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

[Rindmelon]

2 hours ago, Blackstar said:

It was only Sebastian Bach (who is not a close associate, just a friend of Axl). And Brain just said it was a cool song (which is normal, since it was his song). Axl merely mentioned the title.

That's it. Everything else is only on the fans. No band member or "associate" misguided us to believe that the cell phone recording was The General, we "figured" it all out by ourselves. And no one told the fans that the orchestral arrangement used as an intro at concerts means that it's also the intro to the actual song (and not just integrated in it), that's just something fans speculated and made up.

Only other comment i can really think of would be Fernando saying 'The General is a Monster' which in retrospect just sounds like him trolling people who believed that Monster was a General.

[Zeppelin]

6 minutes ago, Miden34 said:

What do i got to lose by Bach is hot stock rock garbage

EXACTLY the reason im happy with the general and the monsters leak. they are unique. 

What’s unique about The General? The fact that it’s moody and has vocal effects? It’s really not that unique. And Axl has done moody stuff before anyway.

[downzy]

Locking the thread to clean it up.

Please refrain from personal insults.  Offending posts will be removed.

Consider this a general warning.  Any posts that are directed against another member will be removed and warning points (and likely suspensions) will be awarded.

[DeNfr]

2 hours ago, adamsapple said:

You guys wanna have some fun read some comments about The General on GNR's facebook page.

 

I had more fun looking at their profile pictures

[tkarmy]

As a singer and composer 

 

I feel like the nu-gnr created the music and Axl and a extreme reaction and went into the studio and let what he was feeling out.

It sounds like an emotional release in one time moment 

reality is his diction and tone are not great at. There solo or bridge to resolve the song.

the effects and double vocals and mixing is terrible to my ears. 
 

This is a demo with a long way to. 
 

I get the lyrics may have a point of being simple but I believe Axl let this of the top of head on spot and has an artistic statement he’s trying to capture 

 

but it’s lots in the mess of the mix and no wicked solo … if he was going for epic it needed more 

 

 

[Ratam]

2 hours ago, adamsapple said:

You guys wanna have some fun read some comments about The General on GNR's facebook page.

 

I read yesterday, most comments are not positive.

[DannyVinyard]

I still love the General. Since that song and Monsters was leaked, I've listened to it as a lead-up into Monsters. These songs are an exceptional listen, back to back, especially on the way to the gym right after having my pre-workout. 

[Blackstar]

1 hour ago, StrangerInThisTown said:

To be honest we haven't heard the same version of The General that Sebastian Bach heard, so we should cut him some slack lol, we don't know how different it was. Marco Beltrami said Seven is the best song he worked on..can't wait for this same shitshow to start if people are disappointed with that one lol

It wasn't just what Sebastian Bach said about what the song sounded like and how much he liked it though, but mostly the stuff about it being a sequel to Estranged. I think Sebastian probably misunderstood something Axl might have told him. He either confused The General with another song or maybe Axl told him that in his mind there was some kind of lyrical connection with Estranged and then Sebastian made it out to be related to the video trilogy and Del James' story.

[axl666]

I think a lot of the dislike of the song is unwarranted. It's kind of synthpop, though a lot darker. If this had been released when it had been recorded it would have been ahead of the pop culture curve by a number of years. I've just listened to it alongside Taylor swifts antihero and they flow quote well. Whereas gnrs 80s hard Rock is different altogether.

This is the Chinese democracy that a lot of people talked about in the late 90s, the minstry/nin style music

[6lake sa66ath]

It’s taken a lot of listens since the release on Friday (never bothered with the leak/s at all) but I finally feel like I can accept it and I think like some have expressed in here already it’s kind of bittersweet to at least have another piece added to the overall very limited official GN’R catalogue of tracks.

