefinitely.

It's odd that an album with such a mighty long buildup would itself begin with a mighty long buildup. "Chinese Democracy" (the song) meanders for a lazy minute of soupy ambience. When the hot guitar salvo finally kicks in, it indeed sounds huge and expensive. The album has the insane depth of focus that comes from unlimited resources and personnel; every amp crackle and guitar chug has been tweaked and teased through software a thousand times. Buckethead's savant guitar shredding is in here, but so is everything else—piano, choirs, orchestras, angels. Including arrangers and editors, some tracks list the band as a 13-piece. At times, the record sounds like Geffen interns standing in front of a gold-plated Neumann microphone shaking trash bags full of $100 bills.

It is not, however, a particularly catchy album. Twenty years ago, even this most jaded of GN'R listeners could appreciate the Madison Avenue clarity of "Welcome to the Jungle." On Chinese Democracy, only 3 out of 14 songs—the bouncy "Better," the sweeping and flouncy "If the World," the messianic chorus of "Riad N' the Bedouins"—contain hummable melodies, and each must be sought out, like Easter eggs. The brash and bold title track half-assedly recycles its verse into a chorus. "There Was a Time" has some lovely strings, but no real melody. A lot of musical styles have come and gone in the 15-year gap between GN'R the band and GN'R the brand, and almost all of these styles are referenced somewhere in this final, confused synthesis.

Of course, most people won't buy this record to hear how much money it cost. The main show has always been the voice. Every old vocal trick gets its day in court on this album—the screech, the howl, the Katharine Hepburn warble, the slight maudlin downturn of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." In "Street of Dreams" and "Sorry," his voice sometimes drops to a campy vampiric burble, possibly to convey how much he deserves the sympathy and respect of us mortals. There's enough self-pity here that he doesn't seem to need our help, although this listener certainly pities any miserable wretch who would actually write a song about kicking an ex-girlfriend's ass (Stephanie Seymour? Miss Russia? Future Miss Punching Bag?).

Martin Luther King Jr. pops up 12 tracks in. It's an absurd sample that seems more a blurt of megalomania than a political statement. It also highlights an old double standard. Mel Gibson and Michael Richards wrecked their careers with episodes of spontaneous racism; Rose's premeditated bigotry (on 1988's "One in a Million," with its stern tongue-lashing of "niggers," "faggots," and "immigrants," presumably legal and illegal) has been excused as a youthful lark. It's sad that the most dissected artist in popular culture still gets a free pass on this. Over the years, Rose has tried to clarify his position with comedic obliviousness, too stupid to understand that you can admire Shaq and NWA and still be a flaming Archie Bunker asswipe.

Let's not pretend otherwise: This 20-year-old controversy informs every second of the current album. Rose got away with something huge in 1988, and he has strutted with bloated impunity ever since. He's a bully, a braggart, and an unrepentant bigot, a serial meganarcissist who has somehow tricked the world into indulging his every whim. Rose does deserve credit for pulling off the impressive feat of marketing Hollywood debauchery to the most inbred recesses of red-state America. Others have done it before, but none so recently or on such a vast scale. Chinese Democracy is this civilization's version of the pharaohs' lavish tombs—a vulgar, glittery edifice built to immortalize one man's ego. If only it actually were a tomb, it might have been worth the wait.