Don't forget old Stevie. His groove is a major factor in the sound of AFD.

That is correct. Before that he was pretty much a holy cow.

It seems so. I remember the WII being far ahead of both and the 360 around 50% more than PS3.

PS3 came out very late with a high price. The last few years it has become a lot more affordable and that's probably the reason for the increased sales. It must have been crushing the other consoles the last years or so to catch up with the 360.

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.

No it counts as clocking in at a reasonable length when somebody claims Axl was doing unnecessary long songs on CD. There's still quite a bit of epic stuff on the album though. Axl is Axl. And are you even attempting to get a serious reaction calling it pure garbage? Like it or not they're well made songs, nothing garbage about it.

Please, even Slash' own fans admit his work is not that great, several times in this thread alone. You assume I think Axl failed to deliver with those dudes. I don't. Together they have made several songs I'd have no problem seeing on the Illusions, songs that could actually enhance those albums. Not every song on CD is great but many of them give me the exact same experience as the old stuff. Can't say the same for the top hat and evidently neither can many of you.

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.

No, that was a method from AFD, a method which Slash devised. Everybody in the band agreed. Axl got 40%. Some of those issues you address was why Axl wanted to give more money to Slash and less to Izzy based on their contributions in the band. You know, because everybody knew how important and how much work Slash did compared to Izzy. But again that's just an example of Axl's megalomania, he was probably trying to secure the cash for himself.

If you have a problem with how the band, amiably and democratically, distributed their song writing credits you should take it up with them. Far as I know nobody have raised any complaints.