GoodOlJohnnyK

I’m concerned about his technique.

When he hits the “freed of all the chains” line, he’s *pushing* his throat in a way that’s not healthy. It’s not the same technique he’s used in the past. 

Edited to add: Madagascar is one of my favorites on CD, but never one of my favorites live, so I don’t often listen to YouTube clips of it. Has Fortus always played the solo like this? It’s fantastic.

14 minutes ago, allwaystired said:

Also - saying "this is the best gig Axl has sounded since XXXX" on the show  is another one. It ALWAYS sounds good when you're there and enjoying it, but he's been decent this entire run. Not 'oh my God, Axl sounds like 2006' good, but definitely as good as 2016. 

Yeah - I was following along with this thread without listening to the streams. After reading the thread, I was so excited to check out the YouTube vids of Axl’s tour de force performance. It was a big letdown.

He sounds like he sounded on all the “decent” shows this year, which is a very low bar. Not even close to 2016. I’d say not even as good as the better 2021 shows - Indianapolis, for one.

2 minutes ago, diablo9333 said:

Anyone know why Axl just yelled out twenty two?

He’s probably calling an audible. Saw something in the defense he didn’t like.

1 hour ago, ChrisW said:

No one at Dr. Pepper woke up one day and decided to make an ad about some old band releasing an album.  Either Axl did it himself or (more likely) someone with authority to speak in his name, Geffen or Brazil.  They called Dr. Pepper and they worked out a way to promote an album that was ready to be released.

Best Buy was probably the same thing.  In theory, it might have been a scam, but Geffen (or whoever) wanted to try bringing back some of the money they'd spent and suckered Best Buy, but it was probably a private deal.  'You'll lose a lot of money here but make it up over there.'

And this is why Axl wanted to be in charge, so everyone else has to run around trying to do something for him.  He doesn't need to do anything.  The Chinese Democracy sessions didn't start in 1998, Axl's employees had been bringing in new music since 1994 and he rejected it.  It hadn't become the eventual "Chinese Democracy" album but that is when the sessions started.  Axl just had to keep replacing employees over and over until Geffen finally told him enough, the album was done.

Axl doesn't want to create music, he wants to give orders.  Other people sit around, recording over and over, they have no idea if anything will be done with their work and it's fully owned by Axl's company.  Notice that when Slash talks about working on a new album, he mentions how many songs they have and gives details on pre-production and production, but when he's talking about new G'n'R music, he had no details at all, not even how many tracks there are.  Like everyone else, he's an employee who is not permitted to say anything, and that's why there's no new music.  There's not even any more old music.

Since the news came out, I'd been checking their wikipedia page to see if "Perhaps" had been added to the list of releases, which other bands do.  The page never got changed.  Whoever's in charge is just seeing who will believe there's actually a new song coming out and who will still pay lots of money to hear "It's So Easy, so fuckin easy, It's so easy, so damn easy, It's so easy, so fuckin easy, It's so easy, yeah it's so easy, It's so easy, so fuckin easy..."

Boy, I’d sure love to disagree with you.

But I can’t.

23 minutes ago, UYI4 said:

Hypothetically Summer 2024 Axl slash Duff Izzy and Steven decide to do a new final GNR album.  Would it be good? Eh IMO par. Why do I say that? Because slash in his own right has not really written any memorable leads since Illusions/OG GNR.  Slash is my fav of all time, but realistically the closest he came in recent years was Anastasia, and that lead is a play on a Mozart song really. 

You can look at it the other way around. They could release the greatest album they've ever written, but the majority of people would say it's average because in their minds, Appetite is the only option for 'Best Guns Album.' For some reason we as a society have decided that it's impossible for artists to release their best work later in life, which is a shame. 

Slash is a good example - you say he hasn't written any memorable leads since Anastasia. I don't like Myles Kennedy, so I haven't listened to any of Slash's recent work, but his *live* work is thrilling to me, even today. A lot of people complain about it, but I find it exhilarating.

