alfa75

All of Slash’s work has been great, IMO and I say that as someone who thought his best days were far behind him.

All a matter of opinion my dude.

Personally, Slash’s work on Monsters is flawless for me and his guitar work on TG salvages the song IMO. I know many here will disagree, but having Slash on the latest material adds the organic vibe that makes it seem more GNR to me. I imagine any BH version of TG to be much more digital sounding, and thus even further from their signature sound.

“Largely connected” is kind of subjective. Perhaps has around 6 million views on YT, and some of the newer stuff has more Spotify streams than TWAT, PTU, Locomotive, CITR, Breakdown, Perfect crime, The Garden, etc. I mean HS is #38, which is not at all bad considering that between AFD and CD, they’ve released 78 songs.

Fair enough, but my point is, I cannot imagine he would choose to release a finished product that HE felt was inferior to some earlier version. As I believe he said in the chats, people get attached to a particular version of something, but that doesn’t mean it fits his vision of what the final song should sound like.

Why would you imagine it to be better? Sounds like personal bias. Why would anyone intentionally choose to release a ‘worse’ version of any song?

I hope they’ve a new album with current lineup written and recorded, but I cannot see Axl abandoning this CD era songs and not get them out first, before anything “new”.

So radio play is equivalent to quality then? I hope you are not a big fan of CD, because I don't remember any of those singles doing much better, same with OMG. In the Metallica world, a large portion of the fanbase would tell you that their best stuff came before they ever got played on the radio aka the Black album "sellout" The only thing the LP example proves is that it's a more 2024 radio friendly song, and while I am certainly a LP fan, I don't know that is the barometer of quality considering what gets a lot of play on the radio sometimes.

The one thing we don't know, since Slash and Duff have some writing credits on TG (and maybe eventually Monsters) how much they contributed to the final product (playing aside) in terms of arranging, additions or changes to the earlier versions, etc.

Good point and I would like to agree with you, but I still think those comments would surface. A little like how some thought the BH Nightrain solo was much better than Slash's original, or Robin's rework of SCOM for Big Daddy was superior to the Slash original. But your point is valid.

Anyone else here get the feeling that even IF they write and record a brand new album, with the NITL lineup, that perhaps a majority here will complain anyway about how: -It's nowhere near as good as AFD or UYI -It sounds old school compared to CD -It would have sounded SOOOO much better with BH and/or Finck. I am not sure there really is any pleasing the majority of the fanbase here, short of AFD II, which would also probably be criticised for it's lack of innovation.

Just a couple of thoughts: 1-Although it seems to be a "truth" that TG is trash, it's not at all a universal feeling. I would agree that those who like it are in the minority, but that does not mean anything. There has been negativity hurled about pretty much all, if not all, songs in the GNR catalogue. Even some of their biggest hits. Just opinions. I would much rather listen to TG than TIL, which is for me, far and away the most cringeworthy song in their catalog, but hey that's just me, and I know many disagree. 2-The video which I'm not a fan of, is still an artistic choice. Those who deride AI as being lazy, don't really understand how AI works. I know many people will now step forward and say "I can do better" but "better" as always is subjective. Maybe the visuals are an interpretation of what Axl experienced or "saw" in his mind. I can tell you, as a creative professional who has tried to use AI effectively, with some success, it is not so easy to get exactly what you had in mind. Not as easy as it looks, basically. Also, there are some brilliant creatives using AI, with outstanding results (a lot better than TG video in my opinion). As far as being against AI for reasons of principle, which I can certainly understand, AI is here to stay and only going to get better and more pervasive in creative processes of all kinds. Fighting it is a time wasting endeavour. 3- I think the cover artwork for TG is very cool, and other designers/artists I know agree. Not to say that anyone's opinion is more valuable than anyone else's, but I certainly wouldn't say that it's universally derided and deemed low quality as some here would suggest.

