Your take on the new songs in general....

[T.W.A.T.]

They sure have. These new tunes rock!

[zrose27]

my favorite is twat....its kinda met my expectations

[bdinan]

Considering my iTunes is telling me I've played Catcher in the Rye 103 times since its leaked... I'd say so.

I like all four tracks in varying degrees.

[ohmygod]

i always thought dibiasi andvirgil were lovers.

[mr.Q]

how the heck was I off topic?

Not you dude!

I was referring to the posts before you.

Now you both are off topic! (me too actually)

mr.Q

P.S.

1.Better

1.IRS

1.TWAT

2.Madagascar

3.Blues

4.CITR

6.CD

[Wildrose]

well that was interesting

Also very stupid.

[-Sephiroth-]

Another thread about the new songs. Should everybody start their own thread with their personal rewievs of the songs? Why was this not merged? Because of who it was that started it?

[grubby]

the new demo's are great. it's nice to hear new music from Axl. I don't get the same feeling I did when i first heard AFD back in 87'. this new stuff doesn't seem to grab you like AFD. maybe it's just that I'm so much older now, don't know. I do know I want to hear the finished album then maybe I'll be like I was back in 87 and knew that I was listening to something special and wanted to turn everyone on to what I was rocking to.

[fridayfan13]

i really like the fact that none of the songs sound thae same. they all have a different feel to them. also, the band itself seems to be really backing axl up on the demos. i now know that ill be ok with the new band.

[koudair]

different styles, but they didn't impress me (although i like some of the guitar playing on the songs)...but then again they're still demo's

Edited March 4, 2006 by koudair

[terminator2]

All these song have definetely met my expectations. They are great. My favorite is better. Even if the whole album leaks, I will still buy CD.

Edited March 4, 2006 by terminator2

[Alan Niveen]

I'm looking forward to listen to the final versions of these songs.

[Theodore Dibiase]

Yes my Norweigan friend - my name is Theodore Dibiase and I am a millioniare...

You are from Norway and you probably live on a dirty peasant boat and wear horns.

When I say something - people listen.

When I inspire people - lives are changed.

So please go back to your insignificant life and do not mess in my affairs - you disease infested scandinavian rodent.

Sincerely,

Theodore Dibiase - oh I just made more money in the time it took me to type this (3.2 seconds) than a snowman like you makes in a lifetime.

[mr.Q]

Cool piece of work.

Got similar experiences on the UYI stuff, although I recall a slight disappointment back then because I didn't got that exited as I got my first copy of AFD (on vinyl and with banned cover).

As for TWAT, I have exact the same experience.

I have other thoughts about the section of how the tracks are leaked, I think it is very well possible that Axl's management is behind this and leaked the track to get publicity. In the end business is business.

mr.Q

Edited March 4, 2006 by mr.Q

[Carne_asaDA]

I only like TWAT, BETTER, and CITR. Although these are good songs, I don't think that they are strong enough. They sound like just another flavor of the week emo songs. TWAT is the exception.

[Spoon87]

"Better" is an asskicking song, i really dig it... without that annoying part in the middle.

"IRS" is still the fuckin amazing song i liked back on April Fools Day 2005

"TWAT" is very good too, you need to get into it, but then it's amazing, i love it.

"CITR" is the best out of the 4 leaks imo, that song is mind-blowing.

[gnrwillbeforever]

Okay I know this might not be interesting to anyone, but it is close to midnight, I am bored, and I like to write.

I don't post here very much, but I have been a GNR fan since 1988 when I first heard them and suddenly stopped listening to all my Def Leppard albums. Like everyone else I've been faithfully waiting for them to put up a follow up to the Illusions. I can still remember on Tuesday, Sept. 17, 1991, waiting in the "Face the Music" record store, asking the clerk, "where the hell are the albums?" There were about 3 of us there asking him the same thing, and he pointed at a mail truck that had just pulled up outside and said, "They're right in there!" They brought them in and I snatched UYI I & II, took them back to my dorm, and listened straight through for several hours.