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

8 minutes ago, 2020_Intensions said:

They were not Chinese sessions though. The sessions that produced the material that would become Chinese Democracy began in '98 with the first Chinese lineup (Rose, Stinson, Freese, Finck, Tobias, Reed, Pitman).

I hear you, understood. Though to me, it's a little bit of splitting hairs at this point. Guns N' Roses in some way, shape, or form, has been working on the follow up to the Use Your Illusion albums since the mid-90s.

Edited to add: And if we don't look at it that way, I bet the record company sure does - they were funding those early sessions.

7 minutes ago, rocknroll41 said:

I recently recalled an interview from 1995 where Slash said something to the effect of “after this Snakepit tour is done, GnR will regroup and do another tour, and then there will be another Snakepit album at some point after that.”

Seemed to me like, even back then, they were already considering the idea of GnR just being a nostalgia touring act going forward, and allow the members to continue expressing themselves creatively thru their side projects instead.

Obviously, that plan changed, as Axl pulled the plug on further Snakepit touring in 1996 so that GnR could regroup for a new album (and look how that turned out). But the fact that the “GnR is just an oldies touring band now” route was seemingly on the table in 1995 is interesting. When you think about it in those terms, it’s actually not all that surprising that we’ve gotten so little new material since.

I think it's important to note that Slash was pretty pissed and disgusted by that point in time. He might have seen it that way, but I guarantee you Axl didn't. I think that was just Slash's anger talking.

7 hours ago, Bitchisback said:

Now add in all the lawsuits, and the Dr pepper mess, and the best buy mess and not knowing how to promote it and the alt covers not coming out and all the headaches and that Axl had to deal with for that album.  

This is a problem of Axl's own making. The label said they tried to get him to promote the album, and he wouldn't take their calls. 

Likely because he was angry that they force released the album. Why did they force release it? Because it took 15 years and they were tired of it! I can't fault them for that. I just can't put aside my bullshit detector for this one. Hell, the Dr. Pepper "mess" was the fault of his own lawyers. Axl himself said it was a non-issue. The Best Buy deal was actually far more profitable for him than it would have been otherwise! Best Buy took a loss on that one, not Axl! They were selling the album on *clearance* before long because, by 2008, no one cared.

7 hours ago, Bitchisback said:

I'm not saying it's exclusively the label, but look how many producers he went thru and musicians and everything too.  I think he just got fed up with everything. 

Yeah...but again, doesn't that point to Axl? At a certain point, if everyone he came into contact with was the problem...don't you think that maybe he was the problem? All those musicians and producers were incompetent?

Axl getting 'fed up' is rich - I'm sure there were more than a few folks fed up with him. I can only imagine jamming for hours in a rehearsal space, coming up with riffs and song structures for a guy who rarely showed up and, when he did, never sang. Though I'm sure the paycheck made it easier to deal with.

7 hours ago, Bitchisback said:

And then when the album finally did come out it wasn't received very well. Critically it did ok, and it did sell over 2 mil which really isn't bad, but it didn't debut at #1.  It definitely did not get the reception Axl was hoping for.

 

So idk if he just wonders what's the point anymore?  Or he doesn't want to go thru that process again. Or it's just a case of him taking his ball and going home.  Idk.

 

But I think if he still wanted to be making albums he would be 

Now *this* is where I agree with you. I actually think the tepid reaction to Chinese Democracy really killed a lot of his drive. If Chinese Democracy came out and was hailed as a success, I have no doubt that the two follow up albums would have already been released, if not even more 'newer' material.

I think the fact that he spent 15 years on an album and the world went 'meh' was probably the most devastating blow of all. After all, this is a guy who says he mainly listens to movie scores these days, right? I'm sure he'd rather be doing something like that. 

So I get why he *doesn't* want to create. I just refuse to feel sorry for him for how Chinese Democracy went down.