I’m by no means an expert, but it just sounds a bit clearer and each instrument is a bit more distinct from the others. Now that I’m used to it this way, it’s my default version so I still notice some imperfections, but listening back to back, for me the quality jump was clear. It’s sadly not at the level of any of their releases up until CD. (OMG excepted) Maybe side 1 of LIES as well, but that’s excusable given the stage of their career. Now it’s harder to justify. I do remember Metallica getting lots of criticism for Death Magnetic, so I guess that’s the closest parallel. In fact, I think Black Album was the first of their albums that sounded “good” whereas AFD was spot on and still holds up now, IMO.

The mix on the CD sounds noticeably better for TG to my ears. I ripped it to Apple Music so I could have the “better” version on my phone.

The comparison to crap quality, basically elaborated guitar work all the while people are complaining about the engineering of the actual track is rather amusing.

Go back and read the first few pages of this thread. It seems in the beginning, reception to both songs were overwhelmingly good. Now TG seems more disliked than liked. What happened?

One thing that seems pretty clear is that no one in the band seems intent on any real promotion regarding any of the newer material. Amazing that we got a video for "perhaps". Pragmatically speaking, there's next to no money in music sales anyway these days, so hardly a problem.

Between the huge expectations and the fact that this came out as a standalone single, there was no way TG could satisfactorily deliver. If this had been track 9 on a 12 song album that included Atlas, Monsters, SoG, the previous 3 releases, etc, it would not be getting all the heat it’s getting. It would just be another ‘Bad Apples” Shotgun blues”, etc. I know some people love those songs (as some do TG) but I think we can agree they are not generally considered amongst the band’s best. Much like CD itself, it’s hard to listen to without considering the context, and just as a piece of music. Good, great, bad or otherwise, depending on your subjective opinion of course. It’s an interesting glimpse into where Axl was at a particular time and a fascinating, dark, artsy, experimental track. The mixing sucks, that I think we can most agree on. It certainly could have been better arranged, fleshed out, etc, but it is what it is. In a strange way, it’s somewhat reassuring to know that they didn’t seem to repeat the CD error of reworking endlessly. Slash and Duff added their parts to a basically finished song and called it a day. Lazy? Uninspired? “Perhaps” While there is obviously no guarantee of “new” material, I am firmly convinced no such material will ever happen until Axl gets these songs out of his system. Maybe he’s “done” working on them anymore and so this is what we get, like it or not. To be fair, he likely spent a lot of time and invested himself in them, so why would he want to scrap them. It’s crazy for me to hear people implying that they should have never released it, after all all the complaining over the years about no new music. There was never any guarantee that every release was going to be a “top tier” song. No GNR album is all top tier IMO, not even AFD. Maybe TG is the “Anything goes”of this era. For me, it’s an interesting addition to their catalog, and they have also done some experimental stuff. In an ideal scenario, these songs act as a GNR Lies type stopgap, until they can generate original material, which for all we know they are working on right now. I also, think that “if” this happens, the music will reflect the current band, just as TG reflected the people who were around at the time. I don’t see Duff bringing in any trip-hop beats, etc.

Any way to get a vinyl quality release digitally? The worst, and probable case scenario is that, despite any quality issues with the digital version, it won’t be fixed.

Any chance all the distortion, clipping, etc are all part of some device to create this dark, chaotic, ambience? I would not put it past Axl ti do this.

Not to sound too delusional, but could “Monsters” show up as a hidden track to “reward” the people who bought the vinyl? I mean, just because TG single was released today, does it mean the “Perhaps” vinyl can’t contain something more?

Again, purely subjective. I much prefer the 2021 version.

Sure. Axl is ok with "knocking" the songs down. Maybe you don't like them in their final form, but I find it impossible to believe he would be ok with "lesser" versions being the released ones.

MSG 1991. Three hour wait IIRC. Absolutely worth it. No doubt whatsoever.

You prefer Robin on Monsters based on what? The cellphone clip? With all due respect to your preferences, that seems like a stretch.