title: Chinese Democracy

text: Before the end of spring 2000, Beavan left the project. At this time the album was nearly complete, but after Rose hired Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker to replace Beavan, he was persuaded to do re-recording work on the entire album. Baker felt Freese's drums needed to be rerecorded, as they sounded too "industrial"; Brain said they sounded digital, with "not a lot of air moving". Rose felt that the finished album should reflect the "energy" of those who worked on it, and so felt Freese's drums should be replaced. Geffen employee Tom Zutaut said that Freese's drumming was spectacular". He said: "I would not have wanted to be in Brain's shoes. Basically we were saying to [Brain] 'We have got a brilliant performance of this and now we need you to recreate it'."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Rose had Brain learn Freese's parts note by note; Brain had the parts transcribed, then played them from a teleprompter before trying the songs again in his style. According to Brain, he recorded his parts in eight months and the final album features a hybrid of his and Freese's styles. Frank Ferrer replaced Brain in 2006, who said: "I did a few tracks with Brain and he told me to just make the songs my own. It wasn't so much conscious writing as focusing on how the music made me feel and not overthinking it." According to Ferrer, he is the only drummer on the title track; the rest of the album features drums by Brain and Ferrer, using Freese's arrangements. Bassist Tommy Stinson stated he had to rerecord his bass parts with each change in drummer, saying "I probably ended up completely re-recording each part five or six times over the years." Stinson was later critical of the rerecording process, stating that Baker "wasted many years and many millions of dollars trying to get us better sounds that we could have addressed in the mixing stage."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: At the end of Nine Inch Nail's Fragility Tour in July 2000, Finck rejoined the band. Rose had previously threatened to remove Finck's parts from the album after seeing Finck perform with Nine Inch Nails at the 1999 MTV Video Music Awards.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Composers Marco Beltrami and Paul Buckmaster worked on orchestral arrangements. In 2003, Beltrami said of the experience: "I met with Axl and he played me these songs, asked me my ideas about them... I actually wrote some melodies and stuff. The music was eclectic and at the time that I was doing it there were no lyrics on the songs that I was working on."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In February 2001, Jimmy Iovine, the head of Geffen, asked Tom Zutaut, whom the label had fired two years previously, to help Guns N' Roses complete "Chinese Democracy". Zutaut was the A&R man who had discovered the band and guided them through the recording of their previous albums. After they had resolved some personal differences, Rose told Zutaut of his frustrations in finding the sounds he wanted; for example, he had instructed the production team to recreate the drum sound of Nirvana's 1991 album "Nevermind", but was not satisfied with the results. With Zutaut's intervention, the team recreated the sound to Rose's satisfaction. After having Zutaut approved by Rose's personal psychic, whom Rose believed could assess auras from photographs, Rose arranged for Geffen to pay Zutaut "whatever it takes". Zutaut's only concession was to defer some of his payment until the album was delivered, but the album missed the deadline.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Zutaut said Guns N' Roses had 50 to 60 songs in development during this period. By this point, Buckethead had left, following disagreements with Baker and frustrations over the lack of progress. Zutaut persuaded him to rejoin by installing a giant chicken coop in the studio for him to work in, with furniture, straw, chicken wire, and rubber chicken parts. Zutaut described it as "part chicken coop, part horror movie ... You could almost smell the chickens." Only assistant engineers were allowed to enter, to adjust microphones. Rose's assistant Beta Lebeis downplayed the coop as inexpensive and fun, saying, "It didn't cost money or anything – think about it, it's just wire ... It's something you do in three or four hours. Just for fun, to play a joke on somebody." However, according to Zutaut, the coop caused friction when Buckethead began using it to watch hardcore pornography, disturbing Rose. Zutaut told an interviewer that, after one of Rose's dogs defecated in the coop, Buckethead insisted it not be cleaned up as he liked the smell. After three days, the smell had become overwhelming and the studio staff removed it, upsetting Buckethead.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: At Interscope's request, Zutaut investigated the project's budget. He found that the band was spending thousands of dollars a month on rented gear that went unused, and he made changes that he estimated saved around $75,000 a month. Additionally, Rose kept erratic hours, which meant that the salaried musicians, engineers, and assistants were often unable to work. Zutaut said: "These fucking people are getting paid shitloads of money and they're sitting on their arse doing nothing because Axl's not coming to the studio and they can't get him on the phone."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Zutaut tried to convince Rose to release "Chinese Democracy" as a solo album, feeling it would sell better. However, Rose said in 2008: "I didn't make a solo record. A solo record would be completely different than this and probably much more instrumental. The songs were chosen by everyone involved." Lebeis said in March 2001 that 48 songs had been completed, and that Geffen had begun selecting them for the album. Zutaut estimated that Guns N' Roses had 50 or 60 songs in development. He went through each with Rose, trying to decide which were worth finishing. According to Zutaut, during his time with the band they completed versions of "The Blues", "Madagascar", "Chinese Democracy" and "Atlas Shrugged".


title: Chinese Democracy

text: For his 2001 film "Black Hawk Down", the filmmaker Ridley Scott asked to use the 1987 Guns N' Roses song "Welcome to the Jungle", from their debut album "Appetite for Destruction." According to Zutaut, Rose already had new band members rerecord the entirety of "Appetite for Destruction" as part of their induction, and so a day was spent mixing one of these versions. Rose attended a screening of "Black Hawk Down" arranged by Zutaut; however, when he realized it was not a private screening, he fired Zutaut. Zutaut claims he was "set up", a claim disputed by Rose. Zutaut claimed that, by this time, around 11 or 12 tracks were complete but for final mixes, and that the album could have been complete by September 2002. Baker left the project a few months later.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: On January 1, 2001, Guns N' Roses played at the House of Blues in Las Vegas, Nevada, their first concert in over seven years. This was followed by their headlining performance at Rock in Rio III on January 14, 2001, to an audience of 190,000 people. On August 29, 2002, they made a surprise visit to the MTV Video Music Awards in New York; their set included one new song, "Madagascar". Guitarist Richard Fortus joined in 2002; he said all but his contribution, the chorus to "Better", had been written by the time he joined, and that some riffs on the final album date back to Slash's time in the band.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In August 2002, Rose stated on the Guns N' Roses website: "We feel that we have clarity as to the album we're trying to make, we're wrapping it up. We've sorted it down to what songs are on the record, what the sequence of the songs is. The album art is ready." Shortly afterwards, however, he told MTV News: "You'll see [the album], but I don't know if 'soon' is the word". Reed said in November 2002 that the album would be released by June 2003 and that there were only "a few odds and ends left to do, a couple of finishing touches, a couple of vocals – and we need to mix it". Rose also confirmed plans for multiple albums, and said the delay was a partly due to lack of support from Geffen for older bands, saying: "I've had to do way more jobs in it than I'm supposed to. I've had to be manager, A&R man, producer, sole lyric writer, and a lot of other things."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In 2003, radio DJ Eddie Trunk played a demo of "I.R.S." leaked to him by New York Mets catcher Mike Piazza. He likened it to ""Use Your Illusion"-era stuff, with some modern flairs to it. The song had a loop track in the beginning, but then, when it kicked in, it was that same dramatic Guns N' Roses hard rock."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In mid-2003, Guns N' Roses reportedly started rerecording "Chinese Democracy" again. A music journalist said Rose told him in June 2003 that "he wants to make sure it is a perfect as possible before it is released". In 2004, Stinson said "Chinese Democracy" was "almost done" and had been delayed by "legal issues" and because Rose wanted to ensure every band member had a say in each song: "It's a lengthy process because you have to get eight people to basically write a song together that everyone likes." He also said Rose was a perfectionist; an engineer working on the album said: "Axl wanted to make the best record that had ever been made. It's an impossible task. You could go on infinitely, which is what they've done." Stinson later said:What really happened was the record company stood back and left Axl to his own devices. He had to basically produce himself, and that's not what he (wanted to do)... the record company really dropped the ball on this one ... everything changed when Geffen merged with Interscope. Axl was told that Jimmy Iovine would play more of a role (than he did).In 2004, Buckethead quit and Guns N' Roses canceled their tour. They released a statement saying that Buckethead had been "inconsistent and erratic in both his behaviour and his commitment... His transient lifestyle has made it near impossible to have nearly any form of communications with him whatsoever." Shortly afterwards, Rose released a statement saying that they hoped "to announce a release date within the next few months". Stinson said in September that the album would be in the mastering stages by November 2004.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: By 2004, Geffen had removed "Chinese Democracy" from its release schedule and withdrawn funding, stating: "Having exceeded all budgeted and approved recording costs by millions of dollars, it is Mr. Rose's obligation to fund and complete the album, not Geffen's." Around that time, manager Merck Mercuriadis said the album was close to complete. According to a March 2005 "New York Times" article, production costs for the album had reached $13 million ($ in current dollar terms), making it probably the most expensive recording "never made". Mercuriadis dismissed the article, writing in a letter that the newspaper's sources had not been involved with the project for several years. At one point, the band was using a budget of almost $250,000 a month. Rose said the expense would be negated by the recording sessions yielding multiple albums.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In February 2006, "I.R.S.", "The Blues", "There Was a Time", "Better" and "Catcher in the Rye" leaked online. The leaked version of "I.R.S." was aired frequently enough on various record stations prior to the band's management intervening that it charted at #49 on the Radio & Records Active Rock National Airplay Chart for the week ending Feb. 24, 2006. In October, "Better" was inadvertently leaked by Harley-Davidson in an online ad. A "final version" was leaked in February 2007. "Madagascar" was leaked in March 2007. In May 2007, the title track leaked, and updated versions of "Chinese Democracy," "The Blues," "I.R.S." and "There Was a Time" were leaked by professional wrestler Mister Saint Laurent. The final version of "Shackler's Revenge" leaked in August 2008.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Buckethead was replaced by Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal and touring resumed in May 2006. Bumblefoot added guitar to the album between tour legs throughout the year. Bumblefoot wrote guitar parts for every song, trying hundreds of ideas, and contributed fretless guitar. Bumblefoot stated that working with such densely layered songs was a challenge, "..you go into a higher range, so you don't clash with it, and then it's, like, 'Oh, wait. There's that synth thing...' Or you go lower, and it's, like, 'Ah, it's kind of getting eaten up by the rhythms and the bass', so it was a challenge to find the right place." Frank Ferrer replaced Brain in July 2006 and added new drum tracks.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Rose held listening parties in several New York bars in 2006, showcasing 10 new songs. In October 2006, "Rolling Stone" said the album had a "firm" release date of November 21, 2006. According to "Rolling Stone", engineer Andy Wallace, who had worked with Nirvana, Sepultura, Slayer, and Bad Religion, was working on the album that year. Stinson stated that most of the album had been recorded collaboratively in 2001, and had been "pretty much done" since then.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: On December 14, on the Guns N' Roses website, Rose announced the cancellation of four shows, citing the need for more time to work on "Chinese Democracy". He also announced that the band had ended their relationship with Mercuriadis, and announced a tentative release date of March 6, 2007; it was the first time the band had publicly given a release date. In an interview held during the launch party for Korn's 2006 tour, Rose told "Rolling Stone" that "Chinese Democracy" was a "complex record", with Queen-like arrangements, and that he expected some fans to complain about the new direction.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In a 2006 "Rolling Stone" article, former Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach described "Chinese Democracy" as "epic" and "mind-blowing": "It's a very cool album—it's badass with killer screams, killer guitar riffs, but it's got a totally modern sound. The word for it is 'grand.' It's fucking epic. [Axl has] reinvented himself yet again." Bach also described the album as having "the rawness and the power of "Appetite for Destruction", but it also has the grandiosity of 'November Rain'."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Rose said in 2006 that Guns N' Roses had 32 songs in development, with Bach later confirmed that Rose told him "Chinese Democracy" would be the first in a trilogy of albums. Rose later in 2008 confirmed the working titles of 10 songs from the upcoming unreleased albums.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Rose recorded the final vocal tracks in January 2007. On February 22, 2007, the band's road manager Del James issued a press release stating there was no official release date but that recording had ended and mixing had begun. In a 2007 interview, Sebastian Bach said Rose had planned to have the album released by Christmas 2007 and that the delays might have been caused by business problems. In January 2007, Bach recorded backing vocals for "Sorry" at Electric Lady Studios. He described the song as "almost like doom metal with Axl singing really clean over this grinding, slow beat that is fucking mean, I cannot get it out of my head." Harpist Patti Hood, who had worked with Pitman on the album "Free Mars", and conductor Suzy Katayama also recorded parts.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In January 2008, rumors arose that "Chinese Democracy" had been handed to Geffen but was delayed because the label and Rose could not agree on the marketing. Radio host Eddie Trunk said Geffen might have the album and that delays were due to financial reasons. However, in a February 2008 interview with "Classic Rock", Rose's personal manager Beta Lebeis dismissed Trunk's suggestion and said they were in negotiations with the label. With a wealth of material to select from, Rose was solely responsible for track selection and sequencing of the album.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: According to Bumblefoot, the band and producer Caram Costanzo (who joined in 2003) spent 14 hours a day working on the album. Producers who worked on the album include Bob Ezrin, Eric Caudieux, Sean Beavan, and Tim Palmer. Rose and Caram Costanzo are the producers credited on the finished album, with Baker, Caudieux, Beaven and keyboardist Chris Pitman credited with additional production. The band used 15 studios during production, including Capitol Studios, Cherokee Studios, Electric Lady Studios, Sunset Sound Recorders, and The Village.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Mastering engineer Bob Ludwig offered three versions of the album for approval. Rose and Costanzo selected the version without dynamic-range compression to avoid being involved in the ongoing loudness war. Ludwig wrote: "I was floored when I heard they decided to go with my full dynamics version and the loudness-for-loudness-sake versions be damned ... The fan and press backlash against the recent heavily compressed recordings finally set the context for someone to take a stand and return to putting music and dynamics above sheer level."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: On September 14, 2008, the track "Shackler's Revenge" was included in the music game "Rock Band 2", the first official release of new Guns N' Roses material since 1999's "Oh My God". The entire album was made available for the game on April 14, 2009, as downloadable content. It was followed by "If the World", which plays during the closing credits of the 2008 film "Body of Lies".


