Naupis

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.

It should be a major criticism. Axl & Slash haven't released original material together in 30 years and so far we have gotten a dribbling of filler level songs that are essentially discarded b-sides. I weep at the way they have soiled what should have been a monumental moment when true "New" GNR material was heard by the world for the first time in 30 years. They should have released nothing until they were ready to release a real single. Something that sounds like the GNR the world wants to hear. I think about when there was the question of how they would follow up Appetite and show the world they were anything but one album wonders and You Could be Mine properly kicked the world's ass and cast aside any doubt. With each bit of follow up filler they are releasing they are diluting the brand in the event they actually do want to release proper music at some point. When so much time had passed releasing filler one after another doesn't send the kind of message you would want to. If Axl thought the world just had to hear this stuff include it in a future box set. Don't keep releasing sub par stuff that gives the world everything but the impression "we're back".

Frankly I am disappointed in all of them for releasing this series of half ass songs under the guise of being new "real" GNR songs when the quality level is no where near what people would have expected and hoped for getting Axl/Slash on a song together again. The idea that they are content to put the GNR brand name on left over B-sides from the CD Sessions as their big post reunion releases frankly is kind of embarrassing compared to the level of quality people would expect who didn't know the whole back story about why these songs even exist. Slash has no interest quite clearly in stuff that's been sitting around for 2 decades and clearly is just going along to get along. That's actually in character for him. Axl is the one I am dumbfounded is OK with being as creatively backrupt as he is right now while he just milks the back catalog with endless tours. He always held himself out as being above that type of approach. That he has essentially spent 25 years now with nothing to say creatively in terms of new music (even the new releases are all old) is about the last thing I would have ever expected if you had asked me in 1995 what his career arc would look like. We haven't had new music from Axl and Slash in 30 years and yet they are OK releasing stuff like Hard Skool, Silkworms and Perhaps like those in any way stand up to the level of quality people were so desperately hoping would come from a reunion. The whole thing just makes me sad from the piece meal approach to the going through the motions. There was a time they were better than this.

Yup. It was financially beneficial for them to leverage their relationship with Axl into letting them do jobs they had no business doing. They always knew that with a many hundred million dollar reunion would come professional management and their little fiefdom would go poof. For a while they were in a perfect sweet spot with New GNR where they were able to do their grifting and no one said anything about it. Clearly the money dried up and supporting a Brazillion family ain't cheap so Axl did what he had to do. The way they isolated him and leveraged his personal feelings for them into lucrative financial gain for themselves will always be one of the more disgusting realities of the GNR ship having sunk.