Zeppelin

16 hours ago, Skamos66 said:

Axl made a comment before The General at Hell & Heaven "I'd like to tell you why it is a new song, but, whatever."

I don't know of course, but I'd like to think Axl was going to introduce it as "This is a new song, "The General", which was going to be on the follow-up record to Chinese, you'll hear the rest of the album next year"
But I feel like Fernando or some management told him to not announce it. 
No facts on that, just my opinion.

New album imminent.

Sometime in the early 90s. I remember my cousin would babysit me and he had a GNR poster on his wall. Always blasted them on the stereo (mostly AFD). He even looked like Axl, but had blond hair.

I love long shows and I also love shorter shows. Depends on who’s playing. GNR has a long list of songs people would want to hear, which is crazy given how small their discography is. Really goes to show how those albums are mammoths.

It’s also easier to be more in favour of longer shows now that they are playing on time.

1 hour ago, Cstephenson88 said:

I am probably overthinking this one but, what if the mix of the General is ugly and rough intentionally in order to reflect the ugly nature of the subject matter? 

Nah. I really doubt that after all these years of tinkering with these songs and being called a perfectionist, Axl just decided to purposefully make it sound like asscheeks.

Nah, don't be silly. If releasing My World and breaking up in the 90s didn't destroy their reputation, then The General sure wouldn't. As someone said, they're pretty indestructible at this point. As long as they don't put out a 15-track album of My World remixes, I think they're good to go.

6 hours ago, RONIN said:

Just retire I think. Axl has nothing left to say creatively and frankly hasn't since 1994.  The more he goes on, the more the legend of his genius just erodes. All the myths and assumptions we had about the Chinese Democracy era are slowly imploding one at a time. Many of us thought the CD era was a fertile creative period, that Axl went on a mad tear of writing and recording 3.5 albums worth of material that he, for reasons of artistic integrity and insanity, never bothered to promote or release outside of a single album that was forced out of his hands. But it seems to be getting clearer that maybe most of the material that wasn't released and "saved" for CD 2 just plain sucked and was rightfully dumped by Geffen. That would also line up with the rumors of them thinking the earlier versions of the Chinese Democracy material were also weak - this would explain the armada of CD producers needed to inject some life into this project. 3.5 albums in retrospect was more like 1.5 albums at best.

I feel bad for the people who wanted CD 2 and have been waiting years for it. Imagine waiting for a decade thinking he has "Big Guns" and getting a trilogy of turds like Absurd, Hard School, and Perhaps. The singles give the appearance at the very least that Rose has nothing, just running on fumes since '94 - the village leaks were shockingly poor and I was in disbelief that a talent like Axl could have been so uninspired to create material like that. Atlas is an embarrassment. It all felt like a joke. Like this GnR project was some hobby he'd pick up a few times a year when he was bored. It seems to me like Interscope/Geffen are the biggest bag holders of all time in the music business after trusting Axl. 13 million for CD.  Not to mention million dollar bonuses for delivering work on time (he never did). Imagine paying 13 million for new songs from GnR on par with AFD/Illusions and getting back stuff many years later like Riad, IRS, Atlas, Hard School, etc. Axl punked them. What a colossal waste of money, talent, and time. Forget a trilogy, as Bob Ezrin said, he didn't even have a single album worth of good songs - if I'm being generous, maybe half an album's worth of top shelf material. This is what you broke up the old band for?? Isn't "The General" named after the chinese takeout he had - General Tso's chicken? Am I totally off or was that the rumor on here? Wasn't there a Weird Science episode back in the day where the characters become rockstars and name their next single "Chopsticks" after looking at their Chinese takeout because they didn't give a rat's ass anymore - about their fans or the band? I'm not making that up, that's a real episode.

Why couldn't he just put out a butt rock album with Slash in '96 if he wasn't going to do anything with all those alt-rock guys and members of NiN in his band? He poached a bunch of guys from Trent's band just so he could be like NiN and then didn't do shit with it. Someone in "The General" thread said (and I'm paraphrasing) that it seems like Rose just spent a few hundred hours pro-tooling these CD tracks with vocals back in 2001/2002 and that's it - he just added layers, cheesy effects, a school bell on hard school, a random choir on twat, etc - no new lyrics, vocals, etc ... aside from a couple touch-ups in 2007 and early '08. And then nothing again. Basically, a lot of this stuff sounds unfinished because...it probably is. He had no idea what he was doing and Interscope was doling out millions for this. Somewhere in this mess was Yoda advising him about psychic energies and Beta/Doug Goldstein telling him about how great this new band was working out and that everything he was doing was awesome.