[colonizedmind]

3 hours ago, StrangerInThisTown said:

To be honest we haven't heard the same version of The General that Sebastian Bach heard, so we should cut him some slack lol, we don't know how different it was. Marco Beltrami said Seven is the best song he worked on..can't wait for this same shitshow to start if people are disappointed with that one lol

Not seen it discussed directly that much and don't wish to be the one to bring back the debate about Monster and General being one the same...but there are enough red herrings that tell us, that Axl definately sees them as cousins at least...it would be very unusual to have two songs share the same orchestral bed (Marcos strings) unless they were connect, then there's the vibe, the content, theme and lyrics...surely the only reason it could of leaked on Oct 27th was because it was coming on that Vinyl....and the fixing that had the delay occuring was the amputation of Monsters....it's certainly all makes logical sense to me....

Oct 27th - Otherwise, why then ? If not...We have to buy the argument that someone has had Reunion-GNR leaks and that's so unlikely....

Edited December 10, 2023 by colonizedmind

[bangit]

I'm going for 6 out of 10. It's a decent song, nothing special though and clearly a little experimental which is cool. It's as good as many CD songs but not a stand out. If it was on an album, it would be one of those songs you listen to occasionally like Shacklers or Scraped. 

The casual GNR fan will probably horrified that it isn't a UYI style classic. Oh well. Plenty of forgettable songs on those albums!!! #shotgunblues

Edited December 10, 2023 by bangit

[StrangerInThisTown]

8 minutes ago, colonizedmind said:

Not seen it discussed directly that much and don't wish to be the one to bring back the debate about Monster and General being one the same...but there are enough red herrings that tell us, that Axl definately sees them as cousins at least...it would be very unusual to have two songs share the same orchestral bed (Marcos strings) unless they were connect, then there's the vibe, the content, theme and lyrics...surely the only reason it could of leaked on Oct 27th was because it was coming on that Vinyl....and the fixing that had the delay occuring was the amputation of Monsters....it's certainly all makes logical sense to me....

Oct 27th - Otherwise, why then ? If not...We have to buy the argument that someone has had Reunion-GNR leaks and that's so unlikely....

Or those audio engineers in the studio in Europe where Axl and Slash listened to "new mixes" this year had some kind of recording device going on the soundboard and it somehow leaked that way. But yeah another theory of course it could also come from the scrapped vinyl.

 

7 minutes ago, bangit said:

I'm going for 6 out of 10. It's a decent song, nothing special though and clearly a little experimental which is cool. It's as good as many CD songs but not a stand out. If it was on an album, it would be one of those songs you listen to occasionally like Shacklers or Scraped. 

The casual GNR fan will probably horrified that it isn't a UYI style classic. Oh well. Plenty of forgettable songs on those albums!!! #shotgunblues

Shotgun Blues is one of my go to songs for my gym workout lol

[Lies They Tell]

2 hours ago, Zeppelin said:

What’s unique about The General? The fact that it’s moody and has vocal effects? It’s really not that unique. And Axl has done moody stuff before anyway.

For starters, it's a song about child abuse. Now, I'm not saying that it's the first song in the history of music, addressing this issue. But you gotta admit that it's not exactly a typical song, even if you don't like it.

[adamsapple]

1 hour ago, Ratam said:

I read yesterday, most comments are not positive.

I was a bit surprised to see the general feedback on their own FB page. It's not just people who want the AFD sound, many noticed the sound issues or just don't resonate with the song at all. Proper management would have turned comments off for a while and even posted an excuse for the sound issues.

[jacdaniel]

Amazed but not surprised that some people have mentioned Slash’s playing in a negative manner. Probably the only decent thing this song has going for it 

[adamsapple]

9 minutes ago, Lies They Tell said:

For starters, it's a song about child abuse. Now, I'm not saying that it's the first song in the history of music, addressing this issue. But you gotta admit that it's not exactly a typical song, even if you don't like it.

The more it would have deserved proper treatment with a decent presentation, production and mastering, maybe even a video or press release to bring more public attention to such a serious topic. As it is, the song just imploded before takeoff. If there is a message in the song I didn't hear it loud and clear as there is no moral or conclusion whatsoever going on, not in the lyrics and not in the composition. What pisses me off is that the song has so much potential. It could have been absolutely amazing. But it's not.