title: Chinese Democracy

text: "Billboard" announced a firm release date for "Chinese Democracy", November 23, 2008, on October 9. In the US, the retail release is sold exclusively through Best Buy. The first single, "Chinese Democracy", was released on October 22, 2008. It was debuted on the Opie and Anthony show broadcast by KROQ-FM. "Better" was released as a promo single on November 17, 2008, followed by "Street of Dreams" in March 2009.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Several days before its release, the band streamed the album on their Myspace page. It was streamed over 3 million times, breaking the Myspace record for most streamed album ever. After the album's release, Rose did not appear in public for several months and did not respond to calls from the label to promote the album. On December 12, Rose answered questions and posted statements regarding the record, former bandmates, and tour plans on several Guns N' Roses fan forums. On February 9, 2009, in his first official interview since the release, Rose said he had "no information for me to believe there was any real involvement or effort from Interscope". In a 2018 look back, "Billboard" decried the marketing for the album, stating: "The most anticipated rock record in history was murdered by a thousand different jabs and body shots, including artwork the artist wasn't committed to, but the colossal marketing blunder was the Tyson-esque knockout punch."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: The band announced a new leg of the Chinese Democracy Tour in March 2009, which lasted from December 2009 until December 2012. Finck left before the tour to rejoin Nine Inch Nails; he was replaced by DJ Ashba. A guitar tab book of the album was released in December 2009.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In May 2010, Azoff's company Front Line Management sued Rose over unpaid concert fees. Shortly afterwards, Rose filed a $5 million counter-lawsuit against Azoff claiming Azoff had "sabotaged" the "Chinese Democracy" release by "purposefully spoiling" the album art, "botching" a sales deal with Best Buy, and leaking songs online. The lawsuit was settled in 2011.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: "Chinese Democracy" was banned in China because of perceived criticism in its title track of the Chinese government and a reference to Falun Gong. The Chinese Communist Party said through media that it "turns its spear point on China".


title: Chinese Democracy

text: By the time "Chinese Democracy" was released, only 3 of the 14 songs had not been leaked or played live. In June 2008, five months before the album's release, music blogger Kevin Cogill streamed nine tracks on his website Antiquiet for "an hour or two". The high volume of traffic crashed the website server and the tracks were removed. In August, the FBI arrested Cogill under the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act for releasing copyrighted material. Slash said: "I hope he rots in jail. It's going to affect the sales of the record, and it's not fair." According to Techdirt, Cogill's arrest resulted in a large boost in illegal downloads of the album. They also revealed that UMG showed Best Buy search engine traffic results shortly after the case to capitalize on the interest and help them with the distribution deal.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In November, Cogill agreed to plead guilty to one federal count of copyright infringement, later reduced to a misdemeanor. According to Cogill, he was not charged for copyright infringement because the court could not prove that the album was being prepared for commercial distribution: "The US government would have to prove, in court, that "Chinese Democracy" was really coming. And no one at the RIAA or the label had informed the government that these songs had been lying around for 14 years. Only that they had cost $12 million." Cogill was sentenced to two months' house arrest and was required to produce an anti-piracy video with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). He said the video was never made as the RIAA did not want to spend money on production costs.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In 2019, around 100 "Chinese Democracy" demos leaked online. Zutaut had allowed a storage unit containing several CDs of recordings to expire, allowing its contents to be auctioned off; the winner sold them to a fan, who circulated them online.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: On March 26, 2008, media reported that soft drinks manufacturer Dr Pepper would offer a free can of its product to everyone in America—excluding former Guns N' Roses guitarists Buckethead and Slash—if the band released "Chinese Democracy" in 2008. On the Guns N' Roses website, Rose wrote of his surprise at the company's support, and said he would share his Dr Pepper with Buckethead.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: After it was announced that the album would be released in 2008, Dr Pepper confirmed that it would uphold its pledge. However, on the album's release, the Dr Pepper website servers crashed under the demand for coupons. Lawyers for the band threatened Dr Pepper's parent company with a lawsuit two days after the album's release; in a letter to the company, Rose's lawyer Alan Gutman said: "The redemption scheme your company clumsily implemented for this offer was an unmitigated disaster which defrauded consumers and, in the eyes of vocal fans, ruined "Chinese Democracy"'s release." Gutman also demanded a full-page apology to appear in "The Wall Street Journal", "USA Today", "The New York Times", and "Los Angeles Times". Later, in an online interview with fans, Rose said he told his lawyers it was a "non-issue" and was surprised by their actions, and that he believed they should have focused on the record release.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In October 2009, electronic musician Ulrich Schnauss's record labels Independiente and Domino sued Guns N' Roses, alleging they had infringed copyright by using portions of Schnauss' compositions in the song "Riad 'N the Bedouins". The suit alleges the portions are sampled from Schnauss' "Wherever You Are" (2001) and "A Strangely Isolated Place" (2003). Brian Caplan, attorney for Domino, stated that they first contacted Geffen on February 26. Caplan told New York Daily News the label "attempted to explain [the samples] away", and "They tried to justify it".


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Guns N' Roses denied the allegations; the band's manager Irving Azoff stated: "The snippets of 'ambient noise' in question were provided by a member of the album's production team who has assured us that these few seconds of sound were obtained legitimately ... While the band resents the implication that they would ever use another artist's work improperly and are assessing possible counterclaims, they are confident this situation will be satisfactorily resolved." The two labels sought $1 million in damages against Geffen for the unauthorized use of the samples.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Only two additional songs from the recording sessions have been officially released. According to Bumblefoot, one song, "Atlas Shrugged", was cut at the last second because of CD playing-time constraints. Songs mentioned by those involved in the recording that did not make the final album include "Atlas Shrugged", "Oklahoma", "Thyme", "The General", "Elvis Presley and the Monster of Soul", "Ides of March", "Silkworms", "Down by the Ocean", "Zodiac", "Quick Song" and "We Were Lying".


