To tell the truth, as much as I am a fan of the old line-up(s), I don't see a reunion happening or turning out for good. If Axl can kill his own album then what can we expect when he'd tour with Slash, Duff and Izzy? Granted, on a tour a lot of things turn out differently how Axl wants it. His beef isn't ready in time, or the big egos crash. Sorry, I think Axl is not interested in a reunion and he will not be in the foreseeable future. Neither Slash, as I see it. It'd take months or years of negotiations between the camps and we all know hos often Axl will not appear for whatever reasons. The others would nix it, even if they're into in the beginning. I really don't seem them working together again, the guys are like in a different universe. It'd need a miracle to happen.

I still don't understand Axl's silence, unless he's really crazy. His silence doesn't fuck up his record company, Universal got most/a lot of its money back from the Best Buy deal. He fucks with the fans? Well, thank you if that's the case, but it's not that hard to live through another silent Axl period.

The only ones he fucks real hard with this silence are himself and the guys who worked their asses off to make the record Axl wanted. It's some kind of self-destruction. Build something for more than a decade, even killing an awesome band to reach that 'vision', spending a lot of (own) money on it, saying through the management that 'we will have the last laugh' and the 'album will show who as the heart and soul of Guns N' Roses', then nothing, when he surely knows that every album needs promo. CD's mystery's gone a lon time ago, now not the mystic, but the unveil of secrets would pump up interest. Anyway, he doesn't speak and doesn't go anywhere public. I can't get it.

So either he's in the derpessive stage of his bipolarity or he's doing it for some purpose, in the end it's just him being crazy.

Yeah, I think 5 O'Clock is the best album by any GN'R-member post 1991. CD and Ain't Life Grand are tied.

That was an unknown band. Now it's one of the top brands of the music history.

To tell the truth I could vote off half of the album easily. Shackler, If The World, CITR, Rhiad, Madagascar, Prostitute isn't really doing anything for me. 3-4 songs of the remaining bunch are quite great, though.
It'd be a solid album with that ratio, problem is it took 15 years. If Axl dropped albums of CD quality in every 3 years, talking or no talking, nobody would complain.