"General Musings" " Thread for all of "Thoughts On" all GnR things in the universe.

[CAFC Nick]

13 minutes ago, ZoSoRose said:

I'd take the final Chinese record over the demoes and 1999 and other versions. Overcooked or not, I appreciate everything that made it into the final album. TWAT's outro, Bumble's playing on the title track, Prostitute solos, more guitars in Madagascar, etc. I like having the other versions, but I actually really enjoy the production of the final product. 

1 minute ago, Rovim said:

everything except Catcher for me personally

Agree with you both here.

Generally speaking the final product and production were far superior on the final album, if a little bit overcooked and lacking the grit. @ZoSoRose all the points you say are completely valid. I think Ron's best work is the title track, I do find the rest of his additions generally quite unnecessary but it doesn't detract at all from the final product.

@Rovim 100% agree on Catcher - this for me is the most striking example. The '99 demo is almost perfect but the album version completely lost its soul and charm. I think the only other one I prefer the demo too is Rhiad. Final album version had the unnecessary, stolen intro and not a huge fan of Ron's solo at all.

[bmus1]

ChiDem also suffers because of when it was recorded. The sound of rock music was pushed and pulled between the loudness war and natural sounding instruments (I guess it still is), and the album sounds like it was caught up in that. Almost everything is compressed to shit, but the actual master has a ton of life of dynamics because they wanted to "preserve the dynamic range" they killed in the mixing stage.

[DoMw94]

38 minutes ago, JimiRose said:

More likely as there are no music videos for the nugnr era.

They didn't exactly use videos for the others. Plus, it wouldn't stop them just using the studio audio. They've done it before

[bmus1]

3 minutes ago, CAFC Nick said:

 

@Rovim 100% agree on Catcher - this for me is the most striking example. The '99 demo is almost perfect but the album version completely lost its soul and charm. I think the only other one I prefer the demo too is Rhiad. Final album version had the unnecessary, stolen intro and not a huge fan of Ron's solo at all.

I've gone back and forth on Ron's additions for awhile, but adding the verse guitar to ChiDem alone justifies the additions. I wish he didn't replace so many solos, but it would be disrespectful to only give overdubbed rhythm guitar duties to him.

I do wish he wasn't on every song though. As I understand it, he was brought on every song to modernize/thicken them. But I think this is what changed some songs from dynamic, interestingly written guitars, to walls of sound during the louder sections (thinking of IRS and TWAT).

[Rovim]

29 minutes ago, bmus1 said:

I've gone back and forth on Ron's additions for awhile, but adding the verse guitar to ChiDem alone justifies the additions. I wish he didn't replace so many solos, but it would be disrespectful to only give overdubbed rhythm guitar duties to him.

I do wish he wasn't on every song though. As I understand it, he was brought on every song to modernize/thicken them. But I think this is what changed some songs from dynamic, interestingly written guitars, to walls of sound during the louder sections (thinking of IRS and TWAT).

I think the walls of sound especisally on IRS gives it way more power and it works too for TWAT but the demo did have interesting guitars imo as well. there are many things in the demos, ideas that were left behind that were great.

[Tom2112]

2 hours ago, Rovim said:

everything except Catcher for me personally

Yeah that's the one exception to the album versions being better

[Gordon Comstock]

15 hours ago, Amir said:

Anyone able to figure out which show that Better clip is from? Looks like 2016 but it's not Houston or San Diego.

 

Mexico City 11/29/2016 (judging from Slash's t-shirt)

 

3 hours ago, Tom2112 said:

Maybe but then you have the title track which infinitely better due to the fretless guitar in the verse. So there's good with the "bad". 

Definitely some moments where it just sounded like there was 100 ideas and all were making the final song and it sounds messy, other times it's pretty hard to not love it. 

This subject gas bo resolution though because it's down to "I like this, I don't like that". Same goes for the recent singles!

 

I actually liked CD better without the fretless in the verses... though I guess it worked out since the bass was neutered on the album lol. And yea... Catcher and IRS are the real sore thumbs with too many ideas going on at once. Even TWAT has those stupid "it was a long time" overdubs... the Antiquiet/2006 mixes were generally the best, IMO.

[Amir]

13 hours ago, DoMw94 said:

Also, when searching 'Chinese Democracy', alongside the other album tracks is a song called 'Chinese Democracy' by Marco Beltrami. It's a 2m 51s orchestral score-type thing that doesn't really resemble the album track. Anybody got any idea what that is?

