Axl perfection dilemma: Lyrics vs. Instrumental vs. Voice

[seagullview]

Regardless whether you call it perfectionism or insecurities my main question was what do you think he is re-working the most?

Lyrics?

Instrumental?

Vocal?

[tinyrobot]

What is it to pull a Rovim?

To make the cupcakes and haters swallow their venom in a fancy way.

[maynard]

I never swallow.

[magisme]

What is it to pull a Rovim?

To Pull a Rovim:

1. To shit-spampost often and at length, jumping to grand conclusions based on scant, at best, evidence.

2. To make pretty much zero sense.

3. To imitate wasted.

Edited January 3, 2015 by magisme

[ManetsBR]

Yeah, I hate when people use evidence on discussions.

[DieselDaisy]

Axl is certainly a perfectionist, but, being a perfectionist does not mean the results end up, perfect. Quite the reverse in fact - Democracy was obviously a flawed album. Perhaps it would be more correct to say he has an obsessive compulsive disorder, especially when overdubs are concerned. He has George Lucas syndrome, of, micro-managing everything and procrastinating.

Edited January 4, 2015 by DieselDaisy

[Rovim]

What is it to pull a Rovim?

To Pull a Rovim:

1. To shit-spampost often and at length, jumping to grand conclusions based on scant, at best, evidence.

2. To make pretty much zero sense.

3. To imitate wasted.

1. I always base my conclusions on what I know, and if not, I always state it's just my guess. My posts are long cause that's my style. I have a lot to say and I like to go into detail.

2. I always make sense. You won't find a post I've made that is not logical, unless it was made jokingly.

3. I don't know what you mean by that. Even if there are similarities, you're saying I do it on purpose which is just not the case.

[tomfriend]

Axl's only compulsion is to do things how he sees fit and in his own time. That can easily be mistaken for perfectionism.

[D..]

Axl clearly is a perfectionist, maybe one of the most maniac guys in the music industry. You don't wait that many years to release an album.

He is a perfectionist on every level, he wants the music to sound perfect, he even wants the sound to sound perfect, as crazy as it... huh, sounds. He wanted to look perfect (I think he gave up when he came back in 2009, 2008 must have been too hard for him, and I guess that you just don't care that much once you reach a certain age), wanted his voice to sound badass, hire the best musicians around, write deep lyrics...

No matter what people think about Chinese, the amount of work that went through it is phenomenal, but it takes trained ears to get the level of that album. It clearly took more than "months" or "3 years" to make.

That being said, I think that Axl is clearly lost right now. He doesn't sound right, doesn't have the right band, and maybe he got tired of the "old" upcoming songs from CD. Maybe he doesn't care that much right now, has been working too hard on Gn'R for too long, the vibe is gone, his old mates are gone, the world he used to know is gone. I can relate to that.

I hope he finds what he needs to come back as the king he once was.

[Nosaj Thing]

Axl is certainly a perfectionist, but, being a perfectionist does not mean the results end up, perfect. Quite the reverse in fact - Democracy was obviously a flawed album. Perhaps it would be more correct to say he has an obsessive compulsive disorder, especially when overdubs are concerned. He has George Lucas syndrome, of, micro-managing everything and procrastinating.

I have said the same thing but people always confuse being a perfectionist with being a OCD paranoid. Axl is definitely the latter.

If you think about it. He's very similar to Howard Hughes.

Edited January 4, 2015 by Nosaj Thing

[seagullview]

Tommy Stinson:

GUNS N' ROSES: "Axl Is A Methodical Perfectionist"

