Lies They Tell

2 hours ago, Amir said:

I think they work better as two separate songs. I know they’re thematically the same but it’s like listening to Estranged right after November Rain

I disagree. I mean I agree that playing Estranged right after November Rain doesn't work particularly well, but that's because those are both lengthy epic songs. It's a bit too much listening to them back to back. The General and Monsters on the other hand are pretty short on their own. And quite frankly they sound incomplete without the other if you ask me. Listening to only the other song without the other almost feels like listening to only the "don't you think that ya need somebody" part on November Rain on it's own. Or you know the first part of November Rain on it's own. It feels like something is missing. Together The General and Monsters are a masterpiece in my opinion. Individually they're just okay.

But everyone is of course entitled to their own opinions. Personally I wish that there was actually some instrumental part that would tie these songs together. Following The General, I wish that the orchestral background music would take over seamlessly transitioning into Monsters.

Together, as one song they're actually worth the wait. Together they are the kind of an epic song that I always imagined The General to be like. Individually they're cool too, but nowhere near as great as they are as one song.

I'm not sure which one I actually prefer more. The General sounds a bit muddy. There's slightly too much effects on Axl's voice too. And I'm not a big fan of the "Don't know what to tell you now" part. But overall I really like the disturbing lyrics and emotionally speaking The General touches my soul more than Monsters does. If The General was just one song, I feel like it would end too suddenly too. It would feel incomplete.

Monsters on the other hand would need a better intro if it was just one song. Feels like it starts from the middle point of a song. Other than that Monsters is probably the more consistently good song, even if it doesn't hit me emotionally as hard as The General does. Monsters is a cool song, but it would feel incomplete without The General. Together they are a masterpiece.

13 minutes ago, 3coloursbeige said:

Great to hear new music from the gang.  But all the songs that have emerged sound completely different to each other.  They sound like they have been recorded and produced by different bands.

If you ask me, that's only a good thing. I like variety.

Like I said on "General musings", my new holy grail has undoubtedly become Seven. The sheer brilliance of Marco Beltrami's orchestrations is awe-inspiring, and considering that Seven was his personal favorite among the songs he contributed to, it must hold something truly exceptional.

That being said, I can't wait to hear Berlin as well. That one sounds like classic GNR to me.

23 minutes ago, BucketEgg said:

The very start. They didn't use the horns, but the synth at the start and the horns sound a bit similar.

Ah, I see what you mean. And you're probably right!

12 minutes ago, BucketEgg said:

I was listening to the General on low volume, and the intro for the general and the horns section sounds somewhat similar in tune

Not sure what you mean. Obviously the orchestral intro was used on both The General and Monsters, but at what part of The General did you hear the horns section? I haven't heard that part on either of these songs. But it could be very buried under the mix of course.

1 minute ago, agustingloger said:

I don't understand why everyone hates HS here. Sounds like classic GN'R song . Appetite kind of with 2021 modern sound production. Great riff killer vocals. 

It's not everyone. I think the majority here actually enjoys Hard Skool, even if some don't like the production. But the people who genuinely hate it are a loud minority. They like to diss it every chance they get, whereas the people who love it don't really feel the urge to shower it with praise at every turn.

With The General (and quite possibly Soulmonster) now out in the open, my new holy grail has undoubtedly become Seven. The sheer brilliance of Marco Beltrami's orchestrations is awe-inspiring, and considering that Seven was his personal favorite among the songs he contributed to, it must hold something truly exceptional.

Come to think of it, are we sure that we haven't heard a tiny bit of Seven within that orchestral intro as well? I'm referring to the extended version of the intro, you know, the longest one. I believe there was a segment in there that doesn't appear on either The General or Monsters. Weren't there some horn arrangements at the conclusion of that extended intro? Could that be Seven?

2 minutes ago, Bitchisback said:

Is it weird that I don't really care that much for either song on it's own but absolutely love them together lol

Well I feel the same way. If that's weird then I'm weird too. The General sounds a lot like how I always imagined the beginning of The General to sound like. And Monsters sounds like I imagined the ending of The General to sound like.

Together they sound like everything that I wanted from The General. As separate songs they're not as great.

4 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

Axl seemed to refer to them as two separate tracks in 2008. And there's also the alleged CD2 track list (if we consider it legit) from January 2008 where they are also listed as two separate songs. That's why I think they were turned into one song after 2008.

Regarding the orchestral piece that was used as intro at the concerts, maybe it was its own thing compiled from what Beltrami wrote for the two tracks. And then the two tracks were eventually combined as well?

Perhaps you're right! Another thing that confuses me is why the GNR camp said that the most used intro in 2006 was The General. Why didn't they mention Monsters or Soulmonster or Leave Me Alone or what ever it was called back then. I'd say that the bigger part of the intro was actually Monsters. Not The General.