Since then, I've been waiting for their follow-up (I don't count The Spaghetti Incident as it was all covers). I can remember often, when I was in a supermarket and bored, going over to the magazine section and while I was there, checking out the latest issue of Metal Edge or Hit Parader, in hopes of finding some info. on a new GNR album. PEOPLE, THIS WAS IN 1996!!! LOL. Yes, it's been a long, hard, patient road for us true blue guns fans. When I heard Slash quit I thought that was the end. Then when I heard Axl was trying to rebuild something great, I have always been following his progress over the years, hoping he succeeds.

Anyway, that is the background on me, to show my comments come from someone with a lot of knowledge about the band, and that I'm not someone who has only heard Greatest Hits. With that in mind, here's what I think (drumroll, LOL).........

I think anyone who thinks these leaks are a disappointment, is insane. LOL, okay I know it's music so it is subjective, therefore it obviously can be a disappointment. But just from my own perspective, these songs are even greater than I had hoped for. The man has not been just sitting in his studio playing tiddly winks all these years, people. Even as rough demos, these songs have "it." As people often say, you can't describe what "it" is, you just know "it" when you hear it.

I guess if I could describe one thing similar about the 3 songs, they all have momentum. They are alive, and dammit they are going somewhere. This is some very cool creative stuff. I actually feel that about these 3 songs more than I do about either Maddy or The Blues, both of which I like very much.

As for "Axl's new sound," if you want to call it that, I think it is beautiful. I love the old songs as much as anyone, but if we had 3 versions of "It's So Easy," it would seem rather forced and false to me. Those songs were written when Axl was sleeping in doorways and collecting spare change to get biscuits and gravy at Denny's, not when he was in his 40's and living in Malibu with a large black man named Earl.

Whatever faults Axl Rose has, the man has always been uncompromisingly, unflinchingly honest. What he is feeling comes out exactly in his songs, whether it is love, hate, prejudice, rage, kindness, or sadness. That is also why I find the rumor of him "purposely leaking the tracks," to be ludicrous. Axl Rose is not the kind of person who is going to subversively leak tracks to the public, in the vain hope that he will be more popular. This guy has resisted the hunger of the public for his music for over a DECADE, just because he didn't believe in releasing anything unless it was 100% exactly what he envisioned. Do you really think he would want to leak a DEMO, the very definition of an unfinished product, to the public? Preposterous.

As to other objections: Axl's voice. I have laughed at this one for years. People saying, "His voice has gotten worse, it sounded too 'clear' during the '02 tour!" Give me a break. I always knew that was BS, a person's voice gets BETTER as they get older, not worse. Any great singer can tell you that. If a person's voice was great at 25, it will be even better and fuller at 45, that is just a fact (unless they horrifically abuse it). So it's no surprise to me his voice sounds great. I would guess his songwriting abilities have improved as well (as the tracks would bear out).

I also think it is funny when people say, "These tracks aren't as good as on Use Your Illusion." See, us old people remember when those CDs first came out, and people were slagging on the UYI tracks back then, the same way some are on these demos right now. Fast forward 15 years, and suddenly the UYI tracks are revered. Don't get me wrong I love the UYI albums, I just think it's kind of funny because I remember people complaining the same way 15 years ago. "The songs are too different, it doesn't sound like Appetite, etc., etc." Now songs like Estranged are considered sacro-sanct. But in 1991, all you heard was "I wish there were more Welcome to the Jungles on here, what is all this weird sh*t."

It's hard to describe what you feel about music, about it's quality. But you just know it when you hear it. When I listen to TWAT, yes it is very rough and needs editing, but if you can't hear the genius potential in that thing, you have the musical acumen of a spider monkey. I mean, come on. It baffles me that some people can't hear that.

Do I think these songs could have been written with Slash? Maybe if they tied him up somewhere while they worked on the songs. I mean, I love Slash, but he is perfect for Appetite-style rock, not this stuff. The man is a genius of bluesy, hard rock, but I can't see him ever signing off on this stuff unless Earl was sitting on him. If that is the case, I am glad he left. I get a lot more excited about this new stuff, then the prospect of hearing Velvet Revolver with Axl singing the lyrics.

