downzy

They were always known for getting big bands/artists, particularly those who hadn't played together in awhile. Headlining Coachella was (and I assume still is) a huge pay day for artists. But a lot of these artists had massive catalogues or were iconic acts that had multi-decade careers.

I think they're already in trouble. Did you see the headliners for this year's Cochella? Yikes. People will still go because it's Cochella and it's almost a rite of passage for people living in Southern California. But yeah, the touring/festival industry will be in real trouble. Labels now make most of their money from their catalogues. They're not in the business of minting new superstars. Everything is so niche these days. Music seems almost persona driven these days than music. Everyone (well, not everyone, maybe just Jay-Z and Beyonce's hardcore fans) is upset that Beyonce hasn't won best album award at the Grammies. But honestly, are people paying attention to her music because it's great or because it's Beyonce at this point? I haven't heard a decent track from her in 12-14 years. That sucks. You should have said, "hey, don't ruin this song for me! Do you have any recent Beyonce?"

The topic has been viewed 1300 times, so somebody cares or finds the numbers interesting.

Didn't you know there's a rehabilitation effort under way for some truly terrible bands (Creed, Limp Bizkit, Nickelback)? We live in some strange times. The song rocks. Couldn't stop singing the chorus for days after hearing it.

LOL. Yeah, I'm terrible with song names and lyrics. Never really listen to lyrics much; never know what Axl is singing about half the time.

I could not get through this album. I appreciate she's trying to do something new, but it just didn't work for me. It got plenty of great reviews, but I think its audience is pretty niche. Yeah, I didn't think about that. We were certainly spoiled in that respect in North America. Though, I still remember paying someone in Brazil to send me the GNR Tokyo DVDs back in the early 2000s as they weren't released in North America. I do agree that some bands didn't get the attention they deserved because of the system that was in place in the 80s and 90s. There were bands like the Pixies that didn't get a ton of radio play during their prime (though alt stations are all too happy to play "Where Is My Mind" and "There Goes My Man"). But it didn't feel like a full time job like finding new music does not (at least for me).

Well, I'm jealous. I wish I could enjoy new music like you do. I watched the film Saltburn a few weeks ago and my ears perked up at the end when Sophie Ellis-Bextor's "Murder on the Dance Floor" closed out the film. I was excited to hear a "new" song that had a killer hook in the chorus. Googled it and discovered the song came out in 2002. LOL. I mostly find new music these days through watching television shows and movies. I discovered Børns's "10,000 Emerald Pools" by watching the The Fall of the House of Usher on Netflix. I just don't have the energy to sort through 100s of songs to find something that grabs my attention and has me humming the tune for the next week.

Yeah, the few artists that have caught my ear the last 10 or so years have all been in that genre, plus indie-folk. Hozier, Vampire Weekend, The Black Keys, Lord Huron, Alt-J, Nathaniel Rateliff, Fitz and the Tantrums, The Lumineers, Børns, Future Islands. There are certainly artists in this genre that have put out some decent tunes in the last 10-15 years. But other than a few albums by Vampire Weekend, Nathaniel Rateliff, and the Black Keys, there aren't that many artists where I will listen to their entire albums. Most put out one or two decent tracks, but too often songs start to blend into one another and I lose interest. You can't say the same about artists like Guns N' Roses or, say, Radiohead. Really? In the 90s you just had to turn on the radio or maybe read some reviews in a music magazine. Gatekeepers kept a lot of the bad to mediocre artists off the airwaves (though, I'm sure a few great ones got lost in the shuffle). As a result we were exposed largely to the best out there. The barrier to entry to make music is so low these days. Forget about learning music theory or even an instrument - people can now create music with a computer, a beat generator and some MIDI packs. And no one needs a record deal anymore to get distributed. I read that somewhere around 100k new songs are uploaded to Spotify every day. As you said, there's way too much music to sort through now. The other problem is on the listener's side. Music is so accessible these days; there's no real cost other than our time to listen and digest what we're hearing. Prior to the internet, access to music was a rare but valued thing. You'd buy an album/cd and listen to it for a week or month straight because you couldn't afford to buy another one right away. Music was an investment. Songs that might not have hit right away were given time. Now it's so easy to skip to the next track. Music has become more disposable but we also treat it like it's disposable.

