Open Letter to Axl & my opinon about the CD Era

[-W.A.R-]

Anyone who has read Chinese Whispers knows Axl's productivity at getting this album together was abysmal. Stories from members of the band who said they sat around eating pizza and making balloon hats waiting for him to show up or Producers who were fired days after telling him he needed to buckle down and record vocals/finish up songs.

[Underhardy]

Also, the point of Axl being lazy for not re-recording vocals after 1999-2001 is ridiculous. Instruments were re-recorded and added in later because there were new musicians in the band. Why would Axl rerecord vocals that he feels he delivered the right way originally? Thank god he didn’t. Would’ve just been another way the album got further delayed. Ugh there is still time to delete this, dude 

[papashaun]

37 minutes ago, appetite4illusions said:

As far as Bob Ezrin goes, as far as anybody's opinion about Chinese Democracy and why there was never any "single material" on the album, despite having quality songs, need look no further than Axl.

Look at the songs on Chinese and now the wealth of material we have on our hands.

Why couldn't the guy just write a conventional song with a conventional chorus?

 

Almost all these songs have non-choruses, they have too many words, Axl has too much to say.

The key to crafting a great song is: keep it relatively simple. Catchy chorus goes a long way. The type of chorus that really suits a song has a few words with key words stretched to emphasis the music. 

The type of choruses  GN'R, classic GN'R were known for were Anthemic. They were chants, they were sing-alongs, they carried themselves with the song. You looked FORWARD to the chorus.

 

Look at the chorus section or lack of, on many of these songs. Are there any that could be called "Anthemic?" In my opinion, only "Chinese Democracy" has a great chorus and an anthemic chorus, at that.

Look at songs like TWAT, Atlas Shrugged, Prostitute, Shackler's Revenge, etc...They might be cool, but there is no chorus for anybody to hang their hat on. There's hardly any more anthemic material on the album, other than the title track.

He got so deep in the weeds, trying to express himself, be creative and make a challenging album, that he withheld a key component to making hit songs: didn't make them catchy enough.

IRS might be the only other song on the album that fit into having a "chorus" so to speak (Gonna call the President, gonna call the FBI...etc..). I felt the same way...First time I heard Oh My God....I didn't hear it until at least a year after it was released, and I kept thinking there isn't a good set structure to this song, it's all over the place at times...especially the Dave Navarro solo added in, it all just felt out of place. I didn't think it was a "bad" song, but just strange and could have been simplified. 

[Download]

48 minutes ago, appetite4illusions said:

As far as Bob Ezrin goes, as far as anybody's opinion about Chinese Democracy and why there was never any "single material" on the album, despite having quality songs, need look no further than Axl.

Look at the songs on Chinese and now the wealth of material we have on our hands.

Why couldn't the guy just write a conventional song with a conventional chorus?

 

Almost all these songs have non-choruses, they have too many words, Axl has too much to say.

The key to crafting a great song is: keep it relatively simple. Catchy chorus goes a long way. The type of chorus that really suits a song has a few words with key words stretched to emphasis the music. 

The type of choruses  GN'R, classic GN'R were known for were Anthemic. They were chants, they were sing-alongs, they carried themselves with the song. You looked FORWARD to the chorus.

 

Look at the chorus section or lack of, on many of these songs. Are there any that could be called "Anthemic?" In my opinion, only "Chinese Democracy" has a great chorus and an anthemic chorus, at that.

Look at songs like TWAT, Atlas Shrugged, Prostitute, Shackler's Revenge, etc...They might be cool, but there is no chorus for anybody to hang their hat on. There's hardly any more anthemic material on the album, other than the title track.

He got so deep in the weeds, trying to express himself, be creative and make a challenging album, that he withheld a key component to making hit songs: didn't make them catchy enough.

“Yeah there was a time

didnt wanna know it all 

didn’t wanna know it all and I don’t wanna know it now” 

 

Axl left the conventional song structure after Appetite for the most part. 

