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2018 CD Leaks Discussion Thread **NO LINKS, NO ASKING / HINTING FOR LEAKS**


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For some reason I have it in my head that Perhaps and IF could be the same song.

 

I remember that back cover mockup & think it's real, but it will probably have been one of many with different tracklists.

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13 hours ago, gabfm said:

To me, the 99' versions sounds better because they are more aggressive. The mix is clearly pointing to industrial, the bass, the guitars, drums. I remember AXL looking for the "smell like teen spirit" drums sound.  I think the album changed a lot when they realized that industrial rock wasn't selling anymore and decided to turn the songs to a hard rock style.

With that change, the essence of the music was kind of lost.

Yeah, and that's what I like about this version of the album: more agressive, more faithful to the sound Axl was initially trying to achieve based on what he and others that worked on the album talked about. Just as important maybe, it was also way more organic and the songs weren't lost in the sea of layers.

But while argressive hard rock with balls was always a big part of what Guns music sounded like, super polished was also how every main Gn'R album of original material was. Appetite for example is agressive and yet it's played and recorded like the opposite of a Punk album. It's meticulously refined.

Chinese ended up sounding more like an old Gn'R album in a way. Not nearly as raw as the 1999 version, more polished and with more prominent guitar moments and Axl maybe trying to find a balance between his ambition to incorporate new influences to Gn'R but keeping more classic elements. It's like Bumble said how he thought the album sounded too mechanical for Gn'R to him. It lacked the sleazy element when it came to the guitars.

So take for example the title track: the problem with it is that the 1999 version with Josh sounds great with the drums and bass hitting you hard, without the long intro. It's aggressive and it works, but it's too empty if you look at it as a Guns tune. This is why the official version makes sense to me: Bumble added the sleazy rhythm fretless parts, Bucket added his main solo which elevated the song imo and his leads throughout the song were more like how Slash would have handled it probably. (more focus on guitar)

I think trying to create a Guns album without Slash must have been hard as fuck. He naturally brings a certain balance with him to the sound but I think each of the two versions of the album have their strengths and weaknesses.

Perhaps the ideal approach really was to release more than just 1 album and that way it could have been more natural. Releasing the first album in 1999 and then taking it from there. Instead Axl tried to cram everything into the same tunes so now priorities change as you're trying to find a sonic and artistic balance with way more elements so you end up doing a disservice to the songs one way or another which is exactly what happened.

Edited by Rovim
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9 hours ago, Gordon Comstock said:

Thyme = PRL.

Perhaps is the 3rd song with Brian May. I don't think PRL and Perhaps are the same song? Thyme is an instrumental piece intended for PRL, like a 'stem', as far as I know.

Translation may not be great but this article advises the followup to chinese democracy was to be a album called PRL so I highly doubt its a instrumental.

If someone could translate it better than google translate please go ahead.

Axl told the fans questions by the pool. And he said that in China Dem one song is dedicated to J. Lennon and one is about child abuse. 

And then he said that: 
 - the second GNR album is to be called "PRL" (the author of the article gave a question mark after the title, no matter if he heard it right) 

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Edited by vloors
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10 hours ago, Gordon Comstock said:

Thyme = PRL.

Perhaps is the 3rd song with Brian May. I don't think PRL and Perhaps are the same song? Thyme is an instrumental piece intended for PRL, like a 'stem', as far as I know.

I'm sure I read on here PRL and Perhaps are the same. PRL was short for Perhaps ??? I can't recall what it was exactly and I can't seem to find it anymore, but I remember thinking: Odd, it's only two words and PRL is three letters.:lol: So if Thyme is the 'intro' to PRL/Perhaps, those three titles seem to be only one song.

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These are all interesting ideas.
I think, however, that a big role was played by the record company. In 1996 it seems that the record with Slash and Duff was almost done. Slash leaves the band and Axl decides to put the tracks aside. With other bands and in other years the record company would never have accepted this. Instead the label would have pushed for the release of the album allowing Robin to complete the work. What I mean? That a normal band between 1997-2008 would have produced at least three albums. The first with Slash, Duff; the second 1998-2000 with Beavan producer. The third between 2006-2008 with the most recent tracks released on CD

Edited by Rambler
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9 hours ago, Gordon Comstock said:

 

Riad (album version), Scraped, Hardschool and Silkworms all have unnecessary intro's. CD with the shorter intro could've easily been in the middle of the album.