Well, I don't expect anyone here to have the answers. It's just confusing. The reason why we thought that the cellphone clip was The General was because the GNR camp confirmed that the orchestral intro was The General. Now we know that only the first part of the intro was The General.

3 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

If I were to guess, I'd say that they started as two different tracks (and I believe that "Monsters" is most likely "Soul Monster") and by 2010 they were merged into one, two-part song.

What confuses me is that we heard the orchestral music as a single piece back in 2006. Why did Marco Beltrami compose the orchestral section as a continuous piece if these were two separate songs back then? Anyway, in that concert intro, they were kind of one song already back in 2006. I really hope that it will eventually be released as one single track. Or perhaps the ideal scenario would be to have three versions: "The General" and "Monsters" as separate tracks, and then one epic 'The General and Monsters,' which is a combination of both songs

2 minutes ago, Axl_morris said:

The General and Eye on You sound quite similar. 

No they don't. The word "daddy" is present in both songs, but that's about it.

The General just might be the most disturbing GNR song ever. I love it!

But I can't get over how much I wish these would be just one song. Following The General, I wish there was a brief interlude featuring just the orchestra, seamlessly transitioning into Monsters. Together, these songs would form the kind of epic musical journey that I've always imagined The General would be.

These are obviously real. There's no question about it. Monsters sounds exactly like the song on the cellphone leak. I wish these would be just one song though. I don't know why they're separate. They sound great when played back to back. They're not as good as separate songs. Together they are epic.

This would be a perfect Halloween song. They're idiots if they're waiting for December to release this. Halloween would be the perfect timing.

I would have to hear at least the finished versions of Atlas, SOG and also Berlin, Soulmonster and Seven before I could consider the CD era fully over. Ides of March, Quicksong, Zodiac and many other would be great to hear as well, but The General has been the holy grail for years without a doubt, so in that sense this kinda feels like an end of an era. Seven or Soulmonster might become my next holy grail, (or perhaps Down By The Ocean) but to be honest it would be great to get some new mythical songs to look forward to.

4 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

I think the addition of "monsters" to the title may be just a rebranding of the song for Halloween - and maybe there are references to monsters in the lyrics.

That's my guess as well. What ever the music video (lyric video) will be like, I have a feeling that it will be Halloween themed and it's probably going to involve some monsters. That's what I would guess.

That probably depends on how we measure success. In today's day and age streams are a pretty important way of measuring success. According to Spotify This I Love is the most streamed (successful) GNR song from this century. Of course This I Love wasn't a single as far as I know. The most streamed GNR single on Spotify from this century is Better.

The problem with measuring success based on streams is obviously the fact that older songs always have a head start. It's almost impossible for brand new songs to have more streams than older songs cause people have been streaming the old songs for years. So you can't really compare the new songs to the older songs based on streams. Only time will tell if Hard Skool or Perhaps will surpass Better and This I Love some day.

1 hour ago, estrangedtwat said:

Noticing that stuff is weird doesn't automatically indicate a "conspiracy."

It IS weird, isn't it?

Nobody is saying that GNR isn't a strange band. But there's no need for these weird conspiracy theories when there are much more sensible explanations for everything.

Saying that Axl hasn't recorded vocals for GNR since 1999 is a conspiracy theory because it goes against logic and everything that the band members have said themselves. Believing in Pele's theory requires believing in the notion that everyone associated with Guns N' Roses are lying to the public, concealing the fact that Axl has not recorded anything since 1999. That is a conspiracy theory.

You can come up with tons of much more sensible explanations for why GNR hasn't released music in years. One very simple explanation would be that Axl is simply very self-critical when it comes to his own music. We know that he had no problems recording vocals for Rock The Rock and Sebastian Bach's album so it would be absurd to think that he hasn't recorded vocals for GNR throughout these years. There's most likely tons of vocals recorded for GNR. But the question is how much of those vocals Axl is satisfied with. Axl might be tinkering with the lyrics year after year.

So the logical question is not whether or not there's songs with vocals. The logical question is, how many songs have vocals that Axl is satisfied with. 

Based on everything that the band members have said, there's very likely at least one album worth of material with vocals. Most likely Axl has recorded much more vocals than that, but there's probably tons of lyrics and vocals that he isn't all that satisfied with.

Not gonna lie, I'm a VERY casual Black Sabbath fan. Don't know that many of their songs and couldn't name a single non-Ozzy Black Sabbath song from the top of my head. But I like top 10 lists, so I'll make my own anyway.

1. Children of the Grave

2. Supernaut

3. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

4. Iron Man

5. War Pigs

6. Paranoid

7. God is Dead

8. Sweet Leaf

9. Hole in the Sky

10. Symptom of the Universe

And yes, I plan to explore Black Sabbath's discography more thoroughly when I have the time.