Some of these choices are absurd. Didn't mean this post to turn into a rant but here it goes. Twisted Sister's "We're Not Going to Take It" over Van Halen's "Panama"? Not a chance. How do they give it to the Crue's "Home Sweet Home" over Bryan Adams' "Summer of '69"? Adams song dominated the charts in a way that was no way comparable to HSH. It still gets way more radio airplay than anything Motley Crue has made. Not saying that HSH isn't a good song. But Adam's song is iconic (even if it's overplayed). And while Pour Some Sugar On Me is an anthem, I have a hard time understanding how they chose it over Sweet Child O' Mine. GNR's track went #1 on the Billboard Hot 100; PSSOM topped out at #2. SCOM has over 1.7 billion streams on Spotify; Def Leppard's track has just over 400 million. SCOM has one of the most iconic intros of all time, not to mention its solo. And while Axl's lyrics may not win any Pulitzers with this track, PSSOM has what I think is some of the worst lyrics in all of rock music ("Listen, red light, yellow light, green-a-light go, Crazy little woman in a one man show," "Do you take sugar, one lump or two."). This isn't even a contest (and SCOM isn't even in my top five favourite Guns tracks). Personally, for 1994 I'd take either "Black Hole Sun" or "Interstate Love Song" over Green Day's "When I Come Around." Black Hole Sun is incredibly unique in terms of its chord arrangements (name me another hit song that starts with a sus chord). I think "Interstate Love Song" is one of the best songs written of all time. I get it's arbitrary, but how they chose White Zombie's "More Human Than Human" over Alanis's "You Oughtta Know" is crazy. The Zombie's track has a cool guitar riff, but that's all that song really is. There's not much of a melody. You Oughtta Know was a monster with a killer chorus that dominated airwaves for months, if not an entire year. And while I really like Hole's "Celebrity Skin," there's no way it deserves more credit than Foo Fighter's "My Hero." Not a huge Foo Fighter's fan, but that's one of the better written songs of the decade. It's hard to take a list seriously that doesn't include Radiohead's "Paranoid Android" for 1997 (wasn't even included as a runner-up). It is night and day better than any of the songs listed. Crazy. And I agree that it's hard to accept Creed as having released the best rock song for any year, the fact that it won for 1999 just goes to show how bad rock music was during this period. I guess you could argue that RHCP's Californication album was decent, but that's not saying much. The turn of the century was a dark time for rock music. And while I personally enjoy Oh My God, I think we need to be honest that outside of the hardcore GNR fanbase, no one else did. 2002 was a much better year, but they went with the weakest of the included tracks. "Cochise" by Audioslave is fantastic. Same with "No One Knows" by Queens of the Stone Age. I really don't need or want to hear "All My Life" by Foo Fighters ever again. "Get Free" by the Vines should have been included for 2002 as well. Killer track. The last rock song to still have cultural relevance is Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes. It still gets played everywhere (movies, tv shows, literally every sporting event). But whoever wrote this list gives the nod to "Bring Me Back to Life" by Evanescence. Sure Jan. [rant] It's amazing how irrelevant rock becomes after 2005/2006. Paramore, Five Finger Death Punch, Halestorm, and a bunch of bands I had never heard of and likely few others outside of diehard rock fans have. And no offence to Ghost fans, but if Dance Macabre was the best rock song in 2018, that's not saying much for rock music. It's not a bad track, but it sounds like a b-side from the early 80s (like Loverboy). This is a big reason why I generally don't listen to new music anymore. At best, it's mediocre. There's a reason why 70 percent of streams are from back catalogues. I've come to the conclusion that most great songs have either been written or it's just too hard to mine for more gems at this point. Rock music use to have catchy melodies that were sung over interesting and diverse chord progressions or time signatures. Artists tried to incorporate their influences but to do their own thing, make their own sound. Now they all sound the same. It's just strumming 1/8th notes in drop d tuning with little concern for giving audiences a hook. It has grown so stale that I can't be bothered to listen to hundreds of mediocre songs every month to find the one or two that do anything for me. Once in awhile I'll come across an artist or song that I missed that catches my attention (Børns's "10,000 Emerald Pools" is a good example, and it came out nine years ago), but it's few and far between. It feels like most artists today are less concerned about writing catchy melodies with hooks. They're too wrapped up in a sound as a crutch for their inability to write a decent song. [/rant]