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In August 2013, "Going Down", a song recorded during the sessions featuring Tommy Stinson on vocals, was leaked online, as well as several remixes by Brain & future Guns N' Roses keyboardist Melissa Reese. In 2014, Rose said that a "second part" of "Chinese Democracy" and a remix album were complete and pending release. In 2018, "Billboard" reported that a follow-up to "Chinese Democracy" had been planned for 2016, but was put on hold when Slash and Duff McKagan rejoined the band. Guitarist Richard Fortus confirmed work on a new album in 2018. In October 2021, Slash mentioned the band had been reworking songs from the "Chinese Democracy" period.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: "Chinese Democracy" marked Guns N' Roses' expansion into industrial rock, electronic rock nu metal, and elements of trip hop, while retaining the hard rock style of previous albums. Critics noted stylistic similarities on the album to the work of Queen, Paul McCartney and Wings, and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Rose cited the influence of Dave Grohl's drumming on Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on the title track. The song was inspired by the movie "Kundun" about the Dalai Lama, as well as three months Rose spent living in China, stating "When you stay in hotels there, you don't realize that the stuff you're seeing on TV, the average person isn't seeing. Everywhere I went, people are scared, they're frightened for their lives to have an opinion that deviates from the government about the simplest things, things that we take for granted." The lyrics "Blame it on the Falun Gong / They've seen the end and you cannot hold on now" from the song caused the album to be banned in China. The song starts with a delayed intro of ambient noise and guitar lines. "Spin" likened the guitars to the work of Tom Morello. Drummer Josh Freese wrote the main guitar riff, describing it as "really dumb, simple, dirty guitar riff."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: "Shackler's Revenge" was written in reaction to Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho, who wrote a play based on the lyrics of the Guns N' Roses song "Mr. Brownstone"; Rose responded to "the insanity of senseless school shootings" and the media overreacting to Cho's interest in Guns N' Roses. The song drew comparisons to the music of industrial and electronic artists such as Nine Inch Nails, The Prodigy, Marilyn Manson, Korn and Rob Zombie from critics. The song features elements of industrial rock, electronic rock, nu metal, sludge rock, and alternative rock. Multiple layers of vocals create what "Rolling Stone" described as "a demented choir". "Better" is an electronic rock-influenced song that features Rose singing in falsetto at the beginning of the track "No one ever told me when / I was alone / They just thought I'd know better", over a "whining guitar line that bubbles and bursts". Rose mentioned the guitar parts in the bridge as among his favorite parts of the album. "Loudwire" described the song as having an Acid house style beat, while "Rolling Stone" described the intro as a "hip-hop voicemail".


title: Chinese Democracy

text: "Street of Dreams", previously known as "The Blues", is a pop-influenced piano ballad similar to "November Rain" and "The Garden" with influences from Elton John. The song was noted as similar to the works of Queen. On "If The World", Buckethead played a Flamenco guitar; it was described as having "an electronic funk slither", neo soul, nu-metal, and trip hop styles. Keyboardist Chris Pitman stated of the song "It's about environmental decay in its futurist context." Pitman primarily wrote the song on a 12 string guitar, stating "I just started with this riff that allows for a pretty cool vocals... I wrote the drums with a dub / reggae beat... added strings, piano, bass, echo guitar, synth and sub-bass. I gave the recordings to Axl and he added his part by singing in one night." Rose described the writing of the song as a combination of James Bond and 70's Blaxploitation films, with an "intentionally cheesey sounding chorus" to parody James Bond music.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: "There Was a Time" is a heavily layered melody driven orchestral song with a mellotron, violins, choirs and multiple synthesizers. "Spin" noted, "Bluesy piano and slyly cinematic passage set up the highest notes Axl's full-health throat has ever belted." "Catcher in the Rye" was written after Rose watched a documentary on Mark David Chapman and wanted to write a song in dedication to John Lennon; the song is meant to criticize the book "The Catcher in the Rye". The song, a power ballad drew comparisons to Oasis as well as Elton John, Queen and the Guns N' Roses song "Yesterdays".


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Discussing the origins of "Riad N' The Bedouins", Rose stated: "Riad is the name my one-time momentary brother-in-law of Erin Everly went by when I knew him. Of part Lebanese descent and a former student of Pepperdine University, he claims to be an international arms dealer." Rose's vocals on the song have been compared to Robert Plant. The song starts with ambient samples of the songs "Wherever You Are" and "A Strangely Isolated Place" by Ulrich Schnauss (see below for information on the lawsuit regarding the samples). Several critics have theorised the song's lyrical content is about the Iraq War. Rose said "Sorry" was about "anyone talking nonsense at mine and the public's expense". The song is a power ballad which features a chorus "I'm sorry for you/Not sorry for me", described as a shot at Rose's former bandmates. The song drew comparisons to Pink Floyd and Metallica, and Rose's vocals were compared to Layne Staley. "The A.V. Club" noted Rose's "bizarre, quasi-Transylvanian accent" on the line "But I don't want to do it". "I.R.S." has Rose singing "Gonna call the president / Gonna call myself a private eye / Gonna need the IRS / Gonna get the FBI" over a guitar heavy track. The song was also noted for trip-hop influences. "Spin" mentioned the main riff's similarities to that of Nirvana's "In Bloom".


title: Chinese Democracy

text: "Madagascar" has been described as having a "trip hop pulse"; its bridge features interwoven samples of quotations from the movies "Mississippi Burning", "Casualties of War", "Cool Hand Luke", "Braveheart", and "Seven", and also contains several excerpts from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches "I Have a Dream" and "Why Jesus Called a Man a Fool". "Time" described it as "Axl's attempt to do Led Zeppelin's Kashmir. Rose said of the quotes "Dr. King's words have been edited together from multiple speeches as to bring the sentiments of his messages into the context of this particular song and to present their importance as strongly as possible." "This I Love" is a song written in 1992 that Rose called "the heaviest thing I've written". The song is a piano ballad with Rose singing to a former lover. Rose described the song stating "It's a lot more intricate than I think most realize yet as the guitar and vocals are placed as they should be so dominant. The main string melody in that section I had originally written to a hip-hop loop as well." "Spin" compared the song to the works of Andrew Lloyd Webber. "Prostitute" is another orchestral-lined power ballad that features the lyrics "Ask yourself / Why I would choose / To prostitute myself / To live with fortune and shame". According to producer Youth, Rose "labored" over the song because past successes weighed heavily on him. The song was described by "Loudwire" as "blending classical orchestrations and electro-beats with blistering guitar solos and some of [Rose's] highest pitched shrieking." "Consequence of Sound" compared Rose's vocals to "Bruce Hornsby with distortion."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: The cover art features a sepia photograph of a bicycle with a large wicker basket resting against a wall on which the band's name is graffitied; it was photographed in Kowloon Walled City by Terry Hardin. Three red communist stars are above the letters "GNR" on the side with the band name and album title, which are written vertically. According to artistic director Ryan Corey, Rose conceived the bike cover at the album's inception.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Rose approached Chinese artist Chen Zhuo for permission to use a painting of Tiananmen Square as an amusement park for the album cover, but Zhuo declined due to China's strict censorship laws and risks collaborating with a potentially controversial project. Shi Lifeng's painting "Controlling No. 3" was chosen by Rose and used as an alternate cover for an "art edition". It was used for the "Rock Band 2" download and released on CD in small quantities. The alternate booklet opens with a short essay written by Rose titled "Fear N' Freedom: The Future of China and Western Society". The album booklet features several artworks by Lifeng, including a bloodied fist holding a star covered by flailing human figures. Photographs of the Hong Kong skyline and the Chinese military also appear in the booklet. The booklet also includes pictures of Rose, Buckethead, Stinson, Pitman, Finck, Fortus, Bumblefoot, Reed, Brain, and Ferrer alongside lyrics to the songs.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Rose stated in December 2008 that two alternate booklets were pending release, adding "the artwork has always been something I've been passionate about, and to release the album with unapproved and unseen final artwork with a 1st work only error filled draft when others more recent were readily available still has not been explained." However, plans fell through and only the "art edition" was released in limited quantities. Bassist Tommy Stinson stated the label "ripped away" from Rose the artwork "right at the last second, when he wasn't ready."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: "Chinese Democracy" was met with generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 64, based on 28 reviews. "Los Angeles Times" writer Ann Powers called it "a test for contemporary ears" and "a cyborgian blend of pop expressiveness, traditional rock bravado and Brian Wilson-style beautiful weirdness". Chuck Klosterman, writing for "The A.V. Club", praised the vocals and guitar parts but criticized some production elements. "Rolling Stone" writer David Fricke commended Rose's unrestrained approach and called it "a great, audacious, unhinged and uncompromising hard-rock record". "Rolling Stone" later ranked the album number 12 on its year-end list of 2008's best albums. Jon Dolan from "Blender" found some of the music "ludicrous" and other parts "brilliant", writing that "these aren't songs, they're suites, energetic and skittering and unpredictable hard rock hydras cut with miasmic industrial grind, stadium rattling metal solos, electronic drift and hip-hop churn." Writing for "MSN Music", Robert Christgau said Rose succeeds on "his own totally irrelevant terms" and added, "Since he's no longer capable of leading young white males astray, this effort isn't just pleasurable artistically. It's touching on a human level." CTV News compared the production to the Wall of Sound style of Phil Spector.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In a mixed review, "Chicago Tribune" writer Greg Kot found Rose's production over-embellished. "The Guardian" criticized the album as incohesive and "exhausting", but praised Rose's melodies. "Pitchfork" complimented the vocals but criticized the "dated" sound. "Q" considered the album overproduced, stating "by throwing everything at the wall and nailing up the stuff that didn't stick, [Rose has] done himself a grand disservice". Kitty Empire, writing for "The Observer", accused Rose of "cribbing" from the industrial rock of Nine Inch Nails. "The New York Times" described "Chinese Democracy" as "a transitional album". Rock biographer Stephen Davis was more vitriolic and named "Chinese Democracy" "the worst album ever".


