ShadowOfTheWave

Matt Sorum has always acted like he was a founding member of GNR, and also as someone who had a major hand in writing their biggest hits. He was neither, so his ego has always come off as not only out of control but way undeserved.

But a few select people definitely had it before that. Here's a thread with Kaneda talking about it in late 2017:

@Mindray11 (the guy who recorded it in Vienna) told us multiple times it was "ooh ooh". We just didn't listen. Once you hear Evader's version it's hard to unhear it in the cellphone clip though.

It's not just that they should have announced the delay before the last minute. They should have had their ducks in a row with the mix before they made it available to pre-order back in August. Hell, per Slash these reworkings we're done during 2020 and they were still listening to mixes in June of this year while on tour. Insanity. So I don't have any sympathy for them on this either. Is it wrong to release someone else's content without their permission? Yeah, but not to the extent that I have to feel sorry for them in this case. They've had years to work on getting this right.

No. There are several moments on CD that are better, and IMO Monsters isn't even one of the best reunion songs.

The Thyme version from the Village leaks is from 2000, Beltrami worked on the tracks in 2002.

The General chorus has got to be one of the rawest, most emotional Axl moments ever. I get that people might not like the more industrial style and the effects but WTF are people thinking saying it's a throwaway?

I remember someone said that Axl wanted it played in 2011, it was actually Tommy that didn't want it in the set because it was too hard to sing. Can't remember the source though, maybe someone else will.

Absurd-2 Hard Skool-8 Perhaps-7 The General-9 Monsters-6

Monsters is great lyrically. The melody in the chorus threw me off because it wasn't the style I was expecting from the beginning of the song but I enjoy it now. 7/10 The General is amazing. One of the darkest songs Axl's ever done and he puts everything into his performance. The melodies are creepy but catchy. 9.5/10

It wasn't an exact quote though, IIRC the interviewer said that Bach had described the The General as a sequel to Estranged. The interviewer may have been confused by something Bach said.

Monsters is growing on me, I was disappointed at first but I was just thrown off by how different the chorus sounded compared to what I was expecting. I really love The General and am baffled everyone seems to hate it. Besides Axl's voice being somewhat difficult to make out at points and the hip hop interlude the song is fantastic.

I think The General is a good song buried in shit production and effects. I hate Monsters. The chorus melody sucks imo.

The fact that the Universal page said it will be shipped or or "before" December 8, and mentions November 22 when asking if you want to cancel, tells me that this could still come out quite a bit earlier than December 8. Remember that Hard Skool starting shipping a full month early. Looking at it glass half full, you could interpret it as 12/8 is the latest they expect it to be ready and it could come out at any point before then. But it's hard to be glass half full with this band.

If true, the issue is probably that Axl is still too much of a pussy to release new (unleaked) music.

I don't think integrity necessarily factors into it. If he doesn't have the muse, he doesn't have it. He's mentioned experiencing writers block before.

Mods really need to start breaking out the ban hammer

The Hard Skool EP was set to be released February 25,2022, and was released early on January 28,2022, both Fridays, even though Hard Skool was already released digitally in September 2021. I'm not sure there's a correlation.

Not counting on it, I allowed the optimism of others here to temporarily delude me. But I agree, 95% chance it's physical only.

Shacklermyrye posted this on Gnrevo a few days back in regards to link fire: BTW I know a few people here and apparently a few just viewing the forum will be trying this link from time to time https://gunsnroses.lnk.to/thegeneral If you do it may also be worth checking https://gunsnroses.lnk.to/thegeneralandmonsters. Given that this song is packaged in with the Perhaps link.to however it is likely that these links may never become active at all.

I've believed it to be physical only ever since radiorock said so in August. But the last couple of days everyone here seems convinced it's coming this Friday, so I suppose I've gotten caught up in the hype. But you're right, there's no real reason to believe it's coming out digitally. The only thing in it's favor was Fernando's cagey "perhaps" response when asked if it would be released on streaming platforms, I'd think if it was physical release only he'd have said nothing, but he's a notorious douche so...

20 hours til Friday in New Zealand. We could very well have it by this time tomorrow.

Was it listed by it's full title or just If?

If The World was completely unknown until the Skwerl leak in June 2008, so if a 2007 cover had "If" on it it was almost certainly legit.

Oh yeah, forgot about that. Still, that was months after the Care Bear video, so MSL is still the original source for the song.