Just now, 2020_Intensions said:

Just to be clear, because I see this kind of assertion repeated all of the time, Chinese Democracy did not take 15 years to be released. 15 years is the time between Spaghetti and Chinese. The recording of Chinese did not begin until 1998. So it took 10 years to release. 

Fair enough - though early sessions with Slash and Duff and Tobias began in the mid-90s, no? So wouldn't it be 13 years?

And still - 10 years of mystery is an awful long time.

8 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

Many bands stop releasing new music and just continue touring (if they have the audiences) or break up. There is nothing dramatic about this, it is quite common.

8 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

The fanbase, on the other hand, definitely need someone to put things in perspective when it is starting to unravel at the seems over something as trivial as a band that doesn't release much music.

On the one hand, I completely agree with you: anyone expecting Guns N' Roses to release new music is likely to be wildly disappointed and would probably be better off just considering the band a touring-only entity, even if they've never explicitly said that. 

I guess I'm just confused at the shift in tone between when the hype is building and when the inevitable let down occurs. When this forum is excited and certain that new music is coming, and everybody's writing to Spotify customer support about their algorithm, and we're talking about The General and Seven and Thyme as if they're things we can accurately evaluate, that's when I grouch like myself usually pours cold water on the whole thing and tells everyone it ain't happening. Hell, in a prior thread about Perhaps, I showed some frustration at those who were complaining that it wasn't released yet and said 'Jesus Christ...' and almost uniformly I was met with "stop being so negative - just let us be excited!" 

Then, when a single doesn't drop the day everyone expects it to, it's "well you should never be excited. This band doesn't release much new music." I'm having a hard time reconciling the two positions. It's okay to buy into the hype...but not to be disappointed by it?

I also agree that there are many bands who simply stop creating while continuing to tour. Billy Joel is the example I've used a thousand times as being the case most similar to Axl in my opinion: he loves performing but is very open about the fact that he doesn't want to write songs anymore. I don't begrudge him that, and I don't begrudge Axl that, if that's how he feels.

But, just as there are plenty of artists who have quit touring, there are plenty of bands on Guns N' Roses' level, age group, and older who are still at it and producing new material: Metallica, U2, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, Green Day, The Foo Fighters, Bon Jovi, even older bands like AC/DC, Bruce Springsteen, Iron Maiden, and even The Rolling Stones have been far more prolific than Guns N' Roses have in the span since Chinese Democracy.

But, of course - those bands aren't Guns N' Roses and so it's irrelevant, right? I'd say so. But I'd also say that the bands that simply stopped producing material aren't Guns N' Roses and so the fact that 'a lot of bands stop releasing new music' is equally as irrelevant.

The fact is that this band has captured our fascination for a few reasons:

1.) The songs they *have* written and released are, frankly, great. Even the Chinese Democracy songs, while not up to the standard of their prior work, are still damn good. This is a good rock band.

2.) The mythology around Chinese Democracy is not something that's common in rock n' roll at all. The only other two albums that come close to holding that amount of mystery are The Beach Boys' Smile and Dr. Dre's Detox, and I'd argue that Chinese Democracy was more mythical than either of those. And it's not just the album that was released - it was all the sessions and unreleased material as well. After all, it took some 15 years to release. And it's not something that was completely media driven - Axl himself, and many other major players involved in the recording, contributed to the myth. Suddenly there were *two* or *three* albums of material ready to go. The song you've borrowed your online handle from has been described as one of the 'meanest' things he's ever sang - by Axl himself! Why would fans *not* want to hear that?

3.) Slash and Duff rejoining the band is something no one thought would ever happen - hence the 'not in this lifetime' joke. With their rejoining, it's only human nature to expect that the team that was able to write so many classic songs would simply...want to continue doing so. And, by the way, Slash has specifically said that there is new music on the way. And I understand that there will, eventually, be Perhaps and maybe even another single after it. But all that does is show that the band *does* intend to release something...it's just obviously disappointing to the fanbase how they choose to do so.

