Vincent Vega

the 2-3 interlocking guitar tracks on AFD is what defined GNR's sound

I'm not talking about interlocking guitar riffs.

I'm talking about the sort of epic "guitar army" effect that Jimmy Page did in Zeppelin on a song like Achilles Last Stand.

Like imagine just one basic Izzy guitar track, with like, a dozen different Slash overdubs all feeding each other.

Who better?

"Yo, yo, shoot guns and kill fools, haha! Fuck whitey, git da drug money and slap da hos"--Every single rap album in history summed up.

Translation: I have a small penis and black males intimidate me.

No, actually, I just despise rap music with only 3 exceptions. Black males don't intimidate me. But I must admit, I do worry that a bomb'll go off when I see your kin on the streets around here.

Translation: Yes.

Len's not a black in this version of his biography (formally black boxer from the hardscrabble streets of Brooklyn, now a no flight lister from somethingStan). I'm not intimidated by black fellas, they're all pretty chill, they don't tend to blow up shit when things don't go their way.

"Yo, yo, shoot guns and kill fools, haha! Fuck whitey, git da drug money and slap da hos"--Every single rap album in history summed up.

Translation: I have a small penis and black males intimidate me.

No, actually, I just despise rap music with only 3 exceptions. Black males don't intimidate me. But I must admit, I do worry that a bomb'll go off when I see your kin on the streets around here.

"Yo, yo, shoot guns and kill fools, haha! Fuck whitey, git da drug money and slap da hos"--Every single rap album in history summed up.

And people complain about MY threads....?

I mean in what world did Axl/GN'R/the record label think songs like "The Garden", "Garden of Eden", "Estranged", "Yesterdays" and "Dead Horse"were single material? Yesterdays of those is the only single I can get, looking for a cross over sort of hit....But what of the others?

I'd think it would've made much more sense to have released songs like "Dust N' Bones", "Bad Obsession" "Right Next Door to Hell", "Don't Damn Me", "Pretty Tied Up", "Bad Apples" as singles. How could anyone have envisioned Estranged as a single?

So... you're calling Slash a liar?

I'm saying Slash might not remember so well. Not that he's totally lying but...He could misremember things or just be exaggerating. Like "My versions of the UYIs were so much better man, they were rocking...I wish I could show you but coincidentally I lost the tapes". You know?

The main difference I would venture to guess between any 'raw' UYIs and the finished product would be: The raw versions would lack vocals, and vocal overdubs and things like Axl's spoken word parts or the sound effects like the bubble sounds in Garden of Eden. They wouldn't lack Dizzy Reed or synthesizers. From all I've read, the instrumental tracks were well done by the time Axl got around to the vocals and being a perfectionist.

We have demo versions of instrumentals of several songs from late 1990 and they're pretty much the same as the final product except for no Axl vocals or sound effects. The only 'raw' versions of UYI songs (as in, sans piano or synth) there are are the demos from before Adler was fired, and The Mates Rehearsal from '89 and we've heard them already--Don't Cry, Civil War, Back Off Bitch, The Garden, Locomotive (ft. Adler), Don't Damn Me (ft. Adler), Garden of Eden (ft. Adler) and some others.

I don't think this "raw stripped down UYI" actually exists. I think it's BS. Axl said as early as April '90 that Dizzy had already added keyboard parts to songs that they hadn't even considered putting keyboards on and this was just rehearsals....Real recording didn't take place until Matt was in the band (Summer/early fall 1990) and Dizzy was already there.

What's the best Aerosmith album in your POV?

So basically some of us young turks are seeing something on the horizon that could involve rock, but also involve modern music and perhaps revitalize both into something brand new? Interesting.....

It also works well from a business perspective.

If you're a band and you write say, 20-30 songs of varying quality,

you can juice the audience slowly...7 or 8 songs per album, say, a year between records, you have 4-5 records right there across a four year span.

Release singles digitally (ala the way Bumblefoot went about it) every few months to keep interest flowing--Part I of the single would be a non-album single, part 2 a taste of the next album. Or a single in a similar musical vein as the next record, like, not an album single, but a single in a similar musical style to the next album and gauge the public reaction to it.

You both keep your creativity pumping for longer, artistically, get a better glimpse into what the fans want instead of throwing all this music at them all at once, and also can juice them for a longer period, keep them interested.

Fuck that, i want as much as i can get for my money.

1) Make albums shorter, higher quality.

2) Make album prices cheaper in turn

3) ????

4) Profit!

I think Rock will recover when we have a new style that mixes up what is popular now in music (general music) with like, the old country/rockabilly sort of roots of rock, that soulful, yet simple sexy sort of sound...No ten minute epics or whatever just simple edgy blues meets modern tinged energy.

dance orientated electronic pop with hip hop beats and vocals over blues guitar? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiight

Stranger things have happened. If done right maybe it could work.

40-45 minutes is plenty, and fits on a single LP. That's my preference.

If the songs are 3-4 minutes then that be a 10-12 song LP.

I also think rock songs should be shorter. You have today ROCK songs, not epics or anything, that are like 5 or 6 minutes long.

If a song is good enough, it'll say what it has to say in three minutes or less. Yet another way rock could be revitalized. Shorter, simpler songs to the point.

I think it depends on how much the artist had to say. Artistically, you can look at it sort of like you had to eat a certain amount of food cause you were really hungry, or another time you had to eat less cause you only needed that amount to be full.