36 minutes ago, NewGNROldGNR said:

I had too much free time and did the math. The last 3 Guns N' Roses singles contain 44 Hey's, the last 3 Metallica singles contain 0 Yeah's. Even if you use the live single from the 72 Seasons tour, it's 44 to 0

Over/Under on The General containing at least one Hey?

I assume that you count the ayy-ay's as hey's in Hard Skool cause the official lyrics of Absurd and Hard Skool have 0 actual hey's in them.

40 minutes ago, Rovim said:

I think it was in 2003

Yeah, I believe this IGN interview with Marco Beltrami was the first time we heard about The General:

IGN: Since we're talking about rock musicians, what was the deal with you arranging some orchestral sections for the impending Guns N Roses album?

Marco Beltrami: That was sort of just work for hire. I guess they'd heard some of my orchestral music of mine. I met with Axl and he played me these songs, asked me my ideas about them, and I told him what I thought they needed. They gave me four songs to orchestrate. A couple of them I did more than orchestrating, I actually wrote some melodies and stuff. It was a fun project. I really enjoyed it. The music was eclectic and at the time that I was doing it there were no lyrics on the songs that I was working on. People ask me about the album and I really have no idea about the release. I thought it was coming out last September. I'm the wrong person to ask about that.

IGN: He came to you with the tracks then, so you weren't ever in the studio with the musicians or anything like that

Marco Beltrami: No, they had finished tracks. On one song I actually wrote a guitar part, but they pretty much had the band tracks down and then I added orchestral stuff on top of it.

IGN: What songs were they, by chance?

Marco Beltrami: A song called "Seven," which is the one that I did the most work on, I actually did some writing on. There was one called "Thyme," one called "The General," one called "Leave Me Alone."

Here's the interview: https://www.ign.com/articles/2003/07/18/more-with-marco

1 hour ago, rumandraisin said:

It's deffinately not one of the earliest we knew about. That would be the title track, IRS, Oklahoma, TWAT, TII and a few others all prior to the first gig in 2001. 

Now you're just splitting hair. With one of the earliest I obviously meant all the songs that we knew before anything had leaked.

In hindsight I gotta say say though, it feels funny that we learned about The General only three years before Sebastian Bach made those comments. That time period when we waited for Chinese Democracy felt like an eternity back then. Of course I was much younger then, so that explains it. But it feels like we had talked about these songs forever before anything leaked. But at the end of the day we had known about The General, Seven and Leave Me Alone (Soulmonster) for only three years before things started to happen. Although we still haven't heard those three songs. At least not properly. 😅

1 minute ago, SoulMonster said:

Here's why I think I Sat By The Ocean is among QOTSA's finest (and I generally prefer their fast-paces songs):

- Excellent chord progression and uber catchy
- Fantastic bass lines that are so prominent
- The use of the cymbals and hand claps
- The drums at 2:06

I really liked it from the first time I heard it and it has remained one of my favorites. 

But yeah, it is all subjective ad it takes all kinds and all that...
 

Perhaps I'll listen to it a few more times, since many seem to love it. Just to give it a fair chance. I doubt it will ever be one of my favorites though.

1 hour ago, Lethalis said:

So even if it's hard to understand for you, I actually like I Sat By The Ocean more than Absurd and Hard Skool just based on the song itself and not the mixing or production.

I never said that you like I Sat By The Ocean more because of the mixing or the production.

1 hour ago, Lethalis said:

You mention "energy". It could be that your preference leans more towards "busy" / "fast paced" songs than mine. We can still like the same band and the same artists, but just different songs. I usually like the more laid back and slower GNR songs. You might not. And that's fine. My wife thinks I like the more depressing stuff, which to me is soothing but others can't stand it.

Yeah, that's probably it! One of my favorite things about "Hard Skool" and "Absurd" is precisely the energy of these songs. But if you generally prefer the more laid back and slower GNR songs, then these songs don't get any points from you because of the energy. I might slightly prefer the faster stuff in general. Although there are many fast paced GNR songs that I don't really enjoy that much. But I actually prefer both Hard Skool and Absurd over Perhaps for example. Perhaps is a good song, but the solo is nothing too special and after the middle point the song kinda just repeats itself. And let's just say that the song doesn't get any extra points from me because of the slower tempo. Slower songs can be really great too, like for example Estranged is, but there has to be something interesting about them. I couldn't really hear anything special in "I Sat By The Ocean", which is why it's kinda boring to me. Some of my favorite QOTSA songs are also fast paced songs, so I guess I have a preference. It's just that rock music with great energy seems increasingly rare these days.

Anyway, like I originally said, I'm not hear to argue about taste. Everyone has their own preferences. Just wanted to share my perspective on these songs as well.