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New trailer up... Looks really good.

Yeah, maybe it was a station to station decision. Even as a Guns fan, listening to the extended intro was a chore. Maybe the DJs for your station really enjoyed the extra minute for their washroom break.

I'm fairly certain that version was only played once by most stations. My local stations played the longer intro as part of its promotion, but shortly there after played the shorter version. So not sure if that really made a difference. It's not a great lead off track. The guitar riff sounds like it could replace the intro to the show 90210. The chorus is just kind of meh to me. It's not a bad song. But not the right song to reintroduce a band that has been completely upended. Guns needed to hit it out of the park. Better would have been a much better choice. I don't think it would have changed the overall perception. But from personal experience, the only reason why most of my friends gave it a chance is because I made them listen to songs like Better and TWAT.

CD certainly would have done better if Slash was on it, but it would still have needed the right launch. Chinese Democracy serving as the first single (with no video) - with or without Slash - was always going to be an underwhelming opening salvo. This I Love and Better are in the top 25 listened to songs of all time; not bad for two song that got next to no promotion. They have been listened to more than You're Crazy, Double Talking Jive, Coma, Dead Horse, The Garden, Locomotive, and other songs that are held in high regard by GNR fans. Axl was already handicapping himself by calling the band Guns N' Roses without Slash. But I think people were still curious what he had been working on all those years. Re-introducing the band with the title track killed all the interest in new music. Personally, I know when I band I generally like releases a new album with a bad first single it kills a lot of enthusiasm I have. I've got to imagine that most people felt that way the first (and likely only) time they heard Chinese Democracy.

For me, the melody is lacking. I like GNR songs mostly because of Axl’s melodies/hooks. A chorus that is just yelling “Such Fun!” over and over again doesn’t do much for me.

I loved SIDHY. Axl's vocals really shine on that one. For me, Down On The Farm is the best track from Spaghetti. Never understood the love that Ain't It Fun got. Good vocal and guitar performances, but the never liked the song itself.

In that respect, they'll at least be like every other Star Wars film.

