WhazUp

Atlas Shrugged too! How many years did we hear about that title alongside Catcher when CD was at that point just rumors and speculation - it is actually pretty crazy how many of the older song titles from those days we have heard in various forms Hell even a song like Oklahoma, of course just an unfleshed instrumental demo but it is trippy to me still

There "I was there for you / it's all I could do" chorus on Monsters is really catchy, I love the chordal changes too, the whole song I hear as in the key of D but the chorus flirts with the more D major chords and the sinister verses your D minor dark and haunting riffs

I dunno, I personally have seen this version a number of times and honestly have always never had a problem with his Chinese solos overall - he did a decent job on TWAT in 2016 when I saw that song then, SOD and the title track, Better, etc. from this year's show I liked, etc.

Thanks guys for the replies! I found an article from 2001 (from here) that also has this: "He admitted not feeling happy with the show last night, and gave some details of the new album: he already has 36 songs practically ready (one dedicated to John Lennon, another about child abuse), and there is a possibility that the album is double , in the style of Use your illusion, one of the compacts would be named after Chinese Democracy and the other would be called PRL"

The General's lyrics certainly themed around abuse, I am curious does anyone remember how specifically it was already known that The General in particular was about child abuse? I can't remember exactly how that came to light before we knew the lyrics themselves from today

Axl's vocals in the second half of Monsters... damn I never thought anything could top the amazing screams in There Was a Time when it comes to Chinese Democracy vocal moments but this may be my new favorite Axl moment since the 90s on record

Yeah I agree that last solo in The General sounds so Buckethead-esque especially with the way Bucket's notes sound when he goes into fast runs. I am still unsure regarding the intro wah-wah part though, both Bucket and Slash both use wah pedals a ton in their phrasing and I keep going back-and-forth on that one lol

The debate of if this is the Slash version or if its a demo, is it possible it is both? Quite some time has passed since 2021 or whenever Slash reworked these Chinese tunes, I can easily imagine rough mixed and unfinished bounced MP3s making their way to even one person who sent it to a friend, who sent it to another friend, and now the leaker is throwing us a bone cause of the vinyl delay

Elton John did the same thing with Funeral for a Friend / Love Lies Bleeding. Two distinctly different compositions combined to a singular song

I don't hear too much of a difference now that I have loaded both up side by side on my DAW, A/Bing the two on good headphones. The potential fan altered version has at most some additional compression added either via the YT upload process but to my ears its so minimal of a difference to make any substabtial changes. Someone upthread mentioned more clarity in the General distortion vocals but I compared a second ago and they both are identical at least with the Youtube video from earlier and the mp3s that we first came to know

Regarding the "are they 1 or 2 songs" thing, I think they are either two songs Axl wanted to tie together or had the idea of like a mini-suite song with two distinct sections The fact that both use the orchestral parts to me means it is an intentional link and not an afterthought

To the mods, is nonstop plugging of one's own discord channel within the rules? Because this poster is getting pretty inistent about it and I can't be the only one seeing them going full-on clickbait (final master leaked, etc) to lure folks in

The rumored "mastered version" is a Youtube link, to me I hear the same audio someone just put the two songs in sequence together in one video

At least this can put to rest that these came from State of Grace lol. The drum patterns can be similar but Brain was behind it and they are fairly common standard 4/4 beats via electronic grooves.

Hey man gotta hand it to you, in particular the vocal melody of Monsters in the second half you totally nailed! Well done with your rendition and making the most out of that cell phone clip

Axl: *has The General / Monsters on his hard drive* Also Axl: "Let's put Scraped on Chinese instead"

At first hearing The General I was underwhelmed but after like so many listens already, once you strip away the hype build up and know what you are getting, I quite like it. Its creepy and unsettling and paired with the more rocking second half with Monsters I do think it is deserving of the "big guns" moniker

Does the opening verse for Monsters remind anyone of this? Specifically the 3 minute mark or so with Maynard's vocals

Poor Fortus had to buy like a $200 sitar pedal for 10 seconds at the start of Pretty Tied Up and a little repeating line for The General

Maybe this is like how Chicken Dinner was to Shaklers when that leaked - Chicken Dinner had slightly different edits in the start/end and poorer audio quality but was essentially the final song otherwise

I think I cracked the mystery! The General is someone talking about Daddy.... who is revealed to be the Mac Daddy in Eye on You. Who had to do it his way and be hard school, which is rather absurd The whole thing was a industrial rock opera all along

Ironically if you took away the drum machines and added Matt Sorum, Monsters sounds like something Scott Weiland could have sang for 2004-era VR I don't think Slash and Axl were ever musically that far apart from each other even when Axl did his electronic stuff

The General is like if Massive Attack got ahold of the Village Sessions, I like it At first I was like "this isn't the epic masterpiece like Estranged" it had been hyped up to be, but if both tracks are treated as two-parts of one singular thing it does have quite the sonic journey

I have so many questions lol are these rips from vinyl? Are these old demos someone leaked to throw us a bone until the vinyl comes out? Is someone just amazingly god-tier with AI?

I will take "Tweets that made Chris Pitman lose potential future millions of dollars" for 500