title: Chinese Democracy

text: The album was nominated for the Juno Award for International Album of the Year in 2009, losing to Coldplay's "Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends". The song "If the World" was nominated for Best Original Song at the 13th Satellite Awards, losing to "Another Way to Die" by Jack White and Alicia Keys.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: The album's polarizing reception led to it being included on several publication's year end worst-of lists, as well of best-of lists.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Several former members of Guns N' Roses gave their opinion on the album after release. Slash reacted positively to the title track, stating "That sounds cool. It's good to hear Axl's voice again, y'know?" When the album was released, Slash said, "It's a really good record. It's very different from what the original Guns N' Roses sounded like, but it's a great statement by Axl ... It's a record that the original Guns N' Roses could never possibly make. And at the same time it just shows you how brilliant Axl is." He subsequently stated the album was "exactly what I thought it would sound like", with many synthesizers and digital augmentations. After rejoining the band for the Not in This Lifetime tour in 2016, Slash complimented Buckethead's guitar parts and spoke of the album in a 2018 interview, stating "You know, it is very different. It's really cool stuff, but it was played by guitar players that are very different from me, style-wise... I also want to give credit where credit's due – the guitar players that played on "Chinese Democracy"... are fucking amazing guitar players."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Soon after its release, Izzy Stradlin said "I have listened to some tracks off the record and I enjoyed them" and "I like what I've heard". Steven Adler, when asked if he liked the album, said "Not one bit. I didn't recognize Axl's voice on it. There's occasional parts where he does his loud scream but I didn't even know it was him." He also criticized labeling the album as a Guns N' Roses album, stating it should have been released as an Axl Rose solo album. Gilby Clarke stated "I think it's a really good record—I honestly do ... Knowing [the] direction [in which] he wanted to take the band, I think he hit the nail on the head; I think he did a great job". Duff McKagan praised the album, saying "Axl sounds amazing" and "I think Axl's finally made the record he always wanted to". Matt Sorum stated he was "pleasantly surprised" by the title track, and called the album a "toe-tapper". Founding Guns N' Roses guitarist Tracii Guns said he thought it was "over-indulgent, sterile and not that exciting".


title: Chinese Democracy

text: "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 second-worst GNR record; as a figure of speech, it is shorthand for the grandest of boondoggles." Hyden wrote that the album had served as a lesson for acts who took years to release "comeback" albums, demonstrating the perils of allowing backstory to overshadow the work and failing to provide a familiar product. He compared "Chinese Democracy" to subsequent, successful comeback albums by acts including Daft Punk, David Bowie, Justin Timberlake and My Bloody Valentine, which were "more modest" and offered "well-trod musical territory associated with each artist". "Ultimate Classic Rock" noted the album's reception, stating "The fact that it was, by all standards, a fairly good album, was completely eclipsed by its backstory" and stating that artists such as Bowie, Steve Perry and Tool used the album as an example "by keeping a low profile during production and staying relatively faithful to what fans expected" for long-awaited albums.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: "The New York Times" saw the album as a "loud last gasp from the reign of the indulged pop star"; where Rose had once commanded "loyal audiences, bountiful royalties, escalating ambitions and dangerously open-ended deadlines", the music business in the early 21st century had become "leaner" and "leakier". Jim DeRogatis compared the album to the movie "The Godfather Part III", claiming it was a "late-career installment in a beloved franchise that we never thought we'd see," but lamenting that it was "nowhere near enough to stand as an equal artistic accomplishment."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In 2012, "Complex" named "Chinese Democracy" amongst "50 Albums That Were Unfairly Hated On", praising Roses's vocals and the musicianship of the band and stating that the album's biggest flaw were the delays in release. In a 2015 review inducting the album into their "New Classic Albums" category, Artistdirect praised the album, calling it "a timeless work of art". In a 2018 look back, "Billboard" called the album a "sonic anomaly" of the time due to the mixing and lack of compression making it sound "vintage or alien to rock music fans". A 2018 retrospective review by "No Recess" magazine compared the album to "their own version of Danzig's Blackacidevil", stating "[After the 90's] the only thing left was to repeat or radically reinvent themselves. Chinese Democracy tries to do both, to varying degrees of 'okay, sure'."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: In 2021, "Ultimate Guitar" called the album "unfairly maligned" while highlighting "There Was a Time" as the standout track. Journalist Gary Graff stated "its sprawling, indulgent insanity is maybe even more fun to hear now than it was at the time" after re-listening to the album in 2021. In 2022, "Loudwire" placed the album on a list of "10 Hated Rock + Metal Albums That Are Better Than You Remember", stating "And it may be a mess, but there are still some great jams here."


title: Chinese Democracy

text: Best Buy purchased 1.3 million copies of "Chinese Democracy" from UMG for $14 million ($ in current dollar terms) before release and pledged not to return unsold copies. The album was released on November 22, 2008, in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. It was released the following day worldwide, except for the United Kingdom, where it was released on November 24.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: "Chinese Democracy" debuted at number three on the US "Billboard" 200 chart, selling 261,000 copies in its first week, well below expectations. It debuted at number two on the UK Albums Chart. Second-week US sales dropped significantly and it fell from #3 to #18 on the "Billboard" chart: a 78% drop. The programming director at KLOS-FM said the low sales were due to the holiday season release and lackluster lead single, while Reuters blamed the Best Buy exclusive deal for lower than expected sales in the US. Critics also cited Rose's lack of promotional appearances as a factor.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: After selling 21,000 copies in its sixth week and charting at #30, "Chinese Democracy" was certified Gold, passing the 500,000-shipped mark on January 7, 2009. It was certified Platinum by the RIAA on February 3, 2009, having shipped one million copies in the United States. It placed 55th on the 2009 Billboard 200 Year End charts.


title: Chinese Democracy

text: "Chinese Democracy" won an IFPI European Platinum Award, having sold more than one million copies in Europe, and had sold 2.6 million units worldwide by February 2009, according to Universal Music. It reached triple platinum certification in Canada and was awarded platinum certifications in many countries including Finland, the Czech Republic, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Poland, Romania, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. It was certified gold in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands, Sweden, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Brazil, and Colombia. After Best Buy put the album on clearance for $2 in April 2011, it re-entered the US "Billboard" 200 chart in the week ending April 3, 2011 at #198, selling 3,200 copies. By then, the album had sold 614,000 copies in the US, according to Nielsen Soundscan. In the UK, it had sold 365,899 copies by July 2014. After the 2016 Not in This Lifetime... Tour reunion tour (during which most songs from the album were played), "Billboard" reported the album's digital streams jumped from 8 million streams to 24 million, as well as 7,900 additional copies sold.


title: Paul Carrack

text: Paul Melvyn Carrack (born 22 April 1951) is an English singer, musician, songwriter and composer who has recorded as both a solo artist and as a member of several popular bands. The BBC dubbed Carrack "The Man with the Golden Voice", while "Record Collector" remarked: "If vocal talent equalled financial success, Paul Carrack would be a bigger name than legends such as Phil Collins or Elton John."


title: Paul Carrack

text: Carrack rose to prominence in the mid-1970s as the frontman and principal songwriter of Ace, and gained further recognition for his work as a solo artist and for his tenures as a member of Roxy Music, Squeeze and Roger Waters' backing band, The Bleeding Heart Band, intermittently handling lead vocals on Squeeze and Waters recordings. From the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, he enjoyed considerable success as the co-lead singer (with Paul Young) and a songwriter for Mike + The Mechanics; following Young's death in 2000, Carrack served as the band's sole lead vocalist until his departure in 2004. He maintains an active solo career to the present day.


title: Paul Carrack

text: Carrack sang some of his affiliated bands' best-known hits, including Ace's "How Long"; Squeeze's "Tempted"; and Mike + The Mechanics' "Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)", "The Living Years" and "Over My Shoulder". He also performed lead vocals on tracks from the Roger Waters albums "Radio K.A.O.S." and "The Wall – Live in Berlin", and achieved a major solo hit with "Don't Shed a Tear". Carrack's songs have been recorded by artists such as Linda Ronstadt, Eagles, Diana Ross, Tom Jones, Michael McDonald and Jools Holland, and he has served as a session and/or touring musician for Elton John, Eric Clapton, Ringo Starr, B.B. King, The Pretenders, The Smiths and Madness.


title: Paul Carrack

text: Carrack's recording career began with the jazz-rock band Warm Dust, which released three albums of original material between 1970 and 1972. Carrack served as the band's keyboard player and occasionally played other instruments. The band's lead vocalist was Les Walker.


title: Paul Carrack

text: After Warm Dust broke up, Carrack and Warm Dust bassist Terry "Tex" Comer helped found the pub rock band Ace. The band's debut single, "How Long", was written and sung by Carrack and was a 1975 hit in both the UK and the United States. The track was Ace's only hit record and in 1977 the group disbanded. Carrack then worked as a backing musician for Frankie Miller and as a keyboardist for Roxy Music.


title: Paul Carrack

text: In 1981, Glenn Tilbrook recruited Carrack to join Squeeze as a replacement for long-time keyboardist Jools Holland. This new Squeeze line-up achieved international success with the album "East Side Story", with Carrack as vocalist on the song "Tempted", their biggest US hit at the time. However, by 1982, Carrack had left the band and was replaced by keyboardist Don Snow.


title: Paul Carrack

text: Beginning in late 1981, Carrack joined Nick Lowe in a band that featured Lowe, Carrack, Martin Belmont on guitar, James Eller on bass and Bobby Irwin on drums. This band, referred to as Noise to Go, existed to back both Carrack on his solo recordings, and Lowe on his, similar to the arrangement Lowe had with Dave Edmunds and Rockpile in the late 1970s. Noise to Go also backed Lowe's wife Carlene Carter on her 1981 album "Blue Nun".


title: Paul Carrack

text: After Carrack's 1982 solo album "Suburban Voodoo", Eller left Noise to Go, and Lowe took over bass duties within the band. The band was rechristened Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit, and recorded two albums from 1983 to 1985, with Lowe as lead vocalist. The band also backed John Hiatt on side two of Hiatt's 1983 album "Riding with the King".


title: Paul Carrack

text: Nick Lowe and His Cowboy Outfit dissolved in 1985, and Carrack was contacted by Mike Rutherford (of Genesis) who asked him to join Rutherford's new side project, Mike + The Mechanics. Initially, Carrack and Paul Young alternated as lead vocalists for the band. Carrack sang lead on their 1985 hit "Silent Running (On Dangerous Ground)". This led to further mainstream popularity and acclaim, with Phil Collins describing Carrack as an "incredible voice" who "could sing the telephone directory".