As for IRS, that is actually the song of the 3 I am least excited about, perhaps because it is the most traditional. I think it is a very good song and would fit in great with any of the rockers on the Illusions, it's just that I am more excited about the stuff I am hearing on TWAT and Better. At first I did not think much of TWAT, but then after I listened to it a few times, I was at work, and started hearing it in my head, over and over again. I thought damn, why do I keep hearing this? The sh*t was growing on me, right away. Now I listen to it every day, and its potential just looms more and more each time I listen to it. Anyone else feel that way?

Something I don't get is the people who complain about the intro to Better. I LOVE the intro to better. I think that is one of the best parts of the song. Don't change a thing, Axl! To me, Better is the kind of song I just want to get into my convertible with, and zoom off down the street listening to it full blast, with the top down. Too bad I don't have a convertible, but if I did, dammit, I'd be listening to Better in it! And just think, we haven't even heard the whole song!

To people who say, "their isn't a single," I would say Better would make a great one, that's my opinion anyway. I think the public, non-GNR fans would really get into it. And, I believe there are at least 6 more songs we haven't heard that will be just as good or better.

These new songs just have me stoked, this is the best news out of GNR land I've had since 1994, people!!!! In a way it is funny, we had absolutely NOTHING for years after years, and now all of a sudden, boom boom boom, we have 3 leaks, announcements of tour dates, multiple Axl Rose sightings, etc. It is all a little too much to take! I feel like a diabetic in a chocolate factory.

Anyway, excuse the rambling, I just wanted to express some things I hadn't seen a lot of other people say.

Oh my gosh, you are so right man... i can't believe people aren't going to take axl for who he really is... they all want something same-old same-old, when they arent just trusting axl with it. I know he'll do a good job on it even though i have'nt even haerd anything on or about this new cd

[PS_PoWeR]

Axl Rose owes me a cell phone.

I got so caught up in Better I lost it while running errands and humming along to it.

[MetaSouL]

Pre-CITR leak...although I think CITR will own on CD.

The Return of Guns N’ Roses

February - 2006

MetaSouL

Friday, February 17th, 2006, smacked the underground music world with stupefaction, confirming a promising answer to a question that has been hovering in the minds of even the most devote fans of the legendary, and not so recently reinvented, Guns N’ Roses. That is to say - Will the reincarnated version of Guns N’ Roses and its creative labor, 10 years in the making, rival one of the highest benchmarks in the Rock N’ Roll archives; namely itself? The answer, unprecedented as it may seem, appears to be held in the substratum, or “demo” versions, of the comprehensive artistry that is directed by W. Axl Rose, front-man, and worlds most reclusive and diametrically volatile creator, lyricist, singer and visionary leader of Guns N’ Roses. Axl Rose, with a mythical aura of manic depression and narcissistic perfection, has been unable to escape the clutches of pursuing creative realization, that which has been satisfied by only the great artists, those who dwelled exclusively outside of time and within the darkest recesses of the creative mind. Axl Rose may represent no less than the epitome of such surrogates of ingenuity, as self evident by the mere glimpse of his reality, that which can be found translated in the works of an album that has been a decade in the making, consumed tens of millions of dollars, much of which has been thrown out with the inadequacy encountered on the road to creative perfection. Time, money, fame, none of which appear to have compromised this singularity of creative focus that has bowed only to the standards held within the mind of Axl Rose, standards that have been challenged by every waking moment of rock’s most mythical character, encapsulated in the forthcoming infamous Chinese Democracy.

Friday night, while kids across America were catching a buzz before heading out on the town to party to the tune of Korn, System of a Down, and Velvet Revolver, Guns N’ Roses fans were glued to their computer monitors, furiously clicking downloadable links of three leaked demo version songs that represent the last 10 years of Axl’s life, and quite possibly the future musical enjoyment of the very party goers that were oblivious to the epic train that quickly approached them. For ten years, skepticism, more than anything else, permeated the GN’R world at large. Nowhere was this as evident as in the Guns N’ Roses online community. How could Axl Rose live up to an unmatched collaboration he helped build from the ashes of punk rock and out of the dying embers of hair-metal, an effort that bled the superficiality out of the 80’s rock era? How could he possibly win the musical lottery twice against such considerable odds? Moreover, how could he pool together an ensemble of talent to perfectly translate that which dwells in his mind onto the DAT tapes that comprise Chinese Democracy and represent his very life?

