Here’s Why I’d Hate A Guns N’ Roses Reunion

[gunsfanoldie]

Also, I'd just like to note those same people that want to believe Axl has and will release new music, have to also remember Fernando said they would have been news in 3 months. And nothing came of it. And thats specifically the point. I don't want it to be the case, but these guys can't be trusted and they've proven it time and time again. At least with original members back in the band there won't be so much bullshit. I trust Duff and Slash. I don't trust a word Axl or his management says.

[Tom-Ass]

Chinese Democracy Stops Now...

Slash/Duff and Izzy recorded an albums worth of material already that was shelved.. Take the best of that and the best of what Axl has lying around and make an album. That is if Axl's music is even anything close to being completed.

[RussTCB]

Chinese Democracy Stops Now...

Slash/Duff and Izzy recorded an albums worth of material already that was shelved.. Take the best of that and the best of what Axl has lying around and make an album. That is if Axl's music is even anything close to being completed.

First things first: I would absolutely adore it if one of the t-shirts said "Chinese Democracy Stops Now" on it. I hear Axl is always in a good mood, joking and what not, so I think even he would appreciate that.

Second; I'd be all for that idea of using the best of what's around.

[Strange Broue]

So many great posts in this thread but i ran out of likes....

[RussTCB]

So many great posts in this thread but i ran out of likes....

I shot you a like for this post if that helps lol

[Nick85]

Well you know, we may not get a new GNR album or reunion tour in 2016, but we ARE getting a sequel to Return of The Jedi and movie that has Batman AND Superman together onscreen for the first time in history. So, you know, the world isn't ALL bad.

[NineInchGun]

The writer did what he set out to do, got people talking, so credit where credit's due.

As far as his attachment to CD, he's an Axl loyalist. Cool for him.

All his drivel about the commitment to the music is just one eye roll after another for me. Axl has rotated a cast of hired guns (no pun intended) ever since he broke up the Illusion era lineup. He has used the AFD/UYL hits for almost 20 years to stay relevant, everything from the VMAs performance to the Appetite for Democracy residency.

For someone like me, born in 1987, my choices to hear Appetite/Illusion songs in person by someone who played on the recording have been:

Axl with NuGNR

Slash, Duff and Matt with Scott Weiland

Slash w/ Myles

Adler's Appetite

The writer had, oh lord knows how many, chances to go see Chinese Democracy songs performed live by Axl&NuGNR, they've been touring the damn thing since 2002. And you want to cry about a nostalgia tour? Give me a f---ing break.

[BreakDown2014]

The writer did what he set out to do, got people talking, so credit where credit's due.

As far as his attachment to CD, he's an Axl loyalist. Cool for him.

All his drivel about the commitment to the music is just one eye roll after another for me. Axl has rotated a cast of hired guns (no pun intended) ever since he broke up the Illusion era lineup. He has used the AFD/UYL hits for almost 20 years to stay relevant, everything from the VMAs performance to the Appetite for Democracy residency.

For someone like me, born in 1987, my choices to hear Appetite/Illusion songs in person by someone who played on the recording have been:

Axl with NuGNR

Slash, Duff and Matt with Scott Weiland

Slash w/ Myles

Adler's Appetite

The writer had, oh lord knows how many, chances to go see Chinese Democracy songs performed live by Axl&NuGNR, they've been touring the damn thing since 2002. And you want to cry about a nostalgia tour? Give me a f---ing break.

Even though I don't personally agree, I see your point. Great post. Welcome to the forum!

[Chris 55]

A reunion without new music would just be shit.

A bunch of overweight men with saggy tits and receding hairlines playing the same tired songs they've been whoring for the last 20 years.

YEAH! MEN WITH FIRM TITS AND TONS OF HAIR IS WHAT ME AND TOWLIE WANT!

[KinseyHolley]

Force Izzy to do it at gun point

I'd be okay with this.

[wasted]

Some of this stuff isn't Axl's fault, some of it is just what band's do, some of it is just subjective.

The fact we don't see the classic line up playing the hits isn't really Axl's fault. Only Steven quit. The others could have stayed.

Most bands play the hits. Axl played more than most of the new album.