June 10, 2004, 10 years ago

news rock hard guns roses

GUNS N' ROSES bassist Tommy Stinson recently spoke with Jon Wiederhorn of MTV.com about the never ending saga that is Chinese Democracy. "There are just so many little aspects that are being finalized on that record that every once in a while someone will go, 'God, I just realized you hit a bad note in this one place. We just found it.' And I'll go in and sort it out." After having worked with a long list of producers — including Roy Thomas Baker, Bob Ezrin, Sean Beavan and Moby — Axl Rose has taken over production duties for the album, Stinson said. The reason the disc isn't done yet, he added, is because Rose is a methodical perfectionist who wants to make the creation of Chinese Democracy as democratic as possible. "He likes to take all the members of the band and get the best out of each guy for each song," Stinson said. "It's a brilliant process that gets everyone involved so everyone owns a piece of the song because they've put themselves into it. That way you don't have people going, 'Well, I'm not gonna play on his song if you're not gonna sing on my song.' And that's a lengthy process because you have to get eight people to basically write a song together that everyone likes." Stinson added that he thinks the record is finally almost done, and the only thing that's holding back its completion is legal issues. Even the recent departure of guitarist Buckethead isn't slowing anything down. "As far as I know, he hasn't been replaced, but we already have enough guitarists," Stinson said. "We have Robin Finck and Richard Fortus, and Buckethead will be on the record, too. I really have no idea why he decided to leave, but it didn't come out of left field because he's always come and gone. Even when I do see him, I don't know what he thinks." There is still no release date set for Chinese Democracy.

http://bravewords.com/news/guns-n-roses-axl-is-a-methodical-perfectionist

Marc Canter:

Axl is a perfectionist to the extreme; it had to be right or not at all. Somewhere along the line, he had to start eating some of that and realize he couldn't control everything. People would tape shows and he might forget a lyric or something and he ended up having to accept some of that on some level. Interestingly, they never argued amongst themselves or fought over how a song would be written, though; the songs always just happened and it wasn't any type of power struggle or control trip in that regard. A lot of the songs would start with some idea from Izzy [Stradlin, guitar], like "My Michelle" or "Nighttrain", and then Slash would come and punk it out or rock it up, like the spooky intro part of "Michelle" was total Izzy, but without Slash, we wouldn't have gotten the harder riff that followed it. Axl would hear these unfinished songs and just know exactly how to work within them. Duff [McKagan] and Steven [Adler] would then make the songs truly swing and really flesh them out with their ideas. You could say as some have that Axl was the most important, because he was the singer, but even then I don't think Axl would agree with that. If you took any one of those guys out of the equation, it would have drastically changed all of those songs. It was truly a democracy in the beginning. At that time, in 1985 or 1986, they were all on the exact same page.

http://hairbangersradio.ning.com/profiles/blogs/guns-n-roses-reckless-road-book-author-axl-rose-is-a

Richard Fortus:

"That camp is very… I don't know why. It's just that they're very… Axl is very secretive. He doesn't want stuff getting out. He wants to create stuff and then release it when it's ready. Which I… I get it. He's also a bit of a perfectionist, as you can imagine.

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/richard-fortus-on-new-guns-n-roses-album-axl-rose-wants-to-create-stuff-and-release-it-when-its-ready/#mkRX4HGwZKdHI83l.99

Axl Rose:

"Guns in any lineup wasn't going to release anything all that great any sooner. And no matter how any of us tried, that didn't happen... In regard to so-called 'perfectionism,' I feel that has a lot to do with your goals or requirements with whatever one's doing or creating... Generally, when this term is used by others in regard to me or how I work, it's said in a negative way or as an excuse for their shortcomings -- and again by my detractors. Some people love putting others in a negative light; helps them feel better about themselves. Too many ears and too many stupid comments have proven that."

http://www.spin.com/articles/axl-rose-talks-gnr-tour-new-songs-slash/

[magisme]

Axl is such a whiny bitch.

Not to mention half of it is gibberish.

[DieselDaisy]

He is infuriatingly absent of logic, Axl. The experiments with overdubs and procrastination - Illusion, Chinese - have all resulted in far inferior products than the truly masterful Appetite, an album, recorded in thirty days. Axl is so bonkers and devoid of logic that he said this in 1999,

I originally wanted to make a traditional record or try to get back to an "Appetite [For Destruction]" thing or something, because that would have been a lot easier for me to do. I was involved in a lot of lawsuits for Guns N' Roses and in my own personal life, so I didn't have a lot of time to try and develop a new style or re-invent myself, so I was hoping to write a traditional thing, but I was not really allowed to do that.