title: Paul Carrack

text: In 1986, Carrack became a member of Roger Waters' newly formed backing band, The Bleeding Heart Band, recording tracks for the soundtrack of the animated film "When the Wind Blows". The following year, Waters (still accompanied by Carrack and the Bleeding Hearts) released a solo album, "Radio K.A.O.S." and toured the US and Europe. Carrack often filled in as an unofficial support act on the tour, usually playing "Tempted" to warm up the crowd.


title: Paul Carrack

text: Building on the success of Mike + The Mechanics, Carrack was able to reestablish his solo career in 1987 with the hit album "One Good Reason", and the accompanying hit single "Don't Shed a Tear", which reached number nine on the "Billboard" Hot 100. From this point forward, Carrack consistently maintained both a solo career and a career in Mike + The Mechanics. This band recorded and toured irregularly due to Rutherford's commitments with Genesis.


title: Paul Carrack

text: In 1989, Mike + The Mechanics had a UK number two and US number one hit with "The Living Years", on which Carrack again sang lead. Also in 1989, Carrack recorded "Romance", a duet with Terri Nunn from the Los Angeles-based synthpop band Berlin. The song appeared on the soundtrack to the movie "Sing", starring Peter Dobson and Lorraine Bracco.


title: Paul Carrack

text: In the 1990s Carrack's solo career went into abeyance for a few years, although he maintained a career as a session musician. He also continued working with Mike + The Mechanics, who recorded throughout the decade. During this time Carrack played keyboards in the band and also began to co-compose, with Rutherford, some of the band's songs.


title: Paul Carrack

text: In 1990, Carrack rejoined Roger Waters for the ground-breaking live stage show of "The Wall – Live in Berlin" in front of a crowd of 250,000. He sang "Hey You" and was one of the performers on "The Tide Is Turning" with Waters, Joni Mitchell, Cyndi Lauper, Bryan Adams and Van Morrison.


title: Paul Carrack

text: In 1991, Carrack sang the fourth verse on the 1956 born Paul Young's cover version of the Crowded House hit "Don't Dream It's Over", released on Young's compilation album "From Time to Time – The Singles Collection".


title: Paul Carrack

text: In 1993, Carrack joined with bassist Tony Levin, drummer Steve Ferrone, guitarist Phil Palmer and keyboardist/producer Rupert Hine to form a band known as Spin 1ne 2wo. They released one album, a self-titled project, made up of classic rock covers including songs by Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Led Zeppelin, Blind Faith, Steely Dan and Bob Dylan. He dueted with Beth Nielsen Chapman on "In the Time It Takes".


title: Paul Carrack

text: Also in 1993, Squeeze had Carrack return for their album "Some Fantastic Place" and a subsequent tour. With Carrack on vocals, the band re-recorded their hit "Tempted" for the soundtrack to the movie "Reality Bites" (1994). Carrack once again left Squeeze, however, after about a year.


title: Paul Carrack

text: Following his second stint with Squeeze, Carrack joined forces with Timothy B. Schmit and Don Felder of the Eagles for an ambitious, but ultimately unrealised, recording project. Schmit and Felder soon reunited with the rest of the Eagles and their "Hell Freezes Over" album, bringing with them one of the songs Carrack had co-written, "Love Will Keep Us Alive." It was recorded by the Eagles and won an ASCAP award as being the most-played song in the US in 1995. The same year, Mike + the Mechanics scored yet another top 20 hit, "Over My Shoulder". It not only featured Carrack on lead vocals, but was the first Mechanics hit to be co-written by him.


title: Paul Carrack

text: In 1996, Carrack resumed his solo career with the album "Blue Views". Carrack also contributed Hammond organ parts to four songs on Ezio's 2000 album "Higher."


title: Paul Carrack

text: Carrack maintains an active solo career, as well as his career as a session musician and songwriter, touring solo in 2002, mostly opening for bands such as Supertramp. He also served as the sole lead vocalist for Mike + The Mechanics following the death of Paul Young in 2000. In 2003 Carrack toured with Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band performing his hit songs including "How Long?", "Tempted" and "The Living Years". In 2004, Carrack left the Mechanics following the release of "Rewired", their only album with Carrack as sole lead vocalist. After a lull in Carrack's career, in 2007 the Eagles covered Carrack's "I Don't Want to Hear Anymore" on their long-awaited reunion album "Long Road Out of Eden". The album went to number one in the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand and several other countries.


title: Paul Carrack

text: In September 2004, Carrack joined with other notable artists for "The Strat Pack" concert at Wembley, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Fender Stratocaster. Carrack delivered vocal performances on "How Long?", "All Along the Watchtower", "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", and "I Can't Dance".


title: Paul Carrack

text: In May 2009, Carrack embarked on a tour of Germany, supported by Canadian artist Brendan Croskerry. In 2010, Carrack released the album "A Different Hat", with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, arranged by David Cullen. Two years later in 2012, Carrack returned with the soul-inspired album "Good Feeling".


title: Paul Carrack

text: In 2012, Carrack was the subject of an hour-long BBC Four television documentary "Paul Carrack: The Man with the Golden Voice". In the same year, Carrack was one of the recipients of the BASCA Gold Badge Award in recognition of his unique contribution to music.


title: Paul Carrack

text: In February 2013, Carrack helped to kick off Eric Clapton's 50th anniversary tour, "Old Sock", celebrating the 50th year that Clapton had been a professional musician. Carrack sang lead vocals on "Tempted", "How Long", and closed the show with "High Time We Went".


title: Paul Carrack

text: He also in 2013, took part in the BBC Four programme "Please Please Me: Remaking a Classic" to celebrate 50 years since The Beatles debut album, where he recorded his own version of "Misery".


title: Paul Carrack

text: In May 2015, Carrack helped Clapton celebrate his 70th birthday with a concert held at Madison Square Garden on 1 and 3 May, along with the other members of Clapton's band. The birthday celebration continued later in May at the Royal Albert Hall in the UK. In 2019, Carrack played Hammond organ and sang on Clapton's "Live in Concert 2019 world tour", playing their first-ever concert in Dresden, Germany as part of the Dresden Music Festival.


title: Paul Carrack

text: On 19 February 2021, a new single "You're Not Alone" was released across all digital platforms via Carrack's own independent label Carrack-UK. It was also announced that a new studio album, "One on One", would be issued in June 2021. After Carrack contracted shingles in the spring, delaying the album's completion, the release date was pushed back to September 17.


title: Paul Carrack

text: Carrack's distinctive voice and keyboard skills have kept him in demand as a session musician on many projects. Some of his credits include:


title: Paul Carrack

text: In 1997, Carrack played organ for Elton John on the single "Something About the Way You Look Tonight". It was coupled with "Candle in the Wind 1997" on a double A-sided single, which set a new record for best selling single of all time.


title: Hydrolysis

text: Hydrolysis (; ) is any chemical reaction in which a molecule of water breaks one or more chemical bonds. The term is used broadly for substitution, elimination, and solvation reactions in which water is the nucleophile.


title: Hydrolysis

text: Biological hydrolysis is the cleavage of biomolecules where a water molecule is consumed to effect the separation of a larger molecule into component parts. When a carbohydrate is broken into its component sugar molecules by hydrolysis (e.g., sucrose being broken down into glucose and fructose), this is recognized as saccharification.


title: Hydrolysis

text: Hydrolysis reactions can be the reverse of a condensation reaction in which two molecules join into a larger one and eject a water molecule. Thus hydrolysis adds water to break down, whereas condensation builds up by removing water.


title: Hydrolysis

text: Usually hydrolysis is a chemical process in which a molecule of water is added to a substance. Sometimes this addition causes both the substance and water molecule to split into two parts. In such reactions, one fragment of the target molecule (or parent molecule) gains a hydrogen ion. It breaks a chemical bond in the compound.


title: Hydrolysis

text: A common kind of hydrolysis occurs when a salt of a weak acid or weak base (or both) is dissolved in water. Water spontaneously ionizes into hydroxide anions and hydronium cations. The salt also dissociates into its constituent anions and cations. For example, sodium acetate dissociates in water into sodium and acetate ions. Sodium ions react very little with the hydroxide ions whereas the acetate ions combine with hydronium ions to produce acetic acid. In this case the net result is a relative excess of hydroxide ions, yielding a basic solution.


title: Hydrolysis

text: Strong acids also undergo hydrolysis. For example, dissolving sulfuric acid () in water is accompanied by hydrolysis to give hydronium and bisulfate, the sulfuric acid's conjugate base. For a more technical discussion of what occurs during such a hydrolysis, see Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory.


title: Hydrolysis

text: Acid–base-catalysed hydrolyses are very common; one example is the hydrolysis of amides or esters. Their hydrolysis occurs when the nucleophile (a nucleus-seeking agent, e.g., water or hydroxyl ion) attacks the carbon of the carbonyl group of the ester or amide. In an aqueous base, hydroxyl ions are better nucleophiles than polar molecules such as water. In acids, the carbonyl group becomes protonated, and this leads to a much easier nucleophilic attack. The products for both hydrolyses are compounds with carboxylic acid groups.


title: Hydrolysis

text: Perhaps the oldest commercially practiced example of ester hydrolysis is saponification (formation of soap). It is the hydrolysis of a triglyceride (fat) with an aqueous base such as sodium hydroxide (NaOH). During the process, glycerol is formed, and the fatty acids react with the base, converting them to salts. These salts are called soaps, commonly used in households.


title: Hydrolysis

text: In addition, in living systems, most biochemical reactions (including ATP hydrolysis) take place during the catalysis of enzymes. The catalytic action of enzymes allows the hydrolysis of proteins, fats, oils, and carbohydrates. As an example, one may consider proteases (enzymes that aid digestion by causing hydrolysis of peptide bonds in proteins). They catalyze the hydrolysis of interior peptide bonds in peptide chains, as opposed to exopeptidases (another class of enzymes, that catalyze the hydrolysis of terminal peptide bonds, liberating one free amino acid at a time).