And isn't that what a message board is for? To discuss these things? It's no different than the setlist. I could easily say "stop complaining about the setlist - they're obviously doing just fine with it!" But we're not talking about their financial prospects. Everyone is talking about their personal level of satisfaction with the band's output. No one's unraveling, we're just voicing our discontent. Which, again, seems to annoy some people for some reason when it's done in certain ways. 

It's just...frustrating.

3 hours ago, DingBat said:

An emoji is abuse is it?

You're a very sensitive soul aren't you?

Get yourself a hot cup of cocoa and run yourself a warm bath.

Oh chill out, dude. You haven't contributed at all to any conversation. You came out of the gate swinging and now you're still picking a fight. Get on topic.

Just now, Rodzilla72 said:

Ah- now I understand your Avatar! Best of luck this season- congrats on finally ousting Snyder!!

Thank you! The euphoria I feel that he’s gone is equal to the simultaneous release of 4 Chinese Democracy sequel albums. Never thought it would happen.

3 hours ago, jamillos said:

And then do a proper interview with pre-selected topics (not the new album, for the love of god, that’s a Pentagon top secret!), telling us something about the songs. They released two singles two years ago, yet to date haven’t given us a single bit of information regarding their origin, background, anything. Who does this?

I can only imagine the forums if this actually happened.

Slash: “So Axl sent me a bunch of songs in the fall of 2020 while we were locked down and asked if I could come out to Malibu to record some guitars for them, and…”

MyGNRForum: “A bunch? Slash said a bunch. There can be up to 100 bananas in a bunch. That’s 100 songs. Minus Absurd, Hard Skool, and Perhaps, that means Slash worked on 97 more songs! They’re releasing the vault! I think The General comes out next month and then P.R.L.!”

I thought about pulling the trigger, but my Commanders have a preseason game tomorrow night.

1 minute ago, allwaystired said:

Not speaking for th buser you quoted there if course, but personally I don't like the way Spotify etc treat artists- if they paid them properly I'd be all for it. 

I know for the likes of GNR it doesn't really matter, as they're making a fortune, but for smaller bands I'm happy to give them the price of a CD/vinyl and support them that way. 

Plus, I love having a music collection! CDs for me are the best of both worlds as I can just rip them to MP3 for when I'm not at home too. 

Agreed, I think Spotify and all streaming services should pay more. Hell, I’m on Spotify myself (I’ve earned enough for not one but two Starbucks coffees). Though, from the little I’ve read about this, it seems a lot of the issue comes from the record labels, no? Aren’t they keeping a sizable cut of the streaming revenues?

It’s not a perfect system, but it’s one that works for now.

I still have my old CD collection because I’m too nostalgic to throw it out, but it’s collecting dust in my laundry room closet. I will say the passengers in my car, and everyone else on the road, is grateful that I’m no longer flipping through my CD book trying to find a different album while I’m on the highway.

4 hours ago, melonart said:

For all who are kind of demanding new music I have one question: How much have you spent on music lately?

 

I still buy music, but most people want their music free and I completely understand if the band doesn’t see a point in releasing stuff.

I pay for a monthly Spotify Premium and Apple Music account. My guess is you think that’s not good enough?

Practicality wins for me. I’ve discovered more artists that way, and spent money on their concerts than I would have if I’d have had to convince myself to take a chance on buying a CD. More importantly, I like having my entire music collection right here on my phone. Works for me.

Works for them, too, by the way. That’s why they’re releasing Perhaps and why they released Absurd and Hard Skool - as promotional tools to promote the tour.

See, up until 2016 I never got to see them live. So the prospect of seeing them in Washington DC was amazing - I gladly shelled out money to hear all my favorites. Jungle, Nightrain, Civil War. Fantastic show. Axl sounded great. Moved great. Band was on their game. Loved every second of it.

