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THE GENERAL - MONSTERS - Official Discussion Thread. NO LINKS OR ASKING FOR LINKS


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5 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

True, but I guess they knew that once the first person received their 7-inch it would be ripped and shared. But until that point it would be a surprise.

Imagine if you spinned your record without knowing anything, The (real) General started playing and you're like "Wtf is this, where's the phone clip" and then another track started playing that is the one from the phone clip. And then the tracks get shared and there's speculation what the other song is etc. They probably were thinking it like that and laughing at the potential reactions.

Oh, I hadn't thought about this possibility. They know us hardcore fans knew this phone clip & evader's mix and that we thought it was The General. So had they just released The General, they may have expected the fanbase to not understand where was that phone clip/evader sound we heard. So they must have added Monsters as a bonus, and maybe went as far as fuse it somehow (legally anyway) because we have confused Monsters with The General for over 10 years!

We may have made Monsters turn into The General because of our confusion :lol:

I still don't know who leaked the songs. I have my money on someone considering the nickname he chose and how silkworms was leaked at the same place, using the same kind of nickname referring to lyrics of the leaked song, but I'm truly wondering if it's some inside job to make it up for the delay. Whoever it is, it's still great marketing for Guns. It makes everyone talking about the songs, and every hardcore fan wants to buy the vinyl to check the differences, if there's any. And at the very least we want the vinyl to have the songs in higher quality since most of us absolutely love them. This vinyl will be a piece of history, maybe my most important Gn'R piece, even if it's not rare, idc.

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6 minutes ago, Blackstar said:

Not exactly the same, because we had the credits already, and then there was the leak and we had the title of the second track. But if the credits weren't published yet and Monsters was an uncredited hidden track, the surprise factor would be much bigger.

Who ruined that surprise 😉

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12 minutes ago, D.. said:

They know us hardcore fans knew this phone clip & evader's mix and that we thought it was The General. 

We may have made Monsters turn into The General because of our confusion :lol:

Yes and no. I mean, the orchestral intro played before the concerts included bits that we now know belonged to two different songs, as some can be found in The General and others in Monsters. For all we knew then, the intro seemed to be sourced from the same song, and the band itself confirmed that the most used pre-show intro was The General, so our ""confusion"" was certainly legit. How were we supposed to know that the intro was using bits composed by Beltrami for two different songs?

But yes, if The General was released alone, without Monsters, it would have been so surprising not hearing the most famous orchestral part, the one from the phone leak/Evader's reconstruction. 

That said, I don't think Axl decided to pair them because the fanbase thought Monsters was The General. It's more a case of what Bach said: this song is supposed to go lyrically with this other, etc. The songs came out of the same songwriting sessions, they share a certain common ground musically and Axl might have purposely written the lyrics of one in consequence of the other, with the intention of having them back to back as a "mini-opera" or something like that.

EDIT: I just wanted to add that it would be very interesting to know if @Mindray11 remembers anything about the "real" The General, as @Blackstar asked a few posts earlier. Perhaps they were played back to back that night as well.

Edited by Twinaleblood
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34 minutes ago, El Nono Pololo said:

I really like Monsters, but 10-15 years is a shitload of time. A lot of classic bands and artists that showed great diversity wrote, recorded and released their whole catalogue in less time than that. In fact, I wouldn't say Axl's output is very impressive in, er, calendar-terms, if you know what I mean.

That being said, I love how he goes from that hiccupy "oh, oh" thing at the start to that extreme part later on, it's certainly a very quirky and original vocal.

Lots of great vocal layers to the song. One of the more “cool” songs from the GnR’ catalogue by far!

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1 hour ago, D.. said:

That said, I don't hear Beltrami's signature sound for the CD era in the Thyme version we've heard, it doesn't sound like anything else he's touched on CD & General/Monsters, so maybe he doesn't count that one. Or maybe he forgot and there's another version of Thyme that sounds more like him.

The Village leaks almost certainly predate his involvement (Madagascar, TWAT, and Prostitute all have synth strings on those versions) so I'm sure he came in on Thyme later. Now the question is how it integrated with P.R.L. Was it an intro? Or did it come later in the song? And what the heck does P.R.L. stand for? So weird that there was one mention all the way back in 2001 of it being the follow-up to ChiDem and we never heard those initials again until the Village leak when a track with that name appeared...