He wanted to do an Appetite thing yet ended up recording an album so extravagant, it took a zillion overdubs and a million musicians and producers!! Work that one out? Further, Axl is a perfectionist yet claims to be a fan of Bon Scott and Lynott who are as raw and as rock n' roll as it gets. He also claims to be a Queen fan, and Queen do have some claim to perfectionism, yet he is forgetting that Queen released an album per year!

[Tadsy]

I'm not sure why it's said that he's such a perfectionist all the time. Clearly he isn't, take a listen to Chinese Democracy. Half the songs on there are absolutely horrible and the rest which are somewhat listenable could have been made a hundred times better if he did some things different. Or just take a look at his band. Would he have brought in people like Finck, Buckethead, Bumblefoot, DJ, Dizzy, Pitman, Frank, etc. if he was a perfectionist? Most of them are not only mediocre studio musicians, they're terrible live as well.

What a horrible post. Being a perfectionist has absolutely nothing to do with what you wrote. It has nothing, nothing to do with opinions and taste. It's irrelevant whether Chinese Democracy is your favorite album or if you can't stand to listen to a single second of it. Perfectionism is trying to reach a unattainable ideal of what your vision on something is. Sure, perhaps the earlier versions of the album would sound rawer and more clean, which would please some, but that was not Axl's vision for it. I'm not saying I agree with him or if I would have enjoyed it more, our opinions don't matter here. To keep it crystal clear, let's take a look at the Wikipedia's definition of Perfectionism: a person's striving for flawlessness and setting excessively high performance standards, accompanied by overly critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others' evaluations. [...] Perfectionism drives people to attempt to achieve an unattainable ideal. [...] When perfectionists do not reach their goals, they often fall into depression.

Axl being perfectionist has nothing to do with you personally enjoying his songs or not. Get out of yout bubble, for Christ's sake. There are some Stanley Kubrick's films who I personally dislike, but I wouldn't dare to disagree with his status of perfectionist. It has to do with how hard you try, not how many people you please. Take a look at George Lucas, for example. Him and Axl have a lot in common. Once they were surrounded by yes-mesn and allowed unlimited resources, they snapped. Lucas changes irrelevant stuff on the old Star Wars movies on every single re-release. It will never reach his "ideal vision". And most times, his changes were totally dumb and didn't add anything to the movies.

With Axl, he has not only re-recorded his music over and over; but always when someone new gets onboard, he gets the person to add something to the material. He personally asked Brain to re-record Josh Freese's drumming note for note because he liked Brain's touch. Take a look at the 2006 leaked version of Chinese Democracy, the song. That was not a "demo", that was, on the parameters of any reasonable person, a totally finished, ready for release song. But no, once Frank and Ron joined the band, both of them worked on the song. A somewhat finished song. And, in my opinion, they ruined it. But that doesn't make it any less of an evidence of Axl's perfectionism. That's the deal, really. There's no such thing is artistic perfection, art after all is purely subjective. I've told this story a couple of times here before, but the one time I spoke to Beta, she said something I always remember. Read again the middle part of the Wikipedia definition: "accompanied by overly critical self-evaluations and concerns regarding others' evaluations". Well, what Beta said was: Axl's music is his baby. He gets sad with leaks because what we get to hear - and judge - is not the final version. Apparently, he goes on message forums and reads what every one of us write about his music.

So yeah, Axl is a perfectionist, whether you agree or not, wheter you like his music or not.

What an arrogant post...

Congratulations, you can wiki something!

There are so many reasons as to why Axl isn't a perfectionist only a deluded fool like you could miss them.