In 2021, they dropped Absurd. It intrigued me enough to think new things were coming and I grabbed a ticket to the Baltimore show. They dropped Hard Skool and debuted at the show and, despite Axl’s lackluster voice, I still had a good time at the show - though certainly not as good as I did in 2016.

But two years after *that*, I don’t really have a reason to buy a ticket. Bad Obsession and Pretty Tied Up are awesome, but I’m not gonna drive to Hershey for them.

But if there was new material? Perhaps and one or two others? With the idea that there would be more on the way? I might!

New music benefits them. It can’t hurt.

9 minutes ago, rumandraisin said:

I'm always surprised how little I see the acknowledgement here of Axl just simply not wanting to release music?

Oh I say this all the time. I just don’t think he feels creative anymore. The muse has left him, in my opinion. He clearly still loves performing and looks like he’s having a great time playing the hits. But I don’t think he’s too interested in sitting down with the band and starting from scratch.

11 minutes ago, rumandraisin said:

After the shitstorm he went through for Chinese who can blame him.

Eh, I think he’s to blame for most of that shitstorm, as stated in the posts preceding this one.

1 hour ago, colonizedmind said:

Because then you're closer to the next song which you may like?....

Honestly that’s a big part of it. Let’s get Perhaps, Atlas, and State of Grace out of the way so we can either get to something new or, at worst, unheard.

It’s the oddest thing.

I don’t even *like* Perhaps. I’ve been very vocal about that.

Yet I realllly want it to be released tomorrow.

17 minutes ago, Jw224 said:

I remember when I first joined the online fan community in like 2015 and I'd see people talk about TB as if they had Axl on strings or something, lol. 

Yup.

It kind of reminds me of when people blame Bob Rock for Metallica moving away from thrash on The Black Album. He didn’t write the songs, he just tried to make them sound good. He didn’t show up and tell James and Lars what to do - he just did what they asked him to: produce a great sounding album with a solid low end and groove. The songs, however, were theirs. The direction was theirs. If they weren’t happy with the final product, they wouldn’t have worked with him for the next 13 years.

The same goes for Axl. He’s notoriously one of the most controlling, demanding, volatile rock stars of all time…but *Beta* tells him what to do? It doesn’t line up.

I do have some sympathy for him, though, because Beta and Fernando - in addition to being his employees - are also his friends and makeshift little family. He seems to have genuine love for them, which probably makes it hard for *Axl* to be hard on *them.*

If we think about it, he probably enables them just as much as they enable him.

2 minutes ago, Voodoochild said:

I don't know, it's just my speculation. But it just came to my mind now that Merck said that the 2006 tour helped fund the additional recordings or something like that, so maybe you're right.

Didn’t the label cut Axl off after a while? I can’t recall exactly, but I seem to remember them pulling their funding at a certain point. I think Merck’s comments were in reference to Axl having to tour to earn the income to fund the last few years of CD.

7 minutes ago, allwaystired said:

I don't think it's ever healthy, personally, to surround yourself with people who let you do exactly as you want. You sort of need people to challenge you, call you out sometimes, all that stuff. 

 

Certainly not. I understand wanting them to have your desired interests at heart, but you have to let the people you hire do the job you hired them for.

I want my accountant to get me a fat return every year, but I don’t tell him how to calculate the numbers. I want my lawyer to protect my legal interests, but I don’t tell him which argument to make. I want my personal trainer to get me nice and ripped, but I don’t tell him “oh and by the way, I don’t like weight lifting, so find another way.”

As much as I hate to say it, this might be as good as it gets! TB enables Axl’s behavior…but they remain employed, the band is a regularly touring entity, everyone seems to be generally happy (except for fans hoping for new music). Anybody who challenged Axl ended up fired.

My bullshit armchair psychoanalysis is that it’s going to take some real internal work for Axl to loosen the reins a little bit. If *everyone* he hired ended up being an incompetent fool who undermined him…at some point there has to be a moment of self awareness when he realizes the common denominator.

