Also, I wish some of these arguments could take place without people getting so dug in thatthey need to dig up reasons to shit on the other person's band member. Its plain bizarre to see people defending Axl by shitting on Slash ( and Izzy etc) and vice versa. Before I really started following Axl' s post UYI lineup I used to log into gnr msg boards in 2002ish. The same convos were going on then. And we still pick them like open sores. Its just weird sometimes. Unless you truly hate one guy or another, there's no good reason for propping up your 'pro' arguments with 'anti' ones if that even makes sense.

buzzsaw wrote:

LOL.  Hilarious.  You think average work is great.  Good for you.  How long was the intro to CD again?  How was it necessary to the song again?  That's what I thought.  All that synth shit in Better sure made that a great song too...lol.  Here's what you really keep hearing about the CD songs: "I liked (insert song here) so much better on the leaks/demos/live versions before all the fluff was added" - that's what people say.  I've said all along that most of those songs were probably good at some point, but they were ruined.  Axl even tried to ruin TWaT, but in most people's mind he failed to destroy it on the album.  He tried to make them all epic when they just weren't epic songs.  That's the failure of CD.  It's not that the songs suck; it's that Axl tried way too hard for way too long to make them into something they could never be.

I don't care if you think Axl failed to deliver with those dudes, I know Axl did.  Axl knows he did.  Those dudes know they did.  The people that buy music know he did.  What you think doesn't really matter.  He probably had gold at one point, but he turned it to shit by trying to make the songs into something they couldn't be and releasing them when they were so dated that people think they could belong on a 1992 album.  no amount of Axl revionist history from you is going to change any of that despite your best efforts.

Long enough to achieve its purpose. Which is to draw the listener into a dull state before hitting him with a bang. It makes the effect more powerful and it's a great addition to the song. A common technique used in many forms of music. I suppose you'd prefer the 01 version? The one that people didn't even talk about until an almost completely different song appeared on the album? Yes I thought so!

That's what people said after listening to those demos for years. A very natural reaction after creating an emotional attachment to a certain set of sounds. You don't hear it all that much anymore. It's now almost solely used as ammo in Axl hatefests. And yes, Axl ruined TWAT when he added that terrible Buckethead solo and his wails to the "raw" 99 version. I wish Axl would just stop with all these additions, clearly it's not doing any good. IRS is another example. Just terrible, overdone, unnecessary stuff added to that. I mean, who needs a BH solo and an Axl scream? That's like so not rock n roll.

What I think is the only thing that matters. I'm the one doing the listening, and I'm happy about what I'm hearing. If you guys don't it's really only your loss. I'm sure you'd get a kickass, bare bones 99 version of CD if the top hat was in charge though.

A guy I used to work with was a classically trained drummer, really into jazz, fusion, and prog rock. He hated Slash with a passion. In his words, ”that guy is terrible. Terrible!”. He then he went into a monologue about how he plays off key.

Now I don't know dick about music, other than I know that some I like and some I don't. I really like what Slash does. In fact I have almost 200 songs by him on my iPod, in a playlist I've since named ”terrible, TERRIBLE”.

But I wonder, is what my ex coworker said true? And if it is, why does it sound so good?

I've said plenty of times Slash was vital to GN'R. That doesn't mean there is something special about the way he plays guitar. It's all standard riffs and solos. It doesn't mean they aren't great, it just means his role in the band is that of most lead guitarists. He's no BH or Vai, he's not even a Nikki Sixx or Jerry Cantrell. He's the classic right hand man partner to the front man. They are both indispensable icons who define a band.

No, the important thing is that a good idea turned into a great song. I hear a lot of good ideas on his solo work, not many great songs though. I mean, we have clear proof of what happens when we remove all these unimportant members of the band from the equation. Eric Dover, Rod Jackson, Scott Weiland, Myles Kennedy. Why didn't any of them simply latch on to Slash greatness and become the next Axl Rose? Believe it or not, Slash laying down riffs for 45 minutes does not make a GN'R album.

Well, Coma and Locomotive are great because of Slash so why doesn't he make any more of them? Obviously you don't hear a lot of those on Axl's album, but I'll be damned if you don't hear some NRs, Breakdowns and Don't Crys. And I know you think CD is shit but it doesn't really matter, you yourself admit you don't hear Slash achieving the heights of his GN'R spell on his own, but you'll find plenty of people who think stuff like TWAT, The Blues and Catcher match Axl's former efforts. And suggesting he stretches out his songs to appear epic is a statement without merit. Overproduced sure, but the majority of the songs are around 5 minutes long and in no way do they contain any unnecessary or artificial segments.

buzzsaw wrote:

misterID wrote:

I think the only think that makes you butt hurt is that those CD epics don't suck without Slash.

That's your opinion.  The lack of success of any of the singles and the album as a whole says otherwise.  The only song they made worthy of the GnR name was TWaT.  That's it.  The other CD "epics" are epically bad.

CD was successful, critically and financially. Rolling Stone rated Better as one of the best singles of the year. Chinese Democracy charted pretty well, though that is a weak way to show how good a song is or isn't. Prostitute was great, Catcher, TWAT, yeah, pretty awesome stuff.