It's from the 2009 remake of 3:10 to Yuma which he did the score for:

 

[Agattuso]

I agree with those loving the final version of CD but aside of Catcher, I also do miss the early version of The Blues from time to time. That guitar fills/motive in the intro caught me very early when we got the leak and it kinda defined the song for me. It still sound jarring for me listening to the album version without it as my brain is expecting it lol.

 

[Voodoochild]

15 hours ago, CAFC Nick said:

I think the only other one I prefer the demo too is Rhiad. Final album version had the unnecessary, stolen intro and not a huge fan of Ron's solo at all.

Agree. It's one song where the lower end (bass, kick drums) should stand out with the original intended sloppy texture for the guitars. The original Riad demo didn't have really overdriven guitars save for the leads, and it worked perfectly in my opinion. 

I do like Ron's additions on If The World and Sorry. I like the fretless work on Chinese, but I don't like how it buried the other guitars during the verses (they got left-panned and it ruined the mood). I like his Scraped solo, although we can't say for sure if its better than Bucket's original until this demo leaks. The same for Shacklers, the faint Bucket leftover solo that we can barely hear on the RB stems are not good enough to know for sure.

15 hours ago, bmus1 said:

ChiDem also suffers because of when it was recorded. The sound of rock music was pushed and pulled between the loudness war and natural sounding instruments (I guess it still is), and the album sounds like it was caught up in that. Almost everything is compressed to shit, but the actual master has a ton of life of dynamics because they wanted to "preserve the dynamic range" they killed in the mixing stage.

I disagree, I think the compression isn't that bad. But yeah, the mix was messed up. It's like the mix contradicts the original production of all the songs, when they clearly pushed for more low-end industrial vibe for the rockers, and a lush Queen/George Martin-ish vibe for the ballads. All the demos we heard were like that. But then the actual release ignored years of work adding Bumble's guitar loudly and just pushed for a mix that would cut through MySpace bitrates.

[Dean]

 

[Spoon87]

4 hours ago, Agattuso said:

 I also do miss the early version of The Blues from time to time. That guitar fills/motive in the intro caught me very early when we got the leak and it kinda defined the song for me. It still sound jarring for me listening to the album version without it as my brain is expecting it lol.

 

Same really.

These early versions had a certain groove to them. 

[Sweersa]

For the 2008 album, I felt Tommy's bass guitar was too low in the mix. I wish Bumblefoot didn't replace any of Bucket's solos, and I too prefer the older Catcher and Riad. I did like Bumble's contributions to the title track, and his playing on Catcher after the solo when the song is wrapping up. 

One nice thing about the NITL+ single releases, is the bass is loud AF, no doubt because they are trying to convey Duff is f'n' back! Just about everything else with the production of the CD2 releases with Slash and Duff are awful. Slash's playing on the solo for Perhaps also sounds uninspired to me. He did ok on the other stuff though, but we don't have everything to compare every song. (Hopefully we get to hear the Buckethead/Robin Soul Monster and the General some day) 

[jamillos]

I like 

Sympathy for the Devil 

Shotgun Blues 

Bad Apples 

Oh My God 
 

(How's that for provocation?
I'm just makin' a stance)
 

And I'm tired of the frustration
Of livin' inside of your lies
And I'm wired on indignation
I said somebody's got to die

[DoMw94]

On 11/25/2024 at 9:18 PM, CAFC Nick said:

Agree with you both here.

Generally speaking the final product and production were far superior on the final album, if a little bit overcooked and lacking the grit. @ZoSoRose all the points you say are completely valid. I think Ron's best work is the title track, I do find the rest of his additions generally quite unnecessary but it doesn't detract at all from the final product.

@Rovim 100% agree on Catcher - this for me is the most striking example. The '99 demo is almost perfect but the album version completely lost its soul and charm. I think the only other one I prefer the demo too is Rhiad. Final album version had the unnecessary, stolen intro and not a huge fan of Ron's solo at all.

Nailed it. The final product may not be great in comparison to other things, but earlier mixes just sound unfinished to me. They definitely lack something. The earlier mixes don't sound anything close to appealing to me, I prefer the finished version. Well, actually I prefer live versions, but that's a general thing for me – I just prefer live stuff to studio, no matter the band.