[Nosaj Thing]

Tommy Stinson:

GUNS N' ROSES: "Axl Is A Methodical Perfectionist"

June 10, 2004, 10 years ago

news rock hard guns roses

GUNS N' ROSES bassist Tommy Stinson recently spoke with Jon Wiederhorn of MTV.com about the never ending saga that is Chinese Democracy. "There are just so many little aspects that are being finalized on that record that every once in a while someone will go, 'God, I just realized you hit a bad note in this one place. We just found it.' And I'll go in and sort it out." After having worked with a long list of producers — including Roy Thomas Baker, Bob Ezrin, Sean Beavan and Moby — Axl Rose has taken over production duties for the album, Stinson said. The reason the disc isn't done yet, he added, is because Rose is a methodical perfectionist who wants to make the creation of Chinese Democracy as democratic as possible. "He likes to take all the members of the band and get the best out of each guy for each song," Stinson said. "It's a brilliant process that gets everyone involved so everyone owns a piece of the song because they've put themselves into it. That way you don't have people going, 'Well, I'm not gonna play on his song if you're not gonna sing on my song.' And that's a lengthy process because you have to get eight people to basically write a song together that everyone likes." Stinson added that he thinks the record is finally almost done, and the only thing that's holding back its completion is legal issues. Even the recent departure of guitarist Buckethead isn't slowing anything down. "As far as I know, he hasn't been replaced, but we already have enough guitarists," Stinson said. "We have Robin Finck and Richard Fortus, and Buckethead will be on the record, too. I really have no idea why he decided to leave, but it didn't come out of left field because he's always come and gone. Even when I do see him, I don't know what he thinks." There is still no release date set for Chinese Democracy.

http://bravewords.com/news/guns-n-roses-axl-is-a-methodical-perfectionist

Marc Canter:

Axl is a perfectionist to the extreme; it had to be right or not at all. Somewhere along the line, he had to start eating some of that and realize he couldn't control everything. People would tape shows and he might forget a lyric or something and he ended up having to accept some of that on some level. Interestingly, they never argued amongst themselves or fought over how a song would be written, though; the songs always just happened and it wasn't any type of power struggle or control trip in that regard. A lot of the songs would start with some idea from Izzy [Stradlin, guitar], like "My Michelle" or "Nighttrain", and then Slash would come and punk it out or rock it up, like the spooky intro part of "Michelle" was total Izzy, but without Slash, we wouldn't have gotten the harder riff that followed it. Axl would hear these unfinished songs and just know exactly how to work within them. Duff [McKagan] and Steven [Adler] would then make the songs truly swing and really flesh them out with their ideas. You could say as some have that Axl was the most important, because he was the singer, but even then I don't think Axl would agree with that. If you took any one of those guys out of the equation, it would have drastically changed all of those songs. It was truly a democracy in the beginning. At that time, in 1985 or 1986, they were all on the exact same page.

http://hairbangersradio.ning.com/profiles/blogs/guns-n-roses-reckless-road-book-author-axl-rose-is-a

Richard Fortus:

"That camp is very… I don't know why. It's just that they're very… Axl is very secretive. He doesn't want stuff getting out. He wants to create stuff and then release it when it's ready. Which I… I get it. He's also a bit of a perfectionist, as you can imagine.

http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/richard-fortus-on-new-guns-n-roses-album-axl-rose-wants-to-create-stuff-and-release-it-when-its-ready/#mkRX4HGwZKdHI83l.99

Axl Rose:

"Guns in any lineup wasn't going to release anything all that great any sooner. And no matter how any of us tried, that didn't happen... In regard to so-called 'perfectionism,' I feel that has a lot to do with your goals or requirements with whatever one's doing or creating... Generally, when this term is used by others in regard to me or how I work, it's said in a negative way or as an excuse for their shortcomings -- and again by my detractors. Some people love putting others in a negative light; helps them feel better about themselves. Too many ears and too many stupid comments have proven that."

http://www.spin.com/articles/axl-rose-talks-gnr-tour-new-songs-slash/

Replace "perfectionist" with "obsessive-compulsive disorder" and yep, I agree with the quotes.

[Jakey Styley]

Axl has no quest.