Naupis

If you had asked me in his prime (when GNR had released 3 albums plus an ep and covers album in a 6 year stretch) if Axl would only manage one new album the rest of his career (that he proceeded to be so embarrassed of he didn't promote it) I would never have believed it. He was one of the last guys I would ever peg as being happy and content with being a nostalgia act that tours the decades old hits. Not sure I have ever seen the flame extenguished on someone creatively the way it has him as he went from being someone with a ton to say to absolutely nothing, which is wild. The guy has been content to mail it in for 3 decades now. We wouldn't even have CD if they didn't take the decision out of his hands. I don't know what the hell happened to him, but it is a damn shame and not something I could have seen coming in a million years in the early 90's as being his ultimate fate.

I can't get over how much I like it. In no way shape or form was that a song I was excited about when the track list was released. Just didn't think there was new ground to cover there, but his guitar solos are totally on point and frankly I really like the video. Michael Jerome has won himself a bunch of new fans. Just sifting through comments on the songs and the amount of people commenting on how awesome he sounds and how great so many of his fills are is enough that clearly he shined on these songs. The album is just a great example of not taking the music too seriously or overthinking it. He could have spent 2 more years fine tuning and obsessing over it and I am not sure he could have captured a more dynamic sound if he tried.

Actually for about the last 25 (maybe even 30) he is totally predictable. Do as little as humanly possible and get money from whoever will give it to him. He hasn't had drive or creativity in 30+ years now.

I went and listened to the original and man what a difference adding the guitars in makes to the vibe. His solo is just fire for this song. This is a great example of a cover done well, which is wildly difficult to pull off when a song is so iconic and people are protective of it. Slash has to be thrilled with the general overall response to how people seem to be receiving this album in general.

Drumming on this record is freaking brilliant. Slash seems to have an ear for them as Fitz is an ace as well. I think Axl went through a period of claiming Slash was trying to take over the band and frankly that probably wouldn't have been a bad thing. Poor drumming and horrendous production values hinder what meager output GNR produces these days, and Slash seems to be right on freaking top of them right now with whatever he's doing.

When I saw the song list for the album PWARS was one I thought I'd have zero interest in as it is so well traveled ground. Sounds totally fresh though and yet still so much like Slash. He'll never get the level of credit he deserves for how insane his ability to play anything in almost genre, make it sound like it's fits in, and yet still be uniquely identifiable as Slash. There is no square peg in a round hole with him, and people will never understand how hard that is to do while simulatenously keeping your signature style sound.

Covers album or not from the songs I've listened to thus far Slash is anything but a spent creative force at this point. It is wonderful to hear him playing blues standards that still manage to sound entirely like Slash. There were plenty of times so far I was thinking about him from the Snakepit era in the way he sounds on some of these, which makes me happy. When he's totally invested in and excited about something (and with this project he clearly was) he is still formidable creatively. I think the production sounds great. I am to a point of almost irrational hatred that any GNR stuff we get always by necessity seems to have to sound like crap with palm on the forehead levels of production when it is clear there is another option. I thank God Slash didn't decide 30 years ago he was content to live on AFD royalties for the rest of his life like other bandmates. Knowing he is still capable of being a robust creative force is the only thing that gives me the sliver of hope that one day Axl wakes up from his coma and decides he has something to say again for the first time in 3 decades that is worth recording. If that glorious day ever comes for GNR fans at least we know Slash is still capable of answering the bell in an adequate fashion. Stormy Monday is some of the best playing I have heard from him in ages. The spark thankfully does still burn.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/12/entertainment/guns-n-roses-slash-fleetwood-mac-chris-stapleton/index.html Slash made the front page of the CNN website. Saw his picture and accompanying acrticle.

The production value on both songs we have heard so far is orders of magnitude better than anything I have heard from Slash since WOF or from GNR since the early 90's. I wish someone could get Axl locked in a room and force him to listen to how well produced this new Slash stuff is and ask him how on earth he isn't ashamed to put the GNR name on the last batch of songs they have been releasing. Kudos to Slash on this project though as it feels fresh and dynamic despite being an album of cover songs. He clearly didn't mail it in and just slap his name on it as something to release to keep his name out there. I think my favorite thing about him is that regardless of what genre he is playing he manages to kind of fit in yet still sounds like himself and how you expect Slash to sound. When he played with Michael Jackson even I marveled at that how it was still clearly Slash but not Slash at all if that makes sense. I think he could make a killer southern rock style album with a guy like Chris Stapleton based on how good this song sounds.

I preferred the earliest incarnations of their touring before the GNR reunion when that was the only way to hear Slash play them (still stand by musically his band sounds more like GNR playing the songs than the band that tours with the name) but I have mad respect for Slash that he actually worked to make this a real band with it's own identity outside of the GNR covers like it was in the beginning. It would have been quite easy to lean on the GNR hits in perpetuity salting in his SMKC stuff. The band stands on it's own merits though with it's own catalog and most of the people going to these shows know that at this point and still go. I always thought for better or worse had Axl taken this approach to his solo stuff he might have had a much better go of it with far less of the negativity that ultimately consumed him and what he was doing. SMKC basically playing whole shows of a great majority their own material is walking the walk of being a real band in name and practice. Compared to how easy it would be to keep churning through Slash's hits instead of leaning on their own material I couldn't have more respect for the guy and the band as a whole.

Song is still chugging along, up to 1.7 million views after 9 days. It has really grown on me and sounds like one of the fresher things I have heard from Slash in a while, which is ironic considering it is a 60 year old cover. Starting to see reaction videos popping up as well, which is always a sign something is really catching on.

It's up to 1.4 million views in 6 days now. He even has Rick Beato as the top comment posted as he called it "killer". I am genuinely surprised at how many views it has gotten as it's not like he spent months pounding the pavement about the project or single release date. It all seemed to happen kind of fast frankly, so to see such a big/strong reaction so fast suggests people are spreading the word to check it out. It's kind of cool people still care like they do, and that a cover of a 60 year old song by Grandpa aged rock n rollers still gets people excited.

Slash is pushing 60 (it seems wrong to even type that) but he is still seen as modern and relevant enough to be the guy a billion dollar movie franchise went to to record for the film. People can't begin to understand what a compliment it is to him and a testament to his effort to make a point of never allowing himself to be pigeon holed as just a hard rock guitarist. As a fan of the guy if he hadn't have continued to work at putting himself out there alot of the stuff we've been able to enjoy post Guns break up likely never happens. The "Slash" business allows him to do stuff that to your normal 80's rock guitarist can't because it's not commercially viable. The fact that he made out the other side of the Grunge movement that laid waste to 80's rock 30 years ago to still be in demand and relevant 30 years later is crazy. I hadn't even realized until after the hubaloo of that performance that he was the guy who recorded it in the first place, I thought they just brought him in to do the over the top live performance. He will undoubtedly be getting more future business as his contributions went kind of well.

Axl was trend chasing at that time, not modernizing the GNR sound. I am happy Slash wouldn't go down that road. Sadly Axl never had the maturity to realize that the rest of the world in famous bands who want to do something different just start a solo project and release music that way. Then you reconvene a few years later and release a GNR album that sounds like the GNR people want to hear. The poor guy just seemed to stop being able to see the big picture on seemingly anything at about the same time a parasitic Brazillian family entered his life. Funny how things have been half assed ever since.