Thanks for the reminder! Just grabbed it off Amazon- listening now!

I'm weird with Scott. Didn't like STP when they first came out- they were "try hards" in my book. I think their catalog matured and they had a different sound for each album. By the end of the first run, I was quite a fan.

So I was pretty jazzed when they announced Scott as the singer for VR. The first album bore that out, especially since the first peep I heard out of them was Slither on the radio, which was one of those songs a deaf person could tell you Slash was playing. Contraband is still a badass album, and for all the crap Scott takes for shitty lyrics, I love that album end to end.

By Libertad, between the all around shittastickness of the album, the band falling apart publicly... I don't know. I come down very firmly thinking he's a goon again. It's easy for me to agree that he's limited and two dimensional, but at the same time, he's got good stage presence. And when he's firing on all cylinders, he manages to transcend what should be obvious limitations. Deep down, where they call David Bowie a musical chameleon, I sometimes think Scott might be a musical parrot. One could accuse him of aping musical styles throughout his career rather than pushing the boundaries of them.

However, when he's off the smack he's damn good at it, no matter what the truth is. End of the day, I give him the edge over Myles, assuming he's at peak.  But Myles is a workhorse and team player, and despite his tone, can handle an amazing range of music, so he's got that going for him. Which is nice.

Thanks for refreshing my memory of the timeline. Given that, I'd say Iovine/Azoff with Azoff being the puppeteer. So the next question becomes why, right?

If it were those two, I'd say it clears the deck: it rips the band aid off and forces everything forward. It removes the fear of public reaction, and ultimately, given what we know of Azoff, might even pave the way for a reunion by sabotaging CD.

Was Azoff already involved at that point? I def DON'T think it was the band, APC, or Slash/VC. If Azoff was in the picture, I'd lean towards him or someone associated with the Lebeis', but not them directly.

Also, I'd love to know FOR SURE whether the track listing was forced by the leaks or not. Were we going to get those tracks either way?