It's not really about meeting a specific number of songs. It's about creating a piece of art that will make the songs work together as a whole.

No fillers, just what the artist felt was needed to be on the album. Just like a specific part of a song had to be there to make the song work.

I just think if say you give an audience a short album of 7 rocking songs (while you've written say 20-30), not only will it leave the audience hungry for more and whet their appetite, but it'd also give you a longer career. I mean imagine if say Led Zeppelin's albums had each been 12-16 songs, they'd have blowed their load a lot quicker and the quality would've went faster.

I agree with you on your other points. But I think working in the mindset of just making a 7 or 8 album set sort of puts you in the headspace to make those 7 or 8 numbers count. You know?

I see your point, but what if say the band just happened to write 12 rocking songs, instead of 7? And those 12 songs are just as good and don't fall in quality compared to those 7 songs?

All im saying is that if you listen to what the band created, as an album and it only contains 7 songs or it's a double album with no fillers that you just feel every song had to be there, then the numbers of songs isn't really relevant imo.

The artist should be in the mindset to release what he feels will be a complete work, regardless of the amount of music he managed to come up with. Again, in the condition that it's enough to make the listener feel nothing more was needed to be added to make it better or more complete.

An album is an artistic statement. It's bigger then how much there is to listen to on the disc or whatever.

Some people can paint you the full picture with 2 sentences and it will be better then talking for 2 hours. It all depends on the content and your specific way you can deliver what you have to say.

Others will need way more words to do it, but the result will be of high quality as well.

If they wrote 12 rocking songs, they could take 7 for one album and save 4 for another, to be added to later...And then you have a longer career duration. I also think since we live in an age where people's attention spans are generally shorter, short albums might be a route worth pursuing. I mean if the songs are that good they can easily be held over for another record which will be just as rocking in that case and keep the audience wowed, like "damn, these guys keep coming out with awesome songs."

It's just the downplaying and revisionism and sort of repudiation of the UYI era that's gone on with a segment of the fanbase in the last 4 or 5 years is...mind boggling. Along with Slash and Axl's own sort of downplaying of that period...Even if there was bad blood behind the scenes, it was still the peak of GN'R's popularity. Those albums are what separates GN'R musically from just being another '80s band and they showed GN'R had something to them that was much more than drinking, drugs, poverty and sex.....

I think it depends on how much the artist had to say. Artistically, you can look at it sort of like you had to eat a certain amount of food cause you were really hungry, or another time you had to eat less cause you only needed that amount to be full.

It's not really about meeting a specific number of songs. It's about creating a piece of art that will make the songs work together as a whole.

No fillers, just what the artist felt was needed to be on the album. Just like a specific part of a song had to be there to make the song work.

I just think if say you give an audience a short album of 7 rocking songs (while you've written say 20-30), not only will it leave the audience hungry for more and whet their appetite, but it'd also give you a longer career. I mean imagine if say Led Zeppelin's albums had each been 12-16 songs, they'd have blowed their load a lot quicker and the quality would've went faster.

I agree with you on your other points. But I think working in the mindset of just making a 7 or 8 album set sort of puts you in the headspace to make those 7 or 8 numbers count. You know?

I think Rock will recover when we have a new style that mixes up what is popular now in music (general music) with like, the old country/rockabilly sort of roots of rock, that soulful, yet simple sexy sort of sound...No ten minute epics or whatever just simple edgy blues meets modern tinged energy.

Back in the 60s, 70s (and yes I know it was mainly due to space restrictions) an "album" consisted of anywhere from 6-9 songs. Today that'd be considered a mini album or EP, with albums averaging 12-16 songs today. But I contend that less is better in this instance. If you've only got 40 some odd minutes and can ONLY do 6-9 songs, you'd be more liable to ensure that those 6-9 songs are all worth the cut; less room for filler. I mean today bands probably purposely just put half hearted numbers in there just to stretch the albums out to the average length. I just think if bands went to shorter albums with less songs, we might get better albums for it.

I think you may have a point with Slash.

As for Axl, I think he plays the UYI songs that he knows people want to hear. He plays a total of seven UYI songs live (Don't Cry, Civil War, November Rain, Estranged, YCBM, LALD, KOHD) - which I think is a respectable amount. Lets face it, as much as we'd jizz at the prospect of a live rendition of Locomotive or Breakdown, 75% of the people attending GNR shows probably only own the Greatest Hits or maybe an old copy of Appetite.

I'm not saying he has to add Coma or Breakdown to the setlist on a nightly basis...But why not break them or like Don't Damn Me or something out once in a while, you know, just to shake things up?

And the point is mainly at Slash. Like I said, out of 30 songs to choose from, many of which he helped make or played fantastic solos on, he plays only one. That is odd.

In the 50+ years since Rock emerged, we've had countless subgenres, phases and fads--Rockabilly, Rock N' Roll, British Invasion, Hard Rock, Blues Rock, Heavy Metal, Glam Metal, Glam Rock, Synth Rock, Prog Rock, Sleaze Rock, Grunge, Industrial Rock, Rap Rock and tons of other subgenres.

Is there any place left for Rock to go, any other direction that could be explored? Is there still a great riff yet to be played?

Will Rock ever again be as relevant in popular culture as it was just as recently as the late '90s?