I watched the prequels again over the Christmas holidays as it had been several decades since I had seen them. Curious if they were as bad as I remembered them. Tried my best to keep an open mind and there were aspects of them that I did enjoy. But as a whole, they're really badly made. In almost every respect. The directing and editing makes little to no sense. There's a scene in PM where a yellow fighter jet flies out of a Naboo hanger bay. It gets shot down by a trade federation ship. And for whatever reason, the editor decides that we need to stay on this jet for an extra five seconds to watch it fall to the valley below and crash. It makes zero sense why you'd include a shot like this. There are many other examples but that's one that stuck out for me. I'll give Phantom Menace credit for at least shooting some scenes on location. Once we get to AotC, it's just one huge green screen cluster fuck. And had the technology been there, maybe it could have worked. But it's really hard to get passed the visuals. I had to laugh at some of the CGI in Phantom Menace, particularly the shots of the robot army assembling outside of the Naboo capitol. It looked like it was rendered on a 486-based computer. Other than scoring, the prequels fail in almost every aspect of filmmaking (directing, editing, special effects, narrative, dialogue, acting). I could write an essay on all the issues I had with these films so I'll try to keep it short: The acting was far more of a mixed bag than I remember. Jake Lloyd wasn't as bad as I thought when he wasn't on his own. But when he had to carry a scene, it was hard not to cringe with every line he gave. And I couldn't get past Natalie Portman's long island accent. She wasn't given much, but even with the few lines thrown her way it was hard to take her seriously. Ewan McGregor and Ian McDiarmid gave great performances; Liam Neelson passable. But on the whole, the acting was tough to watch. AotC is border-line unwatchable. Not a single element of film making was done well in this film. The one thing it had going for it was the explanation for how the clone army came to being. Hayden Christensen was awful; just awful. There is little reason to believe that Padme would have any interest in a guy who whines throughout the entire film and gives her nothing but creepy looks. The final battle scene is a mess and makes little to no sense if you sit and think about it for more than a minute. There's so much of this film that I had forgotten about and for good reason. There is definitely a huge improvement in special effects by the time we get to RotS. It does look remarkably better than AotC and in some respects to PM. But there's little else about RotS that's in anyway defensible. There's so much wrong with how Lucas handles Anakin's transformation. There was such a better story to be told than the one we got. This is the biggest issue I have with the entire prequels. How badly Lucas botches Anakin's journey to Darth Vader. And to reinforce this point, here's an alternative: Instead of Padme dying because she's sad and Anakin trusting the word of a Sith because of his own insecurities, we get a story where Anakin grows weary of the Jedi order through Episode II because of valid issues and complaints. Why did they allow his mother to stay in bondage? Why was he prevented from saving his mother? They don't really touch on these issues. It seemed crazy to me that in PM Qui-Gon has no issue ripping a son away from his mother and leaving the mother in bondage. Why does the rigidity of the Jedi order prevent Jedis from enacting real change? At best these issues are treated tangentially. But had they been given more focus it would have provided far better context and motivation for why Anakin sours on the Jedis (versus his almost immediate flip from jedi to sith). It would have been far more compelling had Padme delivered her children before her death. Maybe have Luke separated from Padme and Leia once he reaches the age of one or two to help the continuity issue raised in RotJ. Maybe the trade federation gains the upper hand, forcing Padme and Leia to flee. Due to her political stature, Padme was given Jedi protection (say, Kenobi) and that protection failed and as a result, Padme dies. Anakin blames the Jedi and their ineffectiveness for her death (and the belief his children died too) and turns to Palpatine as means for revenge (which supports the film's title) against an organization that ultimately failed him and his family. There is no emotional heart/weight to the current story. There's no rhyme or believable reason for why Anakin would turn to the dark side out of some vague promise by Palpatine to teach him how to bring people back from the dead (which he was never taught but somehow continues to serve Palpatine for reasons). I think people like RotS the most of the prequels because they finally get to see Anakin become Vader. And the fact the visuals weren't horrendous like they were in AotC. Plus we finally get to see Vader. But it's such an unbalanced film mostly because the entire prequel saga is poorly paced. Vader's transformation is shoe-horned at the very end of the final film, as if Lucas checked the run time of the film and realized he had to wrap it up sooner than he had planned. There was an opportunity to tell such a better story that would have made the audience sympathize with Anakin and maybe understand his decisions. He could have been a noble and interesting character instead of the whiny, insecure version that we got. It's hard to square the Anakin we see in the prequels with Kenobi's description of him in A New Hope, where he tells Luke that he was one of the best men he ever knew. We don't really see that Anakin. We see a guy who constantly undermines Obi-Won and then whines about him to Padme. Anyway, just a few thoughts after having watched the prequels recently. It really reinforces my belief that a complete reboot of the first six films (and eventually the ST) would greatly improve the overall saga. There's so much potential for a great story that covers the fall and then rise of the Skywalker legacy. For me, it's hard to hold the SW series to the same level that pop culture has lifted it. There's more failure than success. P.S. I had to laugh at the end of PM, where Padme looks over at Anakin and gives him this strange look where she kind of bites her lip. It gave me this notion that Padme was thinking, "I'm going to fuck that kid some day." Really weird way to end the film considering the age difference between the two actors.