title: Hydrolysis

text: However, proteases do not catalyze the hydrolysis of all kinds of proteins. Their action is stereo-selective: Only proteins with a certain tertiary structure are targeted as some kind of orienting force is needed to place the amide group in the proper position for catalysis. The necessary contacts between an enzyme and its substrates (proteins) are created because the enzyme folds in such a way as to form a crevice into which the substrate fits; the crevice also contains the catalytic groups. Therefore, proteins that do not fit into the crevice will not undergo hydrolysis. This specificity preserves the integrity of other proteins such as hormones, and therefore the biological system continues to function normally.


title: Hydrolysis

text: Upon hydrolysis, an amide converts into a carboxylic acid and an amine or ammonia (which in the presence of acid are immediately converted to ammonium salts). One of the two oxygen groups on the carboxylic acid are derived from a water molecule and the amine (or ammonia) gains the hydrogen ion. The hydrolysis of peptides gives amino acids.


title: Hydrolysis

text: Many polyamide polymers such as nylon 6,6 hydrolyze in the presence of strong acids. The process leads to depolymerization. For this reason nylon products fail by fracturing when exposed to small amounts of acidic water. Polyesters are also susceptible to similar polymer degradation reactions. The problem is known as environmental stress cracking.


title: Hydrolysis

text: Hydrolysis is related to energy metabolism and storage. All living cells require a continual supply of energy for two main purposes: the biosynthesis of micro and macromolecules, and the active transport of ions and molecules across cell membranes. The energy derived from the oxidation of nutrients is not used directly but, by means of a complex and long sequence of reactions, it is channeled into a special energy-storage molecule, adenosine triphosphate (ATP). The ATP molecule contains pyrophosphate linkages (bonds formed when two phosphate units are combined) that release energy when needed. ATP can undergo hydrolysis in two ways: Firstly, the removal of terminal phosphate to form adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and inorganic phosphate, with the reaction:


title: Hydrolysis

text: Secondly, the removal of a terminal diphosphate to yield adenosine monophosphate (AMP) and pyrophosphate. The latter usually undergoes further cleavage into its two constituent phosphates. This results in biosynthesis reactions, which usually occur in chains, that can be driven in the direction of synthesis when the phosphate bonds have undergone hydrolysis.


title: Hydrolysis

text: Monosaccharides can be linked together by glycosidic bonds, which can be cleaved by hydrolysis. Two, three, several or many monosaccharides thus linked form disaccharides, trisaccharides, oligosaccharides, or polysaccharides, respectively. Enzymes that hydrolyze glycosidic bonds are called "glycoside hydrolases" or "glycosidases".


title: Hydrolysis

text: The best-known disaccharide is sucrose (table sugar). Hydrolysis of sucrose yields glucose and fructose. Invertase is a sucrase used industrially for the hydrolysis of sucrose to so-called invert sugar. Lactase is essential for digestive hydrolysis of lactose in milk; many adult humans do not produce lactase and cannot digest the lactose in milk.


title: Hydrolysis

text: The hydrolysis of polysaccharides to soluble sugars can be recognized as saccharification. Malt made from barley is used as a source of β-amylase to break down starch into the disaccharide maltose, which can be used by yeast to produce beer. Other amylase enzymes may convert starch to glucose or to oligosaccharides. Cellulose is first hydrolyzed to cellobiose by cellulase and then cellobiose is further hydrolyzed to glucose by beta-glucosidase. Ruminants such as cows are able to hydrolyze cellulose into cellobiose and then glucose because of symbiotic bacteria that produce cellulases.


title: Hydrolysis

text: Metal ions are Lewis acids, and in aqueous solution they form metal aquo complexes of the general formula . The aqua ions undergo hydrolysis, to a greater or lesser extent. The first hydrolysis step is given generically as


title: Hydrolysis

text: Thus the aqua cations behave as acids in terms of Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory. This effect is easily explained by considering the inductive effect of the positively charged metal ion, which weakens the bond of an attached water molecule, making the liberation of a proton relatively easy.


title: Hydrolysis

text: The dissociation constant, pK, for this reaction is more or less linearly related to the charge-to-size ratio of the metal ion. Ions with low charges, such as are very weak acids with almost imperceptible hydrolysis. Large divalent ions such as , , and have a pK of 6 or more and would not normally be classed as acids, but small divalent ions such as undergo extensive hydrolysis. Trivalent ions like and are weak acids whose pK is comparable to that of acetic acid. Solutions of salts such as or in water are noticeably acidic; the hydrolysis can be suppressed by adding an acid such as nitric acid, making the solution more acidic.


title: Hydrolysis

text: Hydrolysis may proceed beyond the first step, often with the formation of polynuclear species via the process of olation. Some "exotic" species such as are well characterized. Hydrolysis tends to proceed as pH rises leading, in many cases, to the precipitation of a hydroxide such as or . These substances, major constituents of bauxite, are known as laterites and are formed by leaching from rocks of most of the ions other than aluminium and iron and subsequent hydrolysis of the remaining aluminium and iron.


title: Hydrolysis

text: Acetals, imines, and enamines can be converted back into ketones by treatment with excess water under acid-catalyzed conditions: ; ; .


title: Megalopolis

text: A megalopolis () or a supercity, also called a megaregion, is a group of metropolitan areas which are perceived as a continuous urban area through common systems of transport, economy, resources, ecology, and so on. They are integrated enough that coordinating policy is valuable, although the constituent metropolises keep their individual identities. The megalopolis concept has become highly influential as it introduced a new, larger scale thinking about urban patterns and growth.


title: Megalopolis

text: The term "megalopolis", also sometimes spelled "megapolis", is described as being of Greek origin—where it was in reported use by ancient philosophers, with regard to the "world of ideas"—by Jean Gottmann, a professor of political science at the University of Paris, and member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, who in the late 1950s and early 1960s directed "A Study of Megalopolis" for The Twentieth Century Fund. Specifically, the term has earlier, specifically geographic definitions dating to 1832, when its meaning was ""a metropolis,"" that is, "a very large, heavily populated urban complex", which is noted to derive from the Greek ', meaning "great", and ', meaning "city". The "Online Etymology Dictionary" notes that the term was used "in classical times as an epithet of great cities (Athens, Syracuse, Alexandria)", that is, for the large cities of that day, and that it was the "name of a former city in Arcadia".


title: Megalopolis

text: Gottmann, in his extensive studies, applied the term megalopolis to an analysis of the urbanized northeastern seaboard of the U.S., in particular from Boston, Massachusetts to Washington, D.C. (now commonly referred to as the Northeast Corridor). He chose the term megalopolis in consultation with classicists, noting earlier usage "with quite different meaning" (besides by the ancients, by Lewis Mumford with regard to the general trend in history and geography "toward large cities"). <nowiki>[</nowiki>Mumford, in his "The Culture of Cities" (1938), describes their formation as the first stage in urban overdevelopment and social decline.] In 1994, William S. Ellis and the editors of the "National Geographic", writing about the city of Boston, asserted that Gottmann's c.1961 use of the term for the Northeast megalopolis was the first specific use of the term with the refined meaning of an amalgam of multiple urban areas into a larger area. Yoav Hagler, writing in 2009 for the America 2050 project of the Regional Plan Association (RPA) likewise, in introducing the term historically, states megalopolis as the antecedent of the RPA's preferred term for U.S. examples, which is "megaregion" Pedagogically, the term "supercity" has been offered as a synonym for these two terms.


title: Megalopolis

text: According to Syracuse University assistant professor of architecture Lydia Kallipoliti (and her students, citing Volker Welter's "Biopolis: Patrick Geddes and the City of Life"), the term megalopolis was coined by Patrick Geddes in his 1915 book, "Cities in Evolution", and that it was then used by Oswald Spengler in his 1918 book "The Decline of the West".


title: Megalopolis

text: A megalopolis and its synonym megaregion, following the work of Gottmann, refer to two or more roughly adjacent metropolitan areas that, through commonality of systems—e.g., of transport, economy, resources, and ecologies—experience a blurring of the boundaries between the population centers, such that while some degree of separation may remain, their perception as a continuous urban area is of value, e.g., "to coordinate policy at this expanded scale". Simply put, a megalopolis (or a megaregion) is a clustered network of big cities. Gottmann defined its population as 25 million, while Doxiadis defined a small megalopolis a similar cluster with a population of about 10 million. America 2050, a program of the Regional Plan Association (RPA), lists 11 megaregions in the United States and Canada.


title: Megalopolis

text: Megaregions of the United States were explored in a July 2005 report by Robert E. Lang and Dawn Dhavale of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech. A later 2007 article by Lang and Nelson uses 20 "megapolitan" areas grouped into 10 megaregions. The concept is based on the original "Megalopolis model".


title: Megalopolis

text: Modern interlinked ground transportation corridors, such as rail and highway, often aid in the development of megalopolises. Using these commuter passageways to travel throughout the megalopolis is informally called "megaloping", a term coined by Davide Gadren and Stefan Berteau.


title: Megalopolis

text: In Brazil, the term has a legal meaning, different from the English word "megaregion": mesoregions of Brazil () and microregions of Brazil (). In China, the official term corresponding to the meaning of "megalopolis" is " (), which literally means "city cluster". City cluster " is defined as "[a]n area in which cities are relatively densely distributed in a certain region". Until 2019, and the publication of National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) guidelines, there was no clear distinction between "megalopolis" and "metropolitan area" () in China.


title: Megalopolis

text: In July 2012, the Economist Intelligence Unit brought out a report that described 13 emerging megalopolises in China, highlighting the demographic and income trends that are shaping their development. Eleven Chinese megalopolises (not necessarily drawn from the preceding source), are:


title: Megalopolis

text: Japan is made up of overlapping megapolises. The Taiheiyō Belt megapolis itself includes both the Greater Tokyo Area and Keihanshin megapoles.


title: Megalopolis

text: The Blue Banana, also known as the European Megalopolis or the Liverpool-Milan axis, is a discontinuous corridor of urbanization spreading over Western and Central Europe, with a population of around 111 million.