If these questions weren’t crushed in the affirmative by a creative onslaught of musical genius found within the three demonstrative compositions, they were certainly quelled by them. I.R.S, Better, and There Was a Time, the three leaked tracks, could quite possibly represent the catapulting of a dying rock industry into a new revitalized direction.

Before this can be done, it is as if Axl Rose must show us the precedent that will be crushed. I.R.S., a very rough demo, hints of the oldest roots of Guns N’ Roses, and sets this stage upon which Axl and Co. springboard from convention into a new era.

Uninterested in challenging the direction of rock’s roots, this song plunges into its depths as if to surmount it while simultaneously exemplifying the axiom that would immediately be denied breathing room within the songs Better and There Was a Time. I.R.S. appears to represent the road from which the new Guns veer, clearing new ground through tracks like Better and There Was a Time, through which future generations are certain to follow. In a way, it represents the legacy of his past. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been robbed, wouldn’t be the last I’m sure I’ve known, all the rumors I can tell...” conveys an indirect fire to vanquish his past with such a ferocity that I.R.S. itself is left representing the basis from which Axl departs on his creative journey. It acts as a beacon with which to say, “stay with me, and follow me to unmapped places”.

Better, one such unmapped locale and a self-evident title that lives up to its name via an air of funk and rock, could only emanate from the mind of a man who knows no rules and follows no cliché. This song is not given to hyperbole. It downright crushes anything released in the last decade of rock, hands-down. It can be likened to a steering wheel in which rock will be redirected if allowed to flower on the forthcoming Chinese Democracy. It is ballsy, as if to proclaim property rights on the mainstream of tomorrow while boasting risky originality a bit far from today’s accepted model. This song will likely be released as an early single from the album. In fact, Mr. Rose, expressed that this was one of his personal favorites, mere weeks before it leaked, as is the case with There Was a Time, both hinting of intentional lip wetting to stoke the fires of what is to come.

The funk-laden intro of Better, overlaid on a hip-pop backbone, cannot be directly compared to anything, yet may be hinted at within Rage Against the Machine’s Renegades of Funk. “No one ever told me when I was alone, they just thought I knew better” softly speaks of Axl’s troubled childhood dragged into the present as it coasts on the spacey funk. The vocal line is enough to make David Bowie and Robert Plant jealous without denying their influence. If it weren’t for a prominent air of Freddie Mercury and Robert Plant laced around the Bowie-esk femininity, one would wonder if it had roots of influence at all. As soon as the listener thinks they have it pinned down, the song emerges into a thick rock platform, guitars of Richard Fortus and Robin Finck sustaining sharp character within a thick lattice of calculated distortion, chunked apart in a march of strings over which Axl’s voice strides in a deep raspiness of clarity. Each inflection of his voice heard in the crisp rise and fall between his unparalleled lows and highs, reminisces of the Axl of yesterday, but with more intelligent calculation, frighteningly so. It is here that one is struck with undying mark of success to be. It is here, where the hairs stand on ones neck and the walls of doubt come crumbling down.

As the walls fall, the song punches through rock obscurity into a grungy chorus that pulls the “knowing better” of childhood lessons into the present complexity of mature lessons learned and relative trust-based pitfalls, announcing, “All that I wanted was…Now I know you better, you know I know better”, as if incurring the realization of usury in a single second. As if the point must be more poignant, Axl shouts, “Now I…”, followed by answering himself on another layer of the song, “Know you better”, as if reaffirming the newly discovered credo. Before it can be fully contemplated, it is immediately burned by Buckethead’s explicit pitch as it echoes Axl’s sentiment by literally piercing the vibe and yanking it to a new plateau, answering Axl by saying “Yes, you are cognizant, now come with me!”