Scraped's intro is the best part of the song

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2 hours ago, jamillos said:

Plus I don't think Sorry would be a suitable track to close the album with. 

I agree. 

Prostitute is one of the best album closers of all time imo.

23 minutes ago, zombux said:

its working name was Thyme.

I thought Scraped's other name was Lies They Tell?

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9 minutes ago, RussTCB said:

Totally agree. Even after hearing the latest demos, I still think it was always intended to be the album closer. 

It does sound like an album closer, but I wonder if it was always meant to be the closer for Chinese Democracy I when the whole project was envisioned as a trilogy? It sounds like a closer to Axl's career more than anything, can imagine it being the closer on ChiDem III.

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41 minutes ago, Amir said:

It does sound like an album closer, but I wonder if it was always meant to be the closer for Chinese Democracy I when the whole project was envisioned as a trilogy? It sounds like a closer to Axl's career more than anything, can imagine it being the closer on ChiDem III.

The possibility of it being the closer to Axl’s  studio career is sadly not totally out of the question :(

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Found this recently in an older thread. This was apparently the tracklisting according to BestBuy before it was changed last minute:

1. Chinese Democracy

2. Scraped

3. Shacklers Eevebge

4. Street of Dreams

5. If The World

6. Better

7. This I Love

8. There Was A Time

9. Riad N The Bedouins

10. Sorry

11. IRS

12. Catcher in The Rye

13. Madagascar

14. Prostitute

 

 

I gave it a listen the other night and I think I prefer it in that order. Not totally sold on the placement of CITR so late in the album, but Scraped works really well as track 2, leading into Shacklers.

Man, I love geeking out with stuff like this.

Remember that big-ass 8 page thread I started about CD not having aged well? I was talking out my ass. Hard School has reminded me how much I love Chinese Democracy.

 

Edited by Towelie
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I agree that Prostitute is the perfect closing track for ChiDem given its extended outro; however I'd give the "leaked tracklist" above a chance if we were getting a double (quadruple?) album similar to Illusions, with Prostitute closing the second disc.  Catcher would also make sense being on the separate album, so we don't have two songs named after popular books on the same disc.  :P  But that's all just wishful thinking.

What makes me the most skeptical about the validity of the apparent leaked back cover is at what point in time The Blues was renamed to Street of Dreams.

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1 minute ago, Towelie said:

Remember that big-ass 8 page thread I started about CD not having aged well? I was talking out my ass. Hard School has reminded me how much I love Chinese Democracy.

I recommend give it a couple of weeks more before you change your mind about CD. I still completely agree with you on that thread.

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After letting the excitement cool down a bit...

I think some of these leaked versions are far superior to the album versions, some are worse in some parts and better in others. 

Hard School is great but sounds unfinished. 

That being said, the songs are mostly not that great and Axls singing is nowhere near his level of the old days.

I think the strongest track is Going down actually.

I'm soo tired of everything Chinese Democracy, so I REALLY hope the first song they come out with is new. Like, NEW new.

Edited by El Guapo
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15 minutes ago, El Nono Pololo said:

New School

The Seargent

Sphace

Heracles Made a Gesture of Indifference

Eight

Me and My Roy Orbison

Up By the Sea

Retard

The Lone Ranger’s Sidekick

C-Tune

29 minutes ago, Gackt said:

I agree that Prostitute is the perfect closing track for ChiDem given its extended outro; however I'd give the "leaked tracklist" above a chance if we were getting a double (quadruple?) album similar to Illusions, with Prostitute closing the second disc.  Catcher would also make sense being on the separate album, so we don't have two songs named after popular books on the same disc.  :P  But that's all just wishful thinking.

What makes me the most skeptical about the validity of the apparent leaked back cover is at what point in time The Blues was renamed to Street of Dreams.

Axl still called it The Blues in a 2006 interview. Make of that what you will.

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