[©GnrPersia]

1 hour ago, -W.A.R- said:

Anyone who has read Chinese Whispers knows Axl's productivity at getting this album together was abysmal. Stories from members of the band who said they sat around eating pizza and making balloon hats waiting for him to show up or Producers who were fired days after telling him he needed to buckle down and record vocals/finish up songs.

Totally agree on this one.

Bob Ezrin aside, every fucking person involved in that album (From producers to mixers to musicians to clerks to cleaning staff...) did their best to deliver what Mac Daddy required. He was the sole person not delivering.

 

- When you spend 13 million dollars

- Hire and fire a dozen of producers, managers & musicians

- within a span of 10 years

- only to produce an album of 14 tracks

- that sells only 21,000 in US

then something is DEFINITELY WRONG

Edited September 25, 2019 by ©GnrPersia

[D..]

1 hour ago, Underhardy said:

Also, the point of Axl being lazy for not re-recording vocals after 1999-2001 is ridiculous. Instruments were re-recorded and added in later because there were new musicians in the band. Why would Axl rerecord vocals that he feels he delivered the right way originally? Thank god he didn’t. Would’ve just been another way the album got further delayed. Ugh there is still time to delete this, dude 

"Would've just been another way the album got further delayed". 

Oh.

Right.

That's why we got an early release in 2008. Thank you for your great insights Underhardy.

[Sydney Fan]

3 hours ago, appetite4illusions said:

As far as Bob Ezrin goes, as far as anybody's opinion about Chinese Democracy and why there was never any "single material" on the album, despite having quality songs, need look no further than Axl.

Look at the songs on Chinese and now the wealth of material we have on our hands.

Why couldn't the guy just write a conventional song with a conventional chorus?

 

Almost all these songs have non-choruses, they have too many words, Axl has too much to say.

The key to crafting a great song is: keep it relatively simple. Catchy chorus goes a long way. The type of chorus that really suits a song has a few words with key words stretched to emphasis the music. 

The type of choruses  GN'R, classic GN'R were known for were Anthemic. They were chants, they were sing-alongs, they carried themselves with the song. You looked FORWARD to the chorus.

 

Look at the chorus section or lack of, on many of these songs. Are there any that could be called "Anthemic?" In my opinion, only "Chinese Democracy" has a great chorus and an anthemic chorus, at that.

Look at songs like TWAT, Atlas Shrugged, Prostitute, Shackler's Revenge, etc...They might be cool, but there is no chorus for anybody to hang their hat on. There's hardly any more anthemic material on the album, other than the title track.

He got so deep in the weeds, trying to express himself, be creative and make a challenging album, that he withheld a key component to making hit songs: didn't make them catchy enough.

Ezrin wasnt the right person for the role. His background is classic rock and i think axl wanted to u se someone that was underground so to speak to help with his vision. If t he record company couldnt support axls vision with releasing CD as it was in 2000 a good and wasting much money getting axl to redo parts and basically spin h o s wheels no wonder the record company got sick of waiting for an album. If they had allowed axl to release CD as it was and supported his vision we may have got another 2 albums. I also wonder if UMG may have asked axl to release as a solo effort and not undrr GNR because in UMGs mind gnr was slash and axl. No slash no "official" gnr release. Or maybe UMG was holding out on slash coming back.

[jacdaniel]

Nu Guns are finished, and hopefully the current line up releases a fresh album. 

[Lethalis]

28 minutes ago, jacdaniel said:

Nu Guns are finished, and hopefully the current line up releases a fresh album. 

Judging from Duff's and Slash's comments, they are going to work on Axl's existing material as well.

If a new album does come out, a lot of it will probably be reworked NuGuns stuff.

Duff said he heard "magnificent stuff" from Axl.

Slash said the next album will be a "departure" from the original sound and:

"There is material that Axl’s [Rose, vocals] been working on for a while. It could be enough for a record if we put it all together."