I'd lay decent odds that nearly everything they still have left in the vault as far as new music is probably just hundreds of hours of instrumental material. Rose's work ethic speaks for itself,  I cannot imagine much completed work with vocals still unreleased. He has had 25 years (since 1998) to finish this stuff. Are there even 20 finished CD songs? I would be shocked if there were. I think it would have been cool for Axl to just put out a solo album of his best experimental tracks - especially after hearing The General. Regardless of whether they were good or not, it would have been different enough to garner some interest and he wouldn't have had the weight of GnR's legacy to deal with. That would have been a fine way to end the Axl Rose story in the mid to late 90's. But he just hid behind the GnR name - endlessly auditioning all these dudes from bands he admired and selling them some fantasy trilogy of "experimental" albums. Clearly at some point these people stopped buying this. Each new iteration of the band was a downgrade from the previous one. By the end, the only guitarist he could attract to his band to put the finishing touches on his "big guns" was DJ Ashba.

As for this current version of GnR that exists now, all they really have of value to fans is the archival material. If they had actual releasable stuff from the mid-90's, you might have something. That mid 90's stuff prior to the breakup has real sentimental value to the long suffering fans of this band. But Axl likely never completed any vocals as per usual - so again, you have nothing. They have pro-recorded stuff from 88-93 that would make for great live albums/show releases. How about new dolby mixes of the Illusion material. Maybe redo Illusions how Slash wanted them - a "naked" mix. How about documentaries with archival footage from the AFD and Illusions tours? They don't even have to do anything new! But all of this is doomed with the circus clowns they have managing the band. So how about new material you say? Well... Axl can't sing all that well these days - and their writing talent is a major question mark - it's a real question whether they can even put together one decent track on the level of Shotgun Blues at this point. So maybe retiring without tarnishing the legacy further would be the best way to maintain their reputation rather than turning into a cheesy legacy act like KISS. Let people continue to believe the myth that GnR broke up in their prime...that if the AFD 5 were reunited or even if just Slash and Axl are together again, mana from heaven will drop.

Damn. I thought I was hard on the band.

5 minutes ago, GnR Chris said:

I got my Perhaps vinyl in the mail today. It isn’t pixelated like some of the ones others received earlier. Mine says made in Czech Republic, for whatever that’s worth. I promptly stored it in my AFD Locked N’ Loaded box and will probably never look at it again. I don’t mean anything negative by that. I just don’t have a record player, but I like to collect GNR physical media. Especially when they finally, ACTUALLY, give us new songs.

The Czechs came through.

Just move forward, write 9-10 songs, and put out something worthwhile. It doesn't have to me this long, bloated album. Just hammer out something authentic and hang your hat on it.

3 minutes ago, Lies They Tell said:

Well at least that El Guapo guy has been presenting his opinions as the truth and claimed that people who like The General are forcing themselves to like it. Maybe there's others who claim similar things? I don't know. I don't normally engage with people like that, but I don't mind if others do. Not sure why you were triggered by DefNr's post. He wasn't saying that you should like the song or anything like that. I think those Spotify statistics are very interesting in themselves. Who would have guessed that This I love has more daily streams than Estranged. That's pretty fascinating to me.

Yes, I already know that. I already know no one said I should like the song. My original response was to those saying that if you don't like the song, and don't expect to like GNR's recent output, then they should go listen to other artists. A response so blatantly obvious, it didn't even need to be uttered to begin with. Everyone knows people can go and listen to other music. Doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.

Honestly, if someone is engaging with people presenting their opinions as facts, then either they're inviting that kind of confrontation on themselves, or they just like to engage with trolls. At that point, that's their problem. Surely, anyone at this point should know that someone saying the song is factually bad wouldn't change their opinion based on Spotify streaming numbers. But hey, if they want to engage in that kind of pointless discourse, then be my guest. It's a losing battle.

23 minutes ago, Lies They Tell said:

Has anyone actually said that you should like these songs? Has anyone said that your opinions are not valid?

I could be wrong but I thought that DeNfr:s post was a response to people who act like these songs are factually bad. Nobody cares whether or not you like these songs. But if you act like it's a fact that these songs are bad, that's another issue.

I've seen plenty of people arguing that opinions are presented as facts, and then I look back, and they're just opinions.

If someone says a song is factually bad, then let them think that. What's the point in even engaging with those people to begin with? What do you gain by trying to argue with someone who has already made that kind of claim?

19 minutes ago, Spuffy78 said:

Man it's like 06 all over again we've got leaks and people either enjoy it or hate it. 

I enjoy Monsters and hope it gets a release, even though I'm assuming the production will be shite again. Perhaps was the sweet spot, where it wasn't incredible sounding, but it also wasn't mind-numbingly awful engineering-wise either. More of that would be good enough for me at this point.

12 hours ago, DeNfr said:

talking about surprises, fun facts about the last singles "everyone hates" : 

Spotify Top Guns N' Roses Songs

38 - Hard Skool with 18,468,653 streaming (Don't Damn Me is 37 / Locomotive is 39)
72 - ABSUЯD with 7,255,993 streaming (71 Paradise City (Vegas 92) / 73 Catcher In The Rye)
80 - Perhaps with 6,090,787 streaming (79 Estranged live / 81 I.R.S)

The General isn't listed yet 

not so bad for "shitty" songs 

Streaming numbers. That’ll show everyone that their opinions are wrong lol.

So, essentially, anyone who doesn’t like the song should look at these numbers and know that the songs are actually good? That they just don’t “get it” yet?