  

On 11/26/2024 at 6:24 PM, Sweersa said:

For the 2008 album, I felt Tommy's bass guitar was too low in the mix

This too. Nowhere near enough bass on the album. Probably another reason why I prefer live recordings. It's always there

Edited November 30 by DoMw94

[ZoSoRose]

On 11/25/2024 at 4:10 PM, Rovim said:

everything except Catcher for me personally

 I like Ron’s playing a lot on the final version. It is really busy though, especially the intro

 

[DTV88]

On 11/25/2024 at 1:23 PM, bmus1 said:

I've gone back and forth on Ron's additions for awhile, but adding the verse guitar to ChiDem alone justifies the additions. I wish he didn't replace so many solos, but it would be disrespectful to only give overdubbed rhythm guitar duties to him.

I do wish he wasn't on every song though. As I understand it, he was brought on every song to modernize/thicken them. But I think this is what changed some songs from dynamic, interestingly written guitars, to walls of sound during the louder sections (thinking of IRS and TWAT).

As good as his additions to the title track are, and I really do like them, the older versions with less guitars was actually way more interesting to me. Tommy’s bass is loud and proud and the overall sound feels more like old Guns to me. The little fill or whatever it’s called he added to IRS is absolutely awesome, but I think they should have replaced some of the older guitar tracks rather than simply add more layers. IRS had real potential even with the cheesy chorus. But what do I know 🤷🏻‍♂️

[Voodoochild]

Here's yet another partnership with @evader - this time for the 2006 cover of Sailing. Evader did an excellent job IMO to isolate Axl's vocals and spruce it up as much as he could to make it sound a bit better than the original amateur recording source. He also provided the drums and orchestra. I added bass and organ keyboards offscreen. 

 

[jimisbatman]

I'm definitely in the demo's camp. Love MSL mad, and the village leaks. Nothing comes close to Josh on Blues & Rhiad and CD. Gotta be said though, TWAT official is a complete pleasure to listen to. Modern music right there folks, and axls crowning achievement.

[IrishgunnerII]

I did an online quiz where I had to name all the GNR songs in the studio albums. I did okay in most but baring the spaghetti incident UYI 1 was fairly poor. I don’t know why as I’ve owned and listened to that album for over 20 years but for whatever reason it was a bit of a blank spot.

[DoMw94]

Random thought while trying to keep myself occupied on a long train journey this morning: Has Chinese Democracy been played more times with Slash than without?

Short answer: no. But it's not far off.

According to Setlist.fm (and my quick maths), it was played 286 times before he returned to the band, and 282 times since he came back so far. Five more plays and it will have had more plays with Slash than without. It's already been played more times with Duff than without thanks to his stand-in appearances for Tommy in 2014.

Who'd have thought that back when it was released in 2008?!

[Amir]

14 minutes ago, DoMw94 said:

Random thought while trying to keep myself occupied on a long train journey this morning: Has Chinese Democracy been played more times with Slash than without?

Short answer: no. But it's not far off.

According to Setlist.fm (and my quick maths), it was played 286 times before he returned to the band, and 282 times since he came back so far. Five more plays and it will have had more plays with Slash than without. It's already been played more times with Duff than without thanks to his stand-in appearances for Tommy in 2014.

Who'd have thought that back when it was released in 2008?!

Looked up TWAT: Been played 32 times total, 15 before Slash, 17 with Slash. What a time to be alive.

Prostitute: 24 times total, only 4 times before Slash rejoined, 20 times with Slash. Nuts.

[DoMw94]

14 hours ago, Amir said:

Looked up TWAT: Been played 32 times total, 15 before Slash, 17 with Slash. What a time to be alive.

Prostitute: 24 times total, only 4 times before Slash rejoined, 20 times with Slash. Nuts.

If we get TWAT at Villa Park or Wembley next year, I'll be the bloke in the golden circle crying his eyes out.

Desperate to hear that live once.

The TWAT statistic is crazy, but the Prostitute one even more so. What planet is this?!

Edited Thursday at 11:22 PM by DoMw94

[Dean]

Chinese is one song that this incarnation of the band have really clicked on from the get-go. One of the highlights of the setlist IMO

[DoMw94]

15 hours ago, Dean said:

Chinese is one song that this incarnation of the band have really clicked on from the get-go. One of the highlights of the setlist IMO

Agreed. It's probably my favourite. The new arrangement fits right in as a traditional GN'R song – it's gone from being this catchy but somewhat overproduced song to being this really pissed off, angry, heavy thing. And I like that it sounds different every night because of what Slash plays throughout