It's just really lame to continue on petty bullshit after all these years. Lars has actually stayed friends with Axl, who was initially critical of him after the Montreal incident.

Understand James, like Axl, is a different guy now too. Kids, alcoholism, a band that nearly imploded... it makes you either grow up, or go further down a bad path.

Metallica where they are now shows that they at least on some level got their shit together.

I think for Axl... this is getting his shit together. He's too emotional, and personal, to not kind of have that shit with the old band in the back of his head for forever. It's easier to kind of be cool with people, you don't really have major ties to, thus the Lars thing, thus the Baz thing.

It'd be cool, imo, to see Axl and James hanging out or something, just having a couple drinks. These guys are guys that ran in the same circles back in the day, and it went MAJORLY sour after that tour between James & Axl.

I think it's nice to see James at least being friendly.

See if you make your album ballad-heavy, like CD, your rockers have to be AMAZING, to really balance it.

Look at AFD. Loaded with rockers, but because your big ballad was Sweet Child O' Mine, it carried it to balance it out, and also gave more respect to Think About You.

Lies was anchored by Patience. Illusion I was anchored by November Rain. Illusion II was anchored by Estranged. You get the idea.

Well CD is the reverse of that. The ballads are heavy, people are going to draw heavy comparisons to November Rain = This I Love, Estranged = TWAT, but in addition to that, there's several other ballads, some of which are built up as epics, such as Catcher & Prostitute.

Well that leaves you in a position that your rockers have to basically be Welcome To The Jungle or Coma or Civil War... problem is... none of them are. CD is a strong song, but isn't any higher on the tier than Right Next Door To Hell, Perfect Crime, Garden of Eden, those type of songs, Better isn't really a rocker more a rocker/ballad mix, leaving Shackler's & Scraped to pick up the slack. Scraped is WAY too different to ever serve a mainstream purpose or to grab people, and even though I feel Shackler's does that in SOME ways, Shackler's could be Coma II (which it ain't by a long shot), and even still, that ONE rocker just can't do it. Riad is not good, and most are going to feel that way imo. People would be puking all over their radio dials if that song is ever released as a single. It's probably the most out of place song on this entire album. It should've been saved for whatever album features songs like Silkworms.

The ballads on this album shine imo, but the rockers are average-to-good. Thing is because the rockers stick out... they also stick out as... well, B-sides.

Considering this is coming from a man, who either A) Can't vote, or B) Never registered...

Weiland just likes to hear himself talk/write. He's such a legend in his own mind. Glad he waited until the last week to endorse Obama, considering the fact he's used all these months to gather up all over everyone else's opinion, that they've had since April, so he can convey his own.

See that's the problem. GN'R never were a trendsetter. Neither were Metallica, despite what their fans think.

GN'R simply combined a billion different influences into AFD, such as The Stones, Nazareth, and even Hanoi Rocks, to make their own little sound.

Lies (the acoustic stuff) was basically Tom Petty, thus the duet at the VMA's.

The Illusions were as Slash put it, GNR's "White Album", with all kinds of influences. But in reality, in Axl's mind, imo, it was GNR's "A Night At The Opera" or "Day At The Races" or "News Of The World", take your pick. Like Queen, it featured the sleazy GN'R rockers of AFD, with Elton John-influenced ballads, country-elemented epics (Breakdown), and even Metallica-styled metal (Coma). Only Estranged imo, seemed to be their own little unique invention for the albums, but even Estranged seemed to have moments where it felt like Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me or Candle In The Wind with dolphin sound effects. It apparently wasn't a sound too lost on other artists, because Ozzy put out No More Tears the same year, which seemed like a cousin to Estranged, even with dolphin sound effects too.

CD in alot of ways is like Use Your Illusion III, which is why I keep using Queen as an example. The only difference is, that Axl decided the rockers needed to be updated to a NIN/Rob Zombie-influenced sound, but the ballads basically stayed the same. TWAT sounds like the son of Estranged, Street Of Dreams sounds like an Illusion II song, and several of the ballads sound like Queen songs... with this exception... they sound like Queen songs of the 80's. Thus the reason people are saying This I Love is dated. It is dated. It sounds like it could be on "The Works" or "A Kind of Magic", "If The World" sounds like an "Innuendo" song, and Catcher N' The Rye sounds like it could be on "The Miracle".

At this point i'm waiting for the next tour to roll around and them to start covering "The Show Must Go On" (which would be cool).

This is the direction he's went, which is fine by me, and the music is great.

But trendsetting? No. But then again, GN'R never were.

Wow, those numbers are crazy. Especially for an exclusive. GN'R should do better than I expected, but the only pitfall is, just about every town in the U.S. (at least from my experience) either has a Wal-Mart, or has one that's close.

The same can't be said for Best Buy, and imo will be the reason GNR's numbers will do well, but won't surpass AC/DC.