title: Megalopolis

text: Constituent urban areas of each megalopolis are based on reckoning by a single American organization, the Regional Plan Association (RPA). The RPA definition of the Great Lakes Megalopolis includes some Canadian metropolitan areas with the United States, including some but not all major urban centres in the Windsor-Quebec City Corridor. Note that one city, Houston, is listed in two different Megalopolis regions as defined by the RPA, (the Gulf Coast and the Texas Triangle). 77% of the U.S. population lives in at least one of the megalopolises listed below.


title: Megalopolis

text: The following megaregions in Colombia are expected to have nearly 93% (55 million people) of its population by 2030, up from the current 72% . There are currently four major megaregions in Colombia.


title: Megalopolis

text: "Metropolis" is a 1927 German expressionist science-fiction drama film directed by Fritz Lang. Written by Thea von Harbou in collaboration with Lang, it stars Gustav Fröhlich, Alfred Abel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge and Brigitte Helm. Erich Pommer produced it in the Babelsberg Studios for Universum Film A.G. (Ufa). The silent film is regarded as a pioneering science-fiction movie, being among the first feature-length movies of that genre. Filming took place over 17 months in 1925–26 at a cost of over five million Reichsmarks.


title: Megalopolis

text: In the "Judge Dredd" (1977) comic book series and its spinoff series, Mega-City One is a huge fictional megalopolis-size city-state covering much of what is now the Eastern United States and some of Canada. The exact geography of the city depends on which writer and artist has done which story, but from its first appearance it has been associated with New York City's urban sprawl; originally it was presented as a future New York, which was retconned as the centre of a "Mega-City One" in the very next story. The "Architects' Journal" placed it at No. 1 in their list of "comic book cities".


title: Megalopolis

text: "Blade Runner" is a 1982 neo-noir science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, and Edward James Olmos. It is a loose adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" (1968). The film is set in a dystopian future Los Angeles of 2019, in which synthetic humans known as replicants are bio-engineered by the powerful Tyrell Corporation to work on off-world colonies. When a fugitive group of replicants led by Roy Batty (Hauer) escapes back to Earth, burnt-out cop Rick Deckard (Ford) reluctantly agrees to hunt them down.


title: Megalopolis

text: In William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy, "the Sprawl" is a colloquial name for the "Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis" (BAMA), an urban sprawl environment on a massive scale, and a fictional extension of the real Northeast megalopolis. The Sprawl is a visualization of a future where virtually the entire East Coast of the United States, from Boston to Atlanta, has melded into a single mass of urban sprawl. It has been enclosed in several geodesic domes and merged into one megacity. The city has become a separate world with its own climate, no real night/day cycle, and an artificial sky that is always grey.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: Nikita is an American action thriller drama television series that aired on The CW from September 9, 2010, to December 27, 2013, in the United States. The series is an adaptation of Luc Besson's French film "La Femme Nikita", the second such adaptation after the 1997 TV series "La Femme Nikita".


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: The series focuses on Nikita (Maggie Q), a woman who escaped from a secret government-funded organization known as "Division" and, after a three-year hiding period, is back to bring down the organization. The main cast in various seasons features Q, Lyndsy Fonseca, Shane West, Aaron Stanford, Melinda Clarke, Xander Berkeley, Noah Bean, Tiffany Hines, Ashton Holmes, Dillon Casey, and Devon Sawa.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: The series focuses on Nikita Mears, a woman who escaped from a secret U.S. government-funded organization known as Division, and after spending three years in hiding, is back to bring Division down. Division, created and supervised by an organization called Oversight, is responsible for black operations including espionage, sabotage, and assassination. Under the leadership of its first director and founding member, Percival "Percy" Rose, Division has gone rogue and performs under-the-table murder-for-hire. To protect himself, Percy has created a series of 'black boxes', hard drives containing every job Division has ever done, as leverage to prevent Oversight from removing him and/or ending Division. Percy's black boxes are hidden in secret locations around the world, under the protection of Guardians, high-ranking Division agents.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: Division fills its ranks primarily by recruiting young people with troubled backgrounds, often directly from prison. Division fakes the recruits' deaths, erases all evidence of their past lives, and molds them into efficient spies and assassins. The recruits generally do not have the freedom to leave the agency. Recruits may be "cancelled" (killed) if their progress is deemed unsatisfactory, and to this end, Division implants the recruits with tracking devices and kill chips.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: Nikita was recruited by Division when she was a deeply troubled teenager, on death row. Division rescued her, faked her death, and told her she was getting a second chance to start a new life and serve her country. Throughout her grueling training, Nikita never lost her humanity. Once she graduated from recruit to field agent, she broke Division rules by falling in love with a civilian, to whom she became engaged and planned to run away. When Division found out and assassinated Nikita's fiancé, Nikita went rogue. She makes it her mission to bring down Division, as a way to avenge her fiancé and atone for the sins she committed as a Division agent. Percy orders Michael, the Division operative who trained Nikita, to deal with her.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: On the outside, Nikita trains a young woman named Alex, who as a child was saved by Nikita during a mission that killed Alex's father years ago. Nikita has Alex become a recruit inside Division, working as a mole to gain intelligence. Throughout season one, Nikita works to disrupt Division's operations, with the support of Alex's intelligence from the inside. Nikita also encounters Gogol, a Russian security department and established enemy of Division. Nikita slowly brings other allies to her side, including Michael when he realizes the true extent of Percy's corruption as well as his own feelings for Nikita. At the end of the season, Nikita manages to foil Percy's plan to take over the CIA and gain its top-secret funding. However, she is forced to go on the run with Michael. At the same time, Nikita loses Alex when Alex discovers that Nikita killed her father on the Division mission years ago. When Alex is exposed as Nikita's mole and finds herself at the mercy of Division and Oversight, Amanda offers Alex a deal: help Division stop Nikita, and Division will help Alex bring down the man who ordered the hit on her father.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: In season two, Nikita and Michael focus and press their efforts against Oversight, seeking to destroy the group, which will also cripple Division at the same time. Division has changed, with Percy being locked up for his actions in season one, and Amanda taking control of the organization, with Oversight supervising her. Alex has set her sights on Sergei Semak, her father's right-hand man and also the one responsible for ordering his death, who has taken over Zetrov, her father's company and controller of Gogol. Nikita and Michael manage to expose and/or kill most of Oversight, with the help of Seymour Birkhoff, a former Division head technician, who left the organization after Percy was imprisoned. While trying to bring down Oversight, Nikita and Michael hunt down the remaining black boxes, finally destroying all but one. The final black box has fallen into the hands of Gogol's leader, Ari Tasarov, who is later revealed to be Amanda's lover and exposes her as a traitor. With the help of the last of the Guardians, Percy escapes his prison and manages to overthrow Amanda's control of Division, sending Ari and her into hiding, along with the last black box. Percy also manages to kill all members of Oversight and puts a plan into place to use plutonium to gain membership of an unknown group of powerful people. Having no other choice, Nikita and Michael decide to take the situation to the president, with the help of Ryan, who has been helping Nikita on her mission since season one. Alex reconciles with Nikita, after having finally brought down Semak and restored her father's company. While her allies attempt to stop Percy's most trusted man, Roan, from using the plutonium to blow up Washington, DC, Nikita and Michael infiltrate Division, managing to expose Percy of his corruption and evil deeds, ending his leadership over the organization. Percy is killed by Nikita after trying to escape, and Roan is killed by Alex before he could set off the plutonium. The vice president assigns Ryan as the new director of Division and gives Nikita the task of hunting down Amanda and the last of Division's agents who have gone rogue.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: The series borrows many characters, or at least their names, from the 1997 television series "La Femme Nikita", which was also based on the French film "La Femme Nikita". Maggie Q portrays Nikita, the protagonist and a former spy and assassin who has gone rogue and now plans to bring down Division. Q also performs her own stunts. Shane West plays Michael, a Division operative who trained Nikita. He sees Division and its recruits as a kind of family to him, the complete opposite of Amanda, portrayed by Melinda Clarke, Division's psychologist, interrogator, and a master manipulator. Seymour Birkhoff, Division's computer genius and head technician, is portrayed by Aaron Stanford. The head of Division is Percy, played by Xander Berkeley.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: In the season one finale, the audience is introduced to a Senator Madeline Pierce, played by Alberta Watson, who also played the part of Madeline in the former "La Femme Nikita" television series (Madeline was that series' counterpart to Amanda). Lyndsy Fonseca portrays Alexandra "Alex" Udinov, a former sex slave and drug addict who was arrested after a robbery and later became Division's newest recruit. She is also a mole whom Nikita is using to destroy Division from the inside. Other recruits include Jaden (Tiffany Hines) and Thom (Ashton Holmes) but their characters are later killed off by Nathan (Thad Luckinbill) and Alex respectively. Dillon Casey portrays the role of Sean Pierce, a former Navy SEAL sent to Division directly from Oversight. Noah Bean portrays Ryan Fletcher, an agent in the CIA, but later takes over Division. Some other notable recurring characters include Ari Tasarov (Peter Outerbridge), Sergei Semak (Peter J. Lucas), Roan (Rob Stewart), and Nathan Colville (Thad Luckinbill).