5 minutes ago, Voodoochild said:

Exactly. Axl didn't get along with any other management because they kept pushing him to do what normal artists should do - release music, touring, making money. TB is not the reason for the sloth pace of things, they just don't push Axl enough (which is why Axl wanted them, probably). 

Yep. And on a certain level, I understand the idea of wanting your management to do what you want them to, but it’s sort of like hiring a football coach and then telling him what plays to call. It’s not gonna work.

4 minutes ago, allwaystired said:

The reality of the situation was that everyone who wanted to buy CD did, but it wasn't 1991 any more and many fans had moved on or simply didn't like what they heard. I don't think any amount of marketing or promotion would have changed that. 

Bingo. If anything, the label really fleeced Best Buy, who bought a million copies or so of the album - many of which had to be sold on clearance.

11 minutes ago, Voodoochild said:

Who is defending Team Brazil? As far as I know, the thing is about who is the responsible for a release. 

I’m not disagreeing with you, but I do want to add on to this conversation:

I notice on this forum that a lot of times we refer to Team Brazil as being strictly Beta and Fernando. Axl is Team Brazil too. It really should be called Team Axl. I read posts that refer to TB as if they’re controlling things and as if Axl is a bystander, ignorant to all of poor choices TB has made. Axl is running the show. It’s not Beta masterminding years of stagnation by whispering in Axl’s ear. These are Axl’s choices.

9 minutes ago, allwaystired said:

There is absolutely no way that if GNR wanted a new album out they could get it released, on their terms, with any label they chose to. 

When you think of some of the minority interest music that gets released there's no way labels wouldn't be climbing over themselves to release music from a band like GNR, who, no matter what quality the album is, will sell more albums than 80 or 90 per cent of the other acts they have on their roster. 

And let's face it, they could just go in-house and do it themselves if they really wanted to. As many other big (and small) acts do. 

I'd say it's one of the biggest nonsenses in GNR land that the record labels are the problem. They want to make money, so holding up or stopping releases from a big band would make absolutely zero sense. 

Exactly. The fact is that the labels bankrolled Chinese Democracy for *years*. Eventually, they’re going to want to see some return on their investment. That’s not corporate greed, that’s common sense. If Axl started a Kickstarter for Chinese Democracy and we all contributed, after 10 years with nothing to show for it, we’d all want our money back.

The lack of promotion for Chinese Democracy I can chalk up to a few things: they had already poured so much money into the project and they knew that pouring a ton more into a promotion for a band that, in 2008, was pretty irrelevant was a waste of money. Or the fact that they had to force the album out of Axl’s hands caused a lot of bad blood. Or Axl was simply too difficult and demanding and they were probably like “you know what? Fuck this guy. If he doesn’t want to be cooperative, why bother?”

None of which I can blame on the label.

And, like you said, it’s easier than ever to release music now. And for a band that just had one of the most lucrative tours of all time, any label would be falling over themselves to release music and keep the momentum rolling. It just doesn’t add up.

9 hours ago, Bitchisback said:

I don't think it's the writing or the signing tbh. I think it's everything else.  The process of making an album, having to deal with the label and the marketing and the executives, the promoting. Everything sounded like a huge fucking mess when he was trying to put out Chinese Democracy.  I just don't think he ever wants to deal with that again.

Well that’s where I have a really hard time giving Axl the benefit of the doubt.

I just have a hard time believing that every other major artist seems to be able to work with the label and get their product on the shelves, but for Axl they make it too difficult.

I’m sure everything was a mess for Chinese Democracy, and I’m sure a lot of that had to with Axl and GNR management.

1 hour ago, AxlRoseCDII said:

It would be good and efficient since Axl wouldn’t have to write anything.

At this point I don’t know if the issue is the writing so much as the singing.

I’m still a believer that studio magic can work wonders on Axl’s voice and get us a record that sounds like it should. But he might not think that way.