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2 minutes ago, D.. said:

You're right! So another version of Thyme with Beltrami must exist. Curious how it evolved.

We'll see if M. Beltrami is kind enough to answer the last mail I sent him, but I feel I'd be pushing it if I asked about PRL and others haha. I doubt he remembers those, he's already struggling with Monsters & TG.

Have no idea for what P.R.L. stands for either, just that it was supposed to be the follow-up title to CD at some point, it's probably changed since then.

P.R.L. and other instrumentals or parts on the Village Sessions sound like video game musics from the late 90's, especially Tekken 2 & 3 intros. I highly doubt those trakcs will make a comeback anytime.

It would be amazing if Axl could do another chat sessions with us and clarify a lot of questions you all have, he's the only one who knows every detail. Maybe Fernando too.

I hope they release a big CD box at some point, like they did AFD & UYI. But it would need to be even bigger, there's so much stuff, we still ignore a lot of things. Zutaut's locker wasn't the only one, I feel it's the tip of the iceberg. There must be tens of cd's with different versions of The General, Seven, Soul Monster, and others. Maybe totally unknown titles.

Regarding another chat, even if it's not a live chat but something closer to a Del James interview (of good questions from various boards/socials/reddit) that would be amazing. Edit: live chat would be good way to get memberships if hosted on NT forum, but I doubt the questions would be that great...

Edited by Coma16
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3 hours ago, jackparker123 said:

It's funny to think that they could have released Soul Monster right at the beginning of the reunion in 2016, or even earlier obviously!

In 2016 it would have been massive news, and people would have taken the reunion way more seriously, rather than a cash grab tour.

How much more seriously can people take one of the single biggest tours of all time🤔

The reason they didn't release music straight away was they had no idea if the honeymoon would last. Why they waited so many years to start putting bits out?? That's beyond any of our individual or collective thinking abilities 😄

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1 hour ago, Coma16 said:

But minus the vinyl, isn't that (almost) exactly what happened?

Well it happened, but in a much less cool way. Imagine putting on your vinyl and being disappointed with The General, and you're like where's the fucking section from the cell phone leak? And then after a few seconds of silence another song starts, and you're like what? And then THERE IT IS.

I'm sure Axl was aware that many people thought that part of Soul Monster was The General the entire time, so the way it was to be revealed that way with the second hidden song coming in, you gotta give it to GNR and TB that's fucking masterful planning. If that really was the idea all along, then that's fucking cool and finally something awesome the band did for fans.

Edited by StrangerInThisTown
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2 minutes ago, StrangerInThisTown said:

Well it happened, but in a much less cool way. Imagine putting on your vinyl and being disappointed with The General, and you're like where's the fucking section from the cell phone leak? And then after a few seconds of silence another song starts, and you're like what? And then THERE IT IS.

I'm sure Axl was aware that many people thought that part of Soul Monster was The General the entire time, so the way it was to be revealed that way with the second hidden song coming in, you gotta give it to GNR and TB that's fucking masterful planning. If that really was the idea all along, then that's fucking cool and finally something awesome the band did for fans.

For sure, the first few people would have been surprised (just as they were when they listened to The General leak), but the rest of us would have found out via the internet and digital rips

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6 minutes ago, Coma16 said:

For sure, the first few people would have been surprised (just as they were when they listened to The General leak), but the rest of us would have found out via the internet and digital rips

Of course, the surprise was only meant for the people who actually ordered the vinyl. With the leak, the only surprise was the leak itself, not the way it was intended to have to listen to The General all the way through to find out there's actually a 2nd song, and it being the actual song you wanted the entire time. We knew right away 2 songs leaked so the surprise was ruined pretty much.

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19 minutes ago, rumandraisin said:

Hasn't been asked, you're the first. 

Anyone know whether The General is State of Grace btw, haven't seen anyone ask. 

Isn't it hilarious the SOG conspiracy wasn't true, but that ANOTHER song ended up being The General? We thought SOG was The General, meanwhile Soul Monster was The General the entire time.

Edited by StrangerInThisTown
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