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: At the beginning of season one, two people break into a drug store and attempt to rob it. While stealing the drugs and trying to make a get-away, the owner challenges one of the robbers. When this robber hesitates in shooting the owner of the store, their partner doubles back to shoot him before quickly running off, leaving the remaining individual to be arrested when the police show up. Once the police arrive, they pull off the individual's mask and discover that the robber is a young female who is revealed to be Alex. As she is being brought into prison, she fights the prison guards with good strength; she does not know that Michael, a Division operative, is watching. He later processes her into Division, a covert unit of the government that has gone rogue. Division recruits young and susceptible criminals into their training program and forces them to carry out their missions under penalty of death. The higher-up members of Division are worried because Nikita has come back online, meaning that she is targeting Division from the outside. What is worse is that she has a mole inside; however, at this point in the show no one in Division is aware of it. By the end of the first episode, it is revealed that this mole is in fact Alex. Halfway through the season, it is revealed that the second robber in the drug store was Nikita and that the robbery was set up specifically to attract Division's attention, so that they would recruit Alex. The two communicate through a chat program Nikita created while still at Division called the shellbox program.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: As the series progresses, Nikita routinely sabotages missions that would have been major successes for Division and also saves the lives of recruits such as Sarah. More light is shed on the lives of the main characters through flashbacks, and it is revealed that Alex was sold into sex trafficking by a man who had been close to her oligarch father before his murder at the hands of Division.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: Eventually, Michael joins Nikita's cause after she helps him find Kasim Tariq. He tells her a story of how he had once found the perfect home for his now-deceased wife and daughter. Tariq took that dream away from him when he killed both of them with a car bomb that was intended for Michael.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: Alex is forced to kill her rival, Jaden, after Nathan (Alex's neighbor and love interest) accidentally reveals in front of her that Alex has told him of her true occupation as an assassin. Back at Division, Amanda tells Alex that Division now operates with new cochlear implants that are virtually undetectable by even the wearers, and Jaden's implant recorded Alex calling Nikita shortly after she killed Jaden. At this time, Division finds out that Alex is Nikita's mole and is thus interrogated. It is revealed that Alex's family was killed by a Division strike team and that Nikita was the agent who killed her father. This revelation turns Alex against Nikita. Michael is locked away in Division as well after attempting to help Alex escape.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: Michael escapes courtesy of Birkhoff (Division's head technician) and joins Nikita who had just escaped from the CIA headquarters. As the season ends, it is shown that Amanda has disabled Alex's killchip and wants to recruit her into Oversight (Division's leadership and funding stream). Michael and Nikita try not to worry about the future as they drive off into the oncoming storm.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: At the end of season one, Nikita and Alex's relationship had been shattered. There is tension between them and Alex has a difficult time trusting Nikita again. Meanwhile, Nikita and Michael's relationship was restored. Now that they're on their own, Nikita and Michael are on the run with a hard drive called "the black box". It contains Division's darkest secrets and conspiracies, which include 6 government agents' dirty secrets. Together, they plan to right the wrongs that Division has committed over the years, one mission at a time. The season ends with Nikita killing Percy, and taking over Division with the help of Ryan Fletcher under request of the president.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: Division is now officially under government control, under the leadership of Ryan Fletcher, tasked with hunting down rogue agents, nicknamed the "Dirty Thirty", who refused the recall order. Division discovers the mysterious group Percy was seeking to join. Amanda has gone rogue. Sean Pierce dies during a mutiny at Division. Amanda frames Nikita for the murder of the President of the United States, leaving her to clear her name while the whole world is looking for her. They also burn down Division and find another place to live, those who are still left to do the last mission: Nikita, Michael, Alex, Birkoff, Sonya and Fletcher.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: Nikita goes rogue on her own, leaving the team behind. The first episode picks up a few months down the line where Nikita is being framed for the murder of the President. It is soon discovered that Amanda and the Group have created exact human replicas of high-power government officials, dubbed the "Doubles", who are subject to the group's rule. Nikita and the team try to clear her name leaving destruction behind. Michael and Nikita's relationship has hit a rocky patch after Nikita abandons the team to protect them from involvement in the investigation of the president's murder. Alex is on a mission to save the world and also clear Nikita's name, encountering old enemies along the way.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: In the second half of the six-episode season, The Group's headquarters is destroyed, leaving the team to believe that Amanda and her co-conspirators are dead. After being abducted by the presumed-dead Amanda, Fletcher leaps out of a window as a last resort and soon after succumbs to his injuries, but not before whispering to Nikita that both Amanda and her Doubles are still very much alive. The team comes together for one last mission: to bring down Amanda and the Doubles. Nikita and Alex begin to kill off the remaining clones contrary to Michael's will.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: At their final stop on their path of destruction, Nikita and Alex obtain a list of all of the Doubles, which is sent out to the news outlets and Birkhoff's secure server. Nikita, Alex, and Birkhoff are arrested and placed in a maximum-security prison, where Amanda visits Nikita to say goodbye. After Nikita breaks free in front of Amanda, she places her in the restraints and reveals that no one was, in fact, killed on their final mission. Nikita and Alex had actually used tranquilizer bullets instead of live ammunition on the remaining heads of the Group (or "The Shop") and had faked the deaths of the others as well.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: Meanwhile. Michael and Sam release the real, original officials. Nikita explains how in every step of the way, her main goal was to get face-to-face with Amanda and kill her. However, she has changed her mind and would rather see Amanda suffer imprisonment for life and never be heard from again. She walks out as Amanda begins screaming in protest, the door closing behind her.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: We then see where the characters have ultimately headed in their new lives of freedom. Birkhoff has released Shadownet to the general public to safeguard them from the government's prying eyes and, although not seen, Birkhoff mentions that Sonya is waiting for him in London. Alex is touring the country as a spokesperson and Sam is her bodyguard/head of security. The happily married Nikita and Michael are residing on a beach in Ecuador where they can continue to work on their own small missions together, helping innocent people in need.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: The CW had long been interested in an action-adventure series centered on a strong female character. On January 27, 2010, The CW ordered a pilot episode of "Nikita". The 2010 television series is more closely tied to Luc Besson's 1990 French film "Nikita" than the 1997 television series, "La Femme Nikita". However, the series does borrow many characters, or at least character names, from the previous television series.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: During the 2010 Television Critics Association press tour in Los Angeles on July 29, 2010, executive producer Craig Silverstein said he was approached by Warner Bros. who owned the rights. Silverstein said, "My first thought was I love Nikita. My second thought was, 'it's been done.' Could it be done fresh? Could we have a take where you didn't know where this story would end?" As a result, two major changes were made, one of which was the decision to have the story take place after Nikita has escaped. Maggie Q stated, "No one's told her story after the fact. No one knows where she is going." In addition, a new character, Alex, is introduced who has an unexpected backstory. The series is a mix of a weekly missions and counter-missions, along with a story arc running through the first season that explores Nikita's relationships with Alex and Michael.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: While presenting its 2010–11 season schedule on May 21, 2010, The CW officially confirmed the pick-up of the series and announced its intention to air "Nikita" after "The Vampire Diaries" on Thursday nights. In October 2010, "Entertainment Weekly" announced that the series would receive some tweaking to attract more of a female audience, including a new character and potential love interest for Nikita. However, the network promised the core of the show would remain the same. Later that month, the show was picked up for a full season, which would total 22 episodes. The CW have admitted they took gambles this year but said they were "thrilled that [it] paid off for us".


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: On May 17, 2011 "Nikita" was renewed for a second season by The CW in the 2011–12 fall season. It was later announced that they would move the show to Friday nights at 8:00 p.m., pairing it with "Supernatural", beginning Fall 2011. The second season premiered on Friday, September 23, 2011.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: On May 9, 2013, The CW renewed the series for a shortened fourth and final season. The final season consisted of just six episodes and was produced to complete the storyline and make it more desirable for a Netflix audience.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: In February 2010, Maggie Q was cast as Nikita. Executive producer Silverstein said casting Q was a simple and quick process, because they wanted someone who was beautiful, and could fight, and who you could believe holding a gun at the same time, and she was perfect. Later that month, Shane West was cast as Michael. In March, Lyndsy Fonseca was given the role of Alex. Silverstein commented the casting of Fonseca, saying she came in at the last moment but was cast because they liked her intensity. Later that month, Tiffany Hines was cast as Jaden and Xander Berkeley was added to the cast as Percy. In October 2010, Noah Bean gained a recurring role as Ryan Fletcher, a CIA case officer and analyst.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: Casting for the second season started in July 2011 when Dillon Casey was cast as Sean Pierce, a former U.S. Navy Special Warfare Development Group (DEVGRU, formerly Seal Team Six) officer contracted to monitor Amanda's work at Division and recover the stolen black boxes. Casey was later promoted as a series regular.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: After being recurring cast members for two seasons, Noah Bean and Devon Sawa were made series regulars for the third season.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: Although the show is set in and around New Jersey, "Nikita" is primarily filmed in Canada—specifically, in Toronto and elsewhere in Ontario. Much of the show is filmed on location, but studio shooting is also used for sets such as 'Division' and the penthouse. Many landmark locations used on the show, such as the White House, are actually doubles meant to represent various places in North America. The series officially wrapped production on October 1, 2013.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds an approval rating of 85% over the series four seasons. The first seasons critics' consensus reads: "Building on Maggie Q's strong central performance, Nikita is a strong spy thriller that's sleek and action-packed (if a little heavy with backstory)." Metacritic gave it a score of 69/100 based on 30 critics reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Comparisons were made to Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse" and the ABC spy drama "Alias". Critics had praise for Maggie Q in the lead role, the look of the show, solid action sequences, the chemistry between the cast especially between the two leads Q and West, and an intriguing twist at the end, but noted that the dialogue needed some humor.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: The pilot episode drew 3.57 million viewers on its initial broadcast. The CW broadcast an encore of the pilot the following day, which drew approximately 2.6 million viewers. The finale was seen by 1.94 million viewers. The first season averaged 2.40 million viewers and a 0.9 18–49 rating in live + same day DVR viewing per episode. Season 2 averaged a 0.5 18-49 rating using Nielsen Live + Same Day DVR data.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: The following is a table for the seasonal rankings, based on average total estimated viewers per episode, of "Nikita" on The CW. "Rank" refers to how "Nikita" rated compared to the other television series that aired during prime time hours.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: In the UK, the show was the most watched show for Sky Living every week that its autumn episodes aired. When it returned from hiatus in the summer in a new Wednesday 9:00 PM slot, it finished fourth in the week. However, it was able to increase again in the following weeks.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: In the Netherlands the series premiered with solid ratings, the first episode drew an audience of 640,000 viewers. The second episode was broadcast right after the first episode and drew 757,000 viewers, it had a market share of 10.3%. With these numbers Nikita was the 4th most watched channel of the evening.


title: Nikita (TV series)

text: In France the series premiered with high ratings in its 11:20 p.m. timeslot, the first episode drew an audience of 2.4 million viewers. The show obtained an audience share of 22.6% of France's population which is an extremely high rating despite its timeslot.