"Monsters"="Soul Monster": new information from Marco Beltrami leaves no room for doubt

[Jw224]

10 minutes ago, Cosmo said:

Well, so much for "The General and Monsters is one song, you have to treat them like the same creation, they complement each other and should be listened to as one piece of work"

 

Guess not, according to what we're seeing.

We still don't know this. If the band consider them one track then they are, and we don't know what's on the vinyl record yet.

[Blackstar]

12 minutes ago, Cosmo said:

Well, so much for "The General and Monsters is one song, you have to treat them like the same creation, they complement each other and should be listened to as one piece of work"

 

Guess not, according to what we're seeing.

There's no doubt that they were originally - and at least until the time of Axl's chats - two different tracks.

The question is if at some point after 2008 they were paired together in some way (not necessarily merged). It's likely that Axl wanted them back to back on an album, but since they're now not being released as part of an album, maybe he wanted to release them as a pair, and maybe the hidden track theory has some merit.

*

 @Mindray11 do you remember if all you heard at that party was what turned out to be Monsters or it was both the (real) General and Monsters?

[D..]

1 hour ago, colonizedmind said:

Didn't know it was that easy to reach Marco, he can't be as busy as he used to be.....is his email on his website or?

Good to have some pretty clear answers though.

Oh I believe he is still busy, his latest soundtrack was for The Nun II last month, and he still has other movies coming.

I just think he's a very nice man and that my mails came on a day he could find some time to answer. He's probably not mailed as much as A-list actors, but I do believe he is contacted from time to time, and that he's kind enough to answer his fans.

I wrote him through his website yes, couldn't find his twitter.

[StrangerInThisTown]

2 hours ago, Cosmo said:

Well, so much for "The General and Monsters is one song, you have to treat them like the same creation, they complement each other and should be listened to as one piece of work"

 

Guess not, according to what we're seeing.

Some guy uploaded Monsters to Soundcloud and it was taken down due to copyright with the notice: "the file you've uploaded contains audio of "The General" by Guns N Roses".

So they're either fused together, or Monsters is supposed to be a hidden track for the vinyl.

Edited October 31, 2023 by StrangerInThisTown

[Cosmo]

3 minutes ago, StrangerInThisTown said:

Some guy uploaded Monsters to Soundcloud and it was taken down due to copyright with the notice: "the file you've uploaded contains audio of "The General" by Guns N Roses".

So they're either fused together, or Monsters is supposed to be a hidden track for the vinyl.

I'm thinking it's a hidden track too

[StrangerInThisTown]

3 minutes ago, Cosmo said:

I'm thinking it's a hidden track too

I'm thinking somehow they do belong together in some way though, Monsters has part of The Generals 2006 orchestra show intro in it, and is also a continuation of the lyrics in The General, atleast in my opinion. There was clearly some thought put into putting them together like that, even when they're not one song.

[Twinaleblood]

26 minutes ago, StrangerInThisTown said:

Some guy uploaded Monsters to Soundcloud and it was taken down due to copyright with the notice: "the file you've uploaded contains audio of "The General" by Guns N Roses".

So they're either fused together, or Monsters is supposed to be a hidden track for the vinyl.

They have been registered together for sure, we saw that. So, as far as copyright goes, they're legally one and the same. Despite that, they can be still released back to back as different, separated tracks on a record.

[Blackstar]

I think it's possible that the orchestral "intro" piece was a mashup of Beltrami's work on both tracks.

But let's see if he responds about that. I'm very curious.

[Rindmelon]

5 hours ago, colonizedmind said:

It always sounded like bed music....lots of gaps and violin shrills and crescendos....awesome music but it was never gonna be a song that started with just 4 minutes of that...so as expected it's throughout, especially the General, heard during the start and the bridge especially and I suspect a lot is burried and a better mix will allow us to hear more....in fact those that are separating with A.I, have they uncovered more of it yet? 

Had more success with The General than monsters. Have solid drum tracks for both, same with bass and pretty good accapella's/ Instrumentals. Main problem with Monsters is the layers and panning of the vocal tracks lead to bleed in the separation here and there.

Getting the strings isn't going too well yet which is the main part i want

(Edit) I have now found a way to do it. I am confident I can make a mix of The General with the strings way higher in the mix. Not to sure about Monsters yet though

Edited October 31, 2023 by Rindmelon

[Flayer]

4 hours ago, Cosmo said:

Well, so much for "The General and Monsters is one song, you have to treat them like the same creation, they complement each other and should be listened to as one piece of work"

 

Guess not, according to what we're seeing.

Axl's work process was to have everyone record endless reams of material while he picked through the results like a lego bin and assembled his songs brick by brick. It's entirely possible that could reach the extent of gluing together separate compositions into a single track (the liner notes on the locker CDs for instance suggested that Thyme was somehow going to be meshed with P.R.L.). We won't know for sure until the official release arrives.

Edited October 31, 2023 by Flayer

[colonizedmind]

1 hour ago, Rindmelon said:

Had more success with The General than monsters. Have solid drum tracks for both, same with bass and pretty good accapella's/ Instrumentals. Main problem with Monsters is the layers and panning of the vocal tracks lead to bleed in the separation here and there.

Getting the strings isn't going too well yet which is the main part i want

Good luck! Keep us updated. You may have more luck on Dec 8th

[Eric Cantona]

Crazy that we've finally heard both The General and Soul Monster. I was never particularily anxious to hear Soul Monster for whatever reason, and ironically enough it turned out that Soul Monster is the song I assumed The General was.