Some prefer 3 albums, but Axl had 1 strong one. It's really whether you think those songs are special. But one thing is sure that one album had enough fuel to mean they could add a song or two per tour. I didnt see a show after 2009 so I havent seen Sorry, Catcher, Prostitute.

So I really think it's the fact it's not the classic line up that makes people see things negatively. Only real difference is 1 cd for the decade instead of 2 cds for the 90s. It does really feel like there should be 2 cds from that creative period 98-2004.

So I could agree with OP about wanting CD II over a reunion tour. Just because I like CD and feel like there must be more good stuff. I've seen the band in 91. And it's cool they are on good terms because that was stupid. And to see them get all that love from the crowd would be cool, because really shook the world there for a few years.

Why not both?

But it really all comes down to what the artist wants to do.

[Smokin' Cigarettes]

I'm just continuously amazed at how there's still people here who think Axl still has another run at the top of the music industry in his 50's.

[LA_0013]

This essay is brilliant: http://www.stereogum.com/1844250/heres-why-id-hate-a-guns-n-roses-reunion/franchises/essay/

Particularly these ending paragraphs:

Most disheartening of all, though, is what this reunion would mean for Axl Roses legacy: Hed be downgrading from paranoid, perfectionistic, and tyrannical to acquisitive, avaricious, and cynical. Hed be evolving from genuine eccentric to just another middle-aged musician trading on nostalgia, trying to cash in while cash is still on the table. Hed be dismissing the goodwill of every fan who dedicated serious time to Chinese Democracy, every fan who heard that spoken-sung Count Chocula accent and wondered, How and why the holy hell did he come up with THAT? After spending more than 11 years and $13 million on Chinese Democracy, hed be disowning the thing. His magnum opus, disavowed. More than a decade of his life, tossed aside in favor of rehashing songs he co-wrote when he was 23 years old, when Ronald Reagan was in office. Hed be betraying us a little bit, but hed be betraying himself a whole lot more.

Hed also be shutting the door on those Chinese Democracy sequels. In the case of the remix album, thats probably a good thing. Nobody wants that. Im not even sure anybody would release that. But I, for one, was sincerely and eagerly looking forward to hearing the second half of Chinese Democracy, irrespective of how the world at large might respond to such a proposition. I mean it! I didnt expect that album to yield a vast trove of great music, but Axl Rose rarely puts his name on anything thats not at least pretty good and inherently interesting. Furthermore, the very existence of both those albums even if they existed chiefly in Axl Roses imagination suggested an artist altogether unmoored from reality, and therefore, an artist guided by an idiosyncratic muse, an artist uninterested in making a profit or pleasing anyone.

Scoff all you like, but those choices require an almost religious-fanatical commitment; a commitment to a deluded worldview, yes, but a commitment thats all too rare in art today. We need more musicians like batshit Axl Rose: musicians who pursue their vision at any cost, financial or personal. We dont need more reunion tours: reprehensible cash-grabs that spurn integrity and monetize nostalgia. If caring about music is supposed to mean something anything we need at least a handful of unyielding, unreasonable, uncompromising iconoclasts to give it definition, to give us direction. Where do we go? Where do we go now?

I couldn't agree more.

Oh please. Like someone can't divert to do something different in life then eventually go back to the original stuff that actually made them in the first place?

For good and for bad, Axl had an itch and by God he scratched it. Time to realize that the only way to regain any sort of momentum is to swallow his pride a little and accept it was 5 guys, not 1, that made him.

LA

[Babooshka]

The fact we don't see the classic line up playing the hits isn't really Axl's fault. Only Steven quit. The others could have stayed.

Axl quit the band, which then triggered the clause that allowed him to take possession of the name. He then assembled a new legal entity using that name. Please, stop with this revisionist crap that everyone left Axl standing. He made a power play and it blew up in his face.

[wasted]

The fact we don't see the classic line up playing the hits isn't really Axl's fault. Only Steven quit. The others could have stayed.

Axl quit the band, which then triggered the clause that allowed him to take possession of the name. He then assembled a new legal entity using that name. Please, stop with this revisionist crap that everyone left Axl standing. He made a power play and it blew up in his face.

Not really, they could have joined the next partnership. They just didn't I guess because Axl had the name and it wasn't really working.

