yeah, better was clearly the of the favorite of the album. correct me if i'm wrong, but better was the only song that we ever heard anything about in terms of a music video. we eventually saw the "final" product (axl would call it a demo, i'm sure), but it was an absolute disaster. totally amateur. there's fanmade vids on youtube for chinese democracy songs that absolute crush that nonsense.

it's crazy that a creative visionary like axl didn't have a whole plan for that video. especially with all the storytelling in that song. the best they could come up with is some live footage, backstage shots and introducing the 18 people who have been in the band? the only thing interesting in that whole debacle was the lil red devil guy.

was axl ever asked about music videos during any of the chats?

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you know, the hip-hop style drum beats are actually some of my favorite parts of the entire album. it's crazy, especially when you go back and listen to the drumming on any of the other gnr records. it's a completely different style, but it works wonders on those songs. hell, i even love the drums in the intro of irs.

the story is that axl and bumblefoot were eating hamburgers and jamming on rhiad. axl turned to bumblefoot and told him a part of the song reminded him of "hey bulldog" by the beatles. i played each song back to back one time with my girlfriend.... we had no fuckin' idea what ax was talking about.

i have to say, though -- i never liked rhiad until very recently. the live performances of the song were just so goddamn awful with axl's helium vocals. the studio version is a damn monster, though. the chorus is powerful as fuck. can't believe i'm saying this, but it's grown to be one of the highlights of the album for me.

badass instrumental with some of axl's all-time wackiest vocals. the intro is hilariously awkward and out of place. the verses sound like each line was sung during a different year, in a different studio with a different axl. his pitch is shifting all over the place and i'm pretty sure the vocals are heavily auto-tuned. that may have been the effect axl was going for... but i don't really buy that. seems like axl just went in and half-assed the vocals to get the song on the album, so that he could save the "big guns" for the 2nd and 3rd parts of the trilogy.

when all this happened, it was probably the most excited i ever was for chinese democracy. when the clip dropped with the axl scream going into the bucket solo, i must have listened to that a thousand times. after hearing that, i was confident axl was going to release an absolute monster of an album and take the world back over.

the better leak a while after was pretty goddamn exciting, too.

by the time the album actually came out, i was way past giving a shit about any of it.