[megaguns1982]

4 hours ago, Its Tino said:

This.

I commented a long time ago that nobody knows for sure that the cell phone clip was the general and got shut down real fast by pig headed idiots on this forum.

Im actually quite happy that it turned out to be something else entirely, maybe these fans making assumptions will stfu now…. But probably not

 

[Mikey Whipwreck]

12 hours ago, jacdaniel said:

Why are people still talking about Bucket and Finck? 

They helped to write these shit songs. I want to be done with them and this era. 

They have nothing to do with the released versions of any of these songs. They don't play on them and didn't write them (aside from Robin having a small percentage of the writing credit on HS).

[evilfacelessturtle]

The point is, I have a very hard time believing any of the band members think that this is a bad tune. Because it is really, really good. It just is. Just listen to that incredible bridge thingy. The ending sounds just like something no one else could do, it's so good it can't even be parodied.

You can sit there in your stonewashed AFD sweatpants and ignore the truth and force yourself to hate this masterpiece, but why?

[tboneman]

Well, at least The General (Official Audio) video has more likes than dislikes 😄

354 364 views

15 608 likes

2 457 dislikes

 

[Lethalis]

Am I the only one who's worried all this negativity reaches Axl and he'll give up on releasing new stuff altogether?

I don't think The General is a bad song, I just don't like the ending. Then again I also like NiN and Marilyn Manson, so my taste in music might be a bit more diverse than the casual GNR fan.

I love Monsters though. And Perhaps is decent. That's 2 out of 3 and that ain't bad. We don't have to like each and every song.

 

[El Guapo]

13 minutes ago, evilfacelessturtle said:

The point is, I have a very hard time believing any of the band members think that this is a bad tune. Because it is really, really good. It just is. Just listen to that incredible bridge thingy. The ending sounds just like something no one else could do, it's so good it can't even be parodied.

You can sit there in your stonewashed AFD sweatpants and ignore the truth and force yourself to hate this masterpiece, but why?

You think that's clever? Mmkay. 

2 minutes ago, Lethalis said:

Am I the only one who's worried all this negativity reaches Axl and he'll give up on releasing new stuff altogether?

 

Since nobody close to him seems to be honest to him - might be a good thing if the negative reactions reach him somwhow.

[evilfacelessturtle]

On 12/9/2023 at 7:30 AM, Cosmo said:

It’s funny how this track has leaked for months now and, pretty much up until its release, people were excited, the overall feeling was “Its an okay song, but hell yeah we’re finally getting The General!” And then suddenly, it became an embarassing shitshow of a song that is worse than My World. The herd effect here is way too strong. All it takes is a few better known posters saying it’s shit for the dominoes to start falling and the whole boards suddenly think so too. 

I don’t think The General is anything to write home about, but it’s not that bad. I do have some issues with the sound, especialy the digital drums and the sitar effect in the rhythm guitar, but other than that, it’s just a solid track, IMO. Better than Riad and Scraped, for sure, better than a few cuts off UYI and better than Anything Goes, IMO.

I think that's because the leak included Monsters, so most of the talk was about how much people liked that song, and the surprise about them being switched compared to our expectations and so on. Now that all the excitement and gossip has died down, and the vinyl has released with only TG on it, the focus has shifted to that song alone. As I recall, the general consensus after the leak was "we like Monsters, don't like TG".

4 minutes ago, El Guapo said:

You think that's clever? Mmkay. 

Clever? No. The point was to hopefully show you how silly that kind of talk is by applying it to something you disagree with.

[Blackstar]

56 minutes ago, Lethalis said:

Am I the only one who's worried all this negativity reaches Axl and he'll give up on releasing new stuff altogether?

I was worried about that after the massively negative response to Absurd on their social media (anyone remember Beta arguing with fans on Slash's Instagram?). Since that didn't affect things regarding releases, I don't think the negativity now will have any effect on whatever the plan is.

I haven't really looked at the comments on their social media, but from a quick look on Slash's IG post, although there are the usual "Slash should stick with Myles and quit GN'R" comments, there are also some positive responses.