But really it fell apart before Axl decided to move on, essentially they abandoned ship. And they had reasons like Axl was late, a dictator etc.

They never said Axl took the name and excluded us at the time. They chose not to be part of it for various reasons.

Izzy and Steven were out before the name thing and Duff to his credit only left after Slash quit to go solo.

So it's not really Axl's fault they didn't want to be there to play the hits for us.

[ChineseIRS]

The fact we don't see the classic line up playing the hits isn't really Axl's fault. Only Steven quit. The others could have stayed.

Axl quit the band, which then triggered the clause that allowed him to take possession of the name. He then assembled a new legal entity using that name. Please, stop with this revisionist crap that everyone left Axl standing. He made a power play and it blew up in his face.

Not really, they could have joined the next partnership. They just didn't I guess because Axl had the name and it wasn't really working.

But really it fell apart before Axl decided to move on, essentially they abandoned ship. And they had reasons like Axl was late, a dictator etc.

They never said Axl took the name and excluded us at the time. They chose not to be part of it for various reasons.

Izzy and Steven were out before the name thing and Duff to his credit only left after Slash quit to go solo.

So it's not really Axl's fault they didn't want to be there to play the hits for us.

Steven quit? Really? To the world he was fired no?

[Rovim]

If there ever is a reunion, I personally feel we need to start a petition that you know... basically says let Steven fuckin' play.

Axl is worried about years of litigation? fuck that. Lawyers can come up with a bullet proof contract. He's been through enough and he deserves to be a part of it if it actually happens.

Nevermind that he still got it and his sound is irreplaceable as was evident in the rock n' roll hole of shit in 2012.

Edited November 20, 2015 by Rovim

[wasted]

He can play for free and Slash can just give him a suitcase of money at the end of the tour.

[DieselDaisy]

It could be said that Slash and Duff quit however they quit with extreme provocation!

[wasted]

I guess Axl's lateness and walk offs werent something they wanted to make a career of. But at the same time who cares. Dj n Fortus can take danger.

[sturginho]

The article would have been correct if it was c.2002-4 and Axl had just folded his new band and experimental 'trilogy' in favour of a reunion and cash pot, but today, the article makes absolute no sense! Just where is this ''artist guided by an idiosyncratic muse...uninterested in making a profit or pleasing anyone'', because all I have seen since c.2011 has been a wash-out rolling out the hits in endless Vegas cash grabs? The antithesis of Axl described by the writer - “another middle-aged musician trading on nostalgia, trying to cash in while cash is still on the table'' - is actually a much better description of the Axl we see these days, not this 'visionary'.

Some people still beieve that this is all part of Axl's master plan, he's just biding his time...

[Intercourse]

I guess Axl's lateness and walk offs werent something they wanted to make a career of. But at the same time who cares. Dj n Fortus can take danger.self indulgent, childish and piss poor for the fans behaviour

there corrected.

Let me ask you this wasted, you're waiting for a plane to go on a holiday you've been waiting on for a long time and have invested a lot of money in. The plane is delayed by hours or fails to show up at all because the pilot doesn't feel like flying that day.

Would you admire the pilot for being his own man?

[wasted]

Depends. If I find out the pilot had gone awol and was founded holed up with two Vegas strippers at the airport hotel and security had to come to disarm him, I would give him a muchos respect. If he finally turned up in limo two hours late and proceeded to fly us real high above clouds and landed to Paradise City I'd say it was the best flight ever.

[Intercourse]

Depends. If I find out the pilot had gone awol and was founded holed up with two Vegas strippers at the airport hotel and security had to come to disarm him, I would give him a muchos respect. If he finally turned up in limo two hours late and proceeded to fly us real high above clouds and landed to Paradise City I'd say it was the best flight ever.

I'd probably laugh at the first one myself - once.

[wasted]

To be honest I'm not the guy who throws a fit at the check-in if the flights delayed. It's actually good, it's one of those times in life where it's not your fault. The flight is delayed! You're free! So I go to the champagne bar. Suppose that's the same waiting in the crowd for Axl to show up. You're off the grid, you're in the non-time zone, you have no worries, no ones expecting anything from you so just get another over priced beer and soak in the atmosphere. We are always on a schedule but the best times are when everything goes to shit and you are free of responsibilities.