So basically I think we will still get CD II, but with Duff and Slash on board 

[Blackstar]

Axl seems to be a slow-paced (or uneven-paced) worker, as well as an unconventional one (like, he would go to the studio and work during the night). This must be difficult for "normal" band members and producers to put up with, but it doesn't mean that he is lazy. He just has his own ways and pace. He is also insecure about releasing the material he has created.

As far as the instrumentals go, a logical and moderate assumption is that Axl laid vocals on a few of them at a later time; or even during the same time the locker storage content is from, as most likely these CDs are just a part of what existed at that time (it makes more sense, for various reasons, to say that this is the case than that these CDs were all that existed). And that maybe he didn't lay vocals on some others, like some of the all-Buckethead tunes, because, even though he liked them, they didn't work for him eventually (for example, someone pointed out that Dub Suplex ended on one of Buckethead's gazillion albums). That was also the case with a couple of Slash songs pre-Illusions:

Axl: And so that ends up with Slash bringing in eight songs [for the Illusions]. It’s never been done before, Slash bringing in a song first and me writing words to it. I’ve done it twice with him before and we didn’t use either of those songs. Out of Slash’s choice. [Interview with Mick Wall, January 1990]

Edited September 25, 2019 by Blackstar

[Ratam]

I think this "open letter" have too much words just to said that Axl is an "lazy-ass".....

[YOUCOULDBEMINE.]

Okay maybe he trollin'. Or really ignorant.

Fact is that CD II starts now, which is kinda hilarious.

[MooseMan]

11 hours ago, D.. said:

Your lack of logical sense is disturbing. "I sung it on a christmas eve" means "I recorded it" to you? Amazing. To me it just means he has a pretty good idea of vocals & lyrics and tried it on a christmas eve. As for the other sentence, it's just a hint he'd like to record & release it for people to hear it. Doesn't prove he had recorded it properly in a studio at that point in time.

That being said, I sure hope he recorded it and that we'll hear it.

Your lack of logical sense is disturbing. Your whole thread is fucking disturbing. Full of shit springs to mind. 

[SonofaGun]

On 9/25/2019 at 8:06 AM, estrangedtwat said:

Even if Axl lurked here, which I doubt, there's no way he'll read that wall of text.  I didn't read it either.

 

But fuck it...let's pretend Axl really is lurking here and reading shit we write....in that case I just wanna say "sorry" for saying you were full of shit for 20 years and had only recorded the stuff that was released.  I see now that I was wrong.

Dude, wasnt he "Dexter" on this board like 10 years ago.  I KNOW he posted here. It was not on HTGTH

[RussTCB]

On 9/25/2019 at 11:38 AM, ©GnrPersia said:

 that sells only 21,000 in US

Just curious, where did this figure come from? 

[©GnrPersia]

4 hours ago, RussTCB said:

Just curious, where did this figure come from? 

21,000 in its sixth week*

https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/guns-n-roses-chinese-democracy-officially-passes-500-000-sales-mark-in-u-s/

Of course since it's certified platinum then overall it has to be more than a million. But... not an easy and fast sales for the label tbh.

[RussTCB]

15 hours ago, ©GnrPersia said:

21,000 in its sixth week*

https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/guns-n-roses-chinese-democracy-officially-passes-500-000-sales-mark-in-u-s/

Of course since it's certified platinum then overall it has to be more than a million. But... not an easy and fast sales for the label tbh.

Right on, thanks for the link. I wasn't trying to be a smart ass or anything btw. That low of a number just kinda slapped me in the face and I was kinda stunned for a minute. 

[double talkin jive mfkr]

On 10/1/2019 at 8:59 PM, SonofaGun said:

Dude, wasnt he "Dexter" on this board like 10 years ago.  I KNOW he posted here. It was not on HTGTH

correct he and fer and jarm have accounts here and scroll on all their day offs especially when a show has been telephoned in