I stopped caring about how it was received years ago. It was never going to return the band to what it once was in the late 80s and early 90s. I feel bad for Axl that it didn't roll out how he might have wanted (though, some of that is on him for doing next to nothing to promote it himself). But speaking selfishly, its success really didn't affect my enjoyment of the music one way or another. The irony of saying this in a thread like this one (in which I point out the monumental popularity of some of GNR's songs) is not lost on me. It's nice to have the things we like validated by a wider audience. But whether one person likes TWAT or 10 million do, I'm still going to love that song. Maybe I'm kidding myself, but I'd like to think that the popularity of something doesn't affect my enjoyment of it.

Metallica's view count for its top five videos: Nothing Else Matters - 1.3 billion Enter Sandman - 688 million One - 309 million The Unforgiven - 137 million Whiskey In The Jar - 128 million GNR's top six videos: November Rain - 2.1 billion Sweet Child O' Mine - 1.6 billion Paradise City - 800 million Patience - 783 million Don't Cry - 770 million Welcome to the Jungle - 583 million And in case you're wondering, most of the videos were uploaded around the same time (11 to 14 years ago).

Agreed. As much as this video doesn't work for me, it's still better that they're trying and putting stuff out there. It's not as though they never got something wrong during the classic era either. Artists are allowed to fail to their fanbase from time to time. Otherwise, there's little chance they'll ever succeed.

I see GNR's publicist has been working hard: "The video for “The General” intercuts 20 live vignettes with an A.I.-animated psychedelic visual trip. Between the concert footage, it dives into the subconscious of a young boy who stares down the monsters of dark childhood memories, blurring worlds in the process. The result is unlike anything the band has done before and continues a longstanding historic tradition of bold visuals from Guns N’ Roses. To bring this vision to life, Guns N’ Roses collaborated with Dan Potter—Creative Director of London-based creative studio Creative Works. This was a collaboration between real designers and artificial designers, and the inspiration came from within the band."

Yes, but you could argue that those were all done with some artistic integrity. They weren't changing trends so much as doing what they wanted because that's what felt right. And when they did a lot of that stuff, it also garnered them a lot of fans because a lot of people connected to the material and their efforts. Can the same be said about incorporating stale AI visuals that have been overdone by many others? Is it a good sign when the creative team publicly announces that they were going one direction until the band management intervened? To each their own. But this video feels less like pushing boundaries and more about taking the easiest path forward while also following trends. True. Ultimately the only thing that matters is whether the band is happy and proud of their work. They're really only responsible to themselves with respect to achieving whatever feels right to them from a creative perspective. But if their sense of being creative involves using trendy visuals that feel lazy to anyone familiar with what's going on in this medium, then it's also not wrong for myself and others to state why we feel this way. I've always felt an artist's first (and really only) obligation is to themselves. But there's no obligation for anyone else to like it. Releasing any piece of art out there involves the risk of criticism or rejection. And I think that's what we're seeing with this video for most people who watch it. It just doesn't make sense to them for many of the reasons stated. Like I said, I don't hate it. There are elements that I like. Overall, it just doesn't work for me due to the AI visuals, which are a bit cringy at this point.

Agreed. Some effort was made here. But is that baseline now? Fairly certain most of us love Guns N' Roses because they put out great work. I guess we should give points for them trying, but how many? As fans, we're in this weird place where because the band didn't do much (at least, from our vantage point), it's assumed to be better than nothing when something is offered. But does that mean fans can't criticize if the work doesn't measure up to what fans want and expect from their favourite band? I'm all for encouragement and giving credit where it's due. If the band is happy with this video, then great. Ultimately their biggest priority should be pleasing themselves. But that doesn't mean their fans should like it.

If there's any value to come out of this video, it hopefully serves as a warning to other artists not to rely on A.I. to make music videos (unless the technology improves dramatically).