[rocknroll41]

1 hour ago, Eric Cantona said:

Crazy that we've finally heard both The General and Soul Monster. I was never particularily anxious to hear Soul Monster for whatever reason, and ironically enough it turned out that Soul Monster is the song I assumed The General was.

Yeah it feels good but also kinda weird that we’re finally getting to the end of the ChiDem era, bit by bit. If rumors of atlas eventually getting released with one or two other songs attached to it are true, then that basically means chidem2 got turned into a trilogy of EPs (which is fine by me).

[Dummy]

11 minutes ago, rocknroll41 said:

Yeah it feels good but also kinda weird that we’re finally getting to the end of the ChiDem era, bit by bit. If rumors of atlas eventually getting released with one or two other songs attached to it are true, then that basically means chidem2 got turned into a trilogy of EPs (which is fine by me).

We finally get our trilogy after all

[Its Tino]

15 hours ago, metalavenger99 said:

So my hopes to someday listen to a finished Me and my Elvis, even if it's reworked with Slash, have gone down the drain.

I came to the opposite conclusion. 
 

With the “release” of The General and Monster fka Soul Monster, I “now believe even more” that many instrumentals from CD era that leaked are in a complete form somewhere. Like Quick Song, Tonto, Z13, Me and My Elvis, Oklahoma etc. 

 

[UYI4]

Didn’t MsL list have it as Monstrosity? Wasn’t Leave Me Alone also on that list?

[rocknroll41]

2 hours ago, UYI4 said:

Didn’t MsL list have it as Monstrosity? Wasn’t Leave Me Alone also on that list?

Soul M, Monstrosity, and The General were listed as different songs. Leave Me Alone was not on there.

[Voodoochild]

8 hours ago, Blackstar said:

I think it's possible that the orchestral "intro" piece was a mashup of Beltrami's work on both tracks.

But let's see if he responds about that. I'm very curious.

I think so. Is there still a recording of that intro out there or UMG took it all down?

[Blackstar]

5 minutes ago, Voodoochild said:

I think so. Is there still a recording of that intro out there or UMG took it all down?

I think they've all been taken down.

[Alexmee239]

Funny to think we had Soul Monster under our nose the whole time (I'm talking about the Vienna cellphone recording) but we all thought it was The General instead.

[luciusfunk]

19 hours ago, WhazUp said:

Even though he didn't outright say "Monsters is Soul Monster" I do think it is the one reasonable conclusion:

1.  We know for sure Marco cited 4 songs outside of the released material on Chinese:  Leave Me Alone, The General, Thyme, and Seven

2.  He remembers working on the track Monsters but not that it was called Monsters, which means it was called something else prior.  We already know what Thyme and The General sound like, which leaves just Leave Me Alone and Seven as candidates

3.  Leave Me Alone is confirmed by Axl to be Soul Monster

4.  "Monsters" has both the words "soul" and "monster" in its lyrics and fits the description of Axl's own description of Soul Monster's bridge

I'm assuming that was in his forum chats in 2008? Man, I can't remember half the stuff he said back then, but I remember he did confirm some song titles.

[Blackstar]

6 minutes ago, luciusfunk said:

I'm assuming that was in his forum chats in 2008? Man, I can't remember half the stuff he said back then, but I remember he did confirm some song titles.

Yes, the quote is in the OP.

[AxlRoseCDII]

It’s funny because in retrospect the cellphone clip of “The General” matched the Soul Monster description by Axl quite a bit. I think it goes to show there’s probably a lot that we don’t know about.

Also, sorry if anyone posted it already, but there’s a lyrics in Monsters: “You stole my soul with the devil's Romancing”

To me that confirmed this is Soul Monster (along with all these additional facts). A big theme in Chinese are song titles loosely or barely verbalized to the song- This I Love, Scraped, Atlas Shrugged, Madgascar. It’s already a lot of coincidence to have a song named Monsters as is, but the word soul in the lyrics seals the deal for me.

Edited November 1, 2023 by AxlRoseCDII

[luciusfunk]

1 hour ago, Blackstar said:

Yes, the quote is in the OP.

Duh...I didn't even see that. I saw the bottom part of the image was Beltrami and assumed the top part was, too. That's my fault.

[Voodoochild]

I posted this on the main thread, but this is maybe the place where it belongs. It gives additional context to what Beltrami said.

So yeah, me and @Blackstar were talking about The General and Monsters orchestral pieces played before the concerts. I'm not 100% sure, as it may have occurred one time or another, but I tried to find Monsters orchestra piece in several 2006 bootlegs, and could never find it. It was always just The General. Here my early findings:

- The General piece was played before concerts in 2009/10, but it was mostly used in 2006/07. I played guitar along with that in two recordings (not sure from which shows those were), and it seemed that the orchestra is a bit shorter than the leak, and it looped back to the beginning. It has a similar secondary melody (I assume those were horns?) in the ending that resembles the first few notes that Slash plays in the beginning of his outro solo. 

Could not find video for a more complete recording, but here's a reminder of how The General sounded:

- Monters orchestral piece wasn't played together with The General, as far as I could find. I wasn't able to find any instance of it being played before 2010. This is one example:

 

- Our conclusion is: The General orchestra was the whole song, but shorter. It was probably never played together with the Monsters part, but we all (yeah, me included) assumed those pieces were mixed together and was the same thing because of how similar they sound. 

Edited November 1, 2023 by Voodoochild
Included The General orchestra video.