Some of you try too hard. Some people just dislike the songs. Not the end of the world like some seem to feel here.

3 minutes ago, DeNfr said:

 

but that wasn't the case there, like he said himself, he no longer hopes anything from the band at this point.

you really like the word "pathetic", and now I know why.

 

 

It doesn’t make any difference. They listened to the song. I don’t expect great songs from the band and yet, I still would love for them to surprise me. They listened to it for a reason. Some of you honestly think people wait around and listen to four songs in 15 years just to purposely hate on them automatically? Come on. People want a good surprise from this band.

Just now, DeNfr said:

you still missing the point, try again. 

and I'm not talking about the insults. be careful. 

What’s the difference if they don’t like songs after 20 years or not? People can still hope for good songs and not like them.

Yes, please act tough. That’s not pathetic either.

Just now, DeNfr said:

 

it's not a response to people not liking "a song", but to people who don't like *any* song a band is producing since 20 years. so that says nothing about me in fact, and your comment is irrelevant.

and try to avoid personal insults towards me, I don't have much tolerance for them. 

They can like or dislike anything they want. Your comments are still pathetic.

I’m sorry, but if your response to people not liking the song is “well, listen to/find other artists” then you should stop posting.

If you truly think people are clinging onto The General as their only source of music, then that says more about you and it’s ridiculously pathetic.

18 minutes ago, StrangerInThisTown said:

A positive reaction to The General (by a girl listener, no less)

 

Honestly what I can say for me now, this song is so far out musically and thematically, it's really no surprise it doesn't appeal to a large part of GNRs fanbase. The section of the fanbase that appreciates a deep cut dark song like Coma must already be like only half of them, and this song is even a step darker than that. It would definitely not get the flack like it is currently getting exposed as a standalone song, if it was where it should belong and have been released and placed, track 7-8 of 10 on an album, surrounded by more accessible tracks.

I think it makes sense to say you'd listen to it for the same reason you'd go see a horror film. It's not exactly a "fun" time, yet we do it to feel certain emotions, because we just want to. This is Axl's pain as a child set to music, it is supposed to sound somewhat ugly, and that's where a lot of people check out.

I don't know. Coma, to me, is both fun and dark. It's a behemoth of a song that feels like a roller coaster set to music. It takes you everywhere and it's almost dizzying how much is going on with that song. It also has good production, insanely good leads, great vocals, etc.

The General is really none of that. It's dark in subject matter, but it doesn't take you anywhere musically, the production is cheeks, the leads are buried to the point where you need a detective to find them, and it's repetitive. I think The General is just dull. It has some interesting ideas, that's for sure. But none of them are executed particularly well.

I see where you're coming from with this, but I don't think it's that black-and-white.

Not a new one, no.

I'm sure Axl will release the unedited 8-minute version of Rock the Rock next year, though.

6 minutes ago, Miden34 said:

What do i got to lose by Bach is hot stock rock garbage

EXACTLY the reason im happy with the general and the monsters leak. they are unique. 

What’s unique about The General? The fact that it’s moody and has vocal effects? It’s really not that unique. And Axl has done moody stuff before anyway.

7 hours ago, Jakey Styley said:

I fucking hate Slash’s wahwahwah fill in the beginning of each verse 

Same here. The rest of the song is whatever. But that wah lick is so lazy and uninspired to the point where it’s grating on my ears.

12 minutes ago, DarkLotus1111 said:

"Make Me Bad" by Korn reminded me of it.  Haha well the entire Issues album reminded me of "The General". 

The General wishes it had production/mixing like Issues.

3 minutes ago, allwaystired said:

The CD release is going to be a laugh. Maybe they'll manage to forget to put a hole in the middle of the disc? 

"Put a hole in your own F'N DISC. GNFNRs!!"

Yeah, that artwork has to be intentional. Doesn't it? I don't even know anymore. I'm hoping it is intentional, because that's a pretty gigantic blunder if it isn't. Mind you, GNR is full of blunders, so whatever.

1 hour ago, Dacroix said:

When I listen to "Absurd", "Hard Skool" and "The General", all I think about is what a great album "Chinese Democracy" is. Maybe it's Axl's master plan to get us to value CD...who knows?

Seriously, the mystique of Guns N' Roses is over. There is nothing. There is no master plan, there is no masterpiece, there is no Axl's Vault, there is nothing. It's all a big farce that we ourselves helped maintain all these years by posting on a forum.

I agree. There was always that mystique that they were sitting on gold, but this stuff is not it. Not for me, at least. I still think the leaks are neat and show the energy of what was recorded at the time, but these glued-together songs are beyond disappointing. They are shells of what they once were. If GNR wanted to really re-work these and suck all the life and soul out of them with this new lineup, well, they succeeded.

Some will say we were never meant to hear the leaks and blah blah. But, they're there. In reality, they sound like products of their time, and they're all the better for it. These new Frankenstein songs, with parts thrown in and mashed up, with newer (and much shittier!) production values? They're the epitome of deflating.

Maybe they'll release Monsters sometime next September and we can have close to half a new album by 2025.