Those who say Axl Rose’s voice will never measure up to his past are quietly subdued in the wake of this epic vocal performance. But that is not the point. As Buckethead’s solo answered Axl’s vocal precedent, it is if each height is succeeded by another contributor of the band, from the slap of Tommy Stinson’s bass to the solidarity-producing rhythm of Richard Fortus to the cloak of electro-ingenuity produced by the Dizzy Reed and Chris Pitman collaboration. And this is only the beginning.

There Was a Time speaks of a darker moment in the recess of Axl’s mind, introducing itself with a melodramatic hip-pop beat and a Michael Myers-ish synth, as Axl admits through the manic moments of “broken glass and cigarettes” into a shattered wine-glass relationship of give and no return. The song soon advances to the bridge, again showing its funkadelic signature more subtly illustrated in Better, as if to relax from the depression long enough to blame it on “the wrong time” per Axl’s proclamation. Since when does funk fit in the melodramatic setting of seriousness? For Axl Rose it fits just perfectly, and begs the reminiscent “lonely teardrops” into realization that “There was a time”.

Robin Finck picks up where Axl leaves his recollection to momentarily rest. As Robin bares his soul for the world to see, one can’t help but to picture him giggling wildly off-tape at how when someone is underestimated they strike hardest…and when least expected. In a band nod of the head, a half-dozen personalities begin to chant in gospel fashion, “There was a time” repeatedly as if hypnotizing the listener into acknowledging that the “time” is “now” as much as in the past. This chorus transition represents another key moment in the song, one which reaffirms the realization that this band will be bigger than life if it can possibly survive the eye of the storm. Not settling for a simple statement of collective achievement, Axl raises the octave that a younger version of himself would have a hard time emulating. As one is taken back by the seriousness of this man’s vision, Buckethead caps the songs with a solo that beckons to be archived with the greatest licks of all-time, to the likes of Jimmy Page and Hendrix himself, not withstanding the accomplishments of Slash that seem to wobble with unsoundness at the precision of Buckethead’s fingers. It is simply one of the best solos ever…and it’s on a demo!

The versatility of this melting pot, the collectiveness and personality of the chorus that solidifies this as a band and not a one man show, the creative genius of Finck and Buckethead coupled with Richard Fortus, a man who employs creativity in timely turns of the music, magnetically employing commercial glimpses buried in the seriousness of the collective efforts - It beckons fans to a reality that is not just that of Axl Rose….it emphatically states that this is a vision, this is a band, each component as creative as the next, extracted and pooled together to form the perspicacity of its leader, who will once again go down in history as quite possibly the greatest rock singer of all time.

If this happens, as reason tells us it will, Axl will be donning a backpack of talented musicians that most certainly can hold up to the criticism this artist is unaffectionately familiar with. Good luck Mr. Rose…Better luck Guns N’ Roses.

[Wabby]

I give a lot of credit to the people(the probably very few of you there are) that have resisted downloading the new demos. I can't imagine after having next to no music from axl in a decade plus having the will power to wait for the disc to release. Im loving the new demos , but i cant help but think of how awesome it wouldve have been to have bought the cd with only heard one maybe two songs on it. Oh well it will be incredible feeling regardless to finally have CD hopefully in the next couple of months.

[Guest]

No offence but couldn't you have posted this in the billion other threads?

[december pain]

i agree. i heard better and irs and twat as soon as i got them.

i lasted a week before giving in and listening to citr.

i salute you who have withstood the tempation... But the songs are sooo good!

[BBruin66]

i salute you who have withstood the tempation... But the songs are sooo good!

For those who did not rock, we salute you.

[*ParadiseCityGirl*]

I've listend to Twat, better, and IRS...

But i'm holding out on CITR

[neatd99]

Most people here have not been waiting a decade. I've been a fan since the '90s and I haven't been waiting a decade. In fact, I only found out Axl was still alive in '02. I bet that 75% of the posters here have been waiting 3 years tops.

Anyway, I do not give any credit to anyone who has not downloaded the demos yet. Chinese Democracy may never come out. If you download the demos, at least you have something.

Edited March 4, 2006 by neatd99