There are independent movies out there. Usually art movies, horror and comedies. Clint Eastwood is the only guy I know who makes "Hollywood movies". That's why I love stuff like Absolute Power so much. On the surface it looks like your typical thriller, but you notice the little quirks and lack of production values that reveal it as an independent effort. There is purity in Clint's approach. Where Hollywood tries to make a movie yes, at least back then, they are a machine with committees and agendas. All of that tend to interfere in the process. With Clint it's just Clint making the decisions. Kinda like how De Palma tries to make a better Hitchcok movie, Clint tries to make a better Hollywood movie. And when he succeeds the result is really good.

He plays a lot of solos but few of them are great. It's more chicken cooping than twatting. If he brought his Rio Madagascar game to every song I would be overcome with joy, but as it stands his contributions to CD are disappointing. BBF and Robin are just as important in the credits. Being a much better player he should be dominating.

You're right and I don't like to peddle the myth that it was Axl holding CD back. I think it has been established that it was the label that refused to release it until Azoff managed to secure a deal for them to cut their losses. The leaks probably helped in that regard too, either they release the album now and get something out of it, or the whole thing would eventually leak and they would get nothing. Axl was caught in the middle of this game and I think that is what he is referring to when he says the struggles with CD was the worst of his life. He wanted the thing out there in 2001, maybe earlier, but the labels opposition and the media hostility made it into a living nightmare.

That being said there are no vocals for Oklahoma in the locker leaks. Very possible he added them later considering what you mention, but why wasn't it already finished? The song dated back years and judging by how good the instrumental is you would think it would be a priority to include on your comeback album. That same can be said about CD. Why isn't a song like Oklahoma included there? We say CD is a leaks album, and yes it mostly is, but there are also some non leaks on there. Robin Finck says he persuaded Axl to add TIL on the album, so apparently it wasn't just the record company making those decisions. Why didn't Axl include any of the mythical big guns to boost his chances of success? Instead we get Shackler and Scraped. New songs, but not very good ones.   

It gets worse when you consider Hard Skool. They decided to splice in some half done vocals from Eye on You, because obviously that song was never completed beyond its locker leaks form, and there was no unheard Axl material to take it from either, and apparently it was completely out of the question for Axl to do any new vocals. With the release of Absurd and Hard Skool we are again facing a "leaks album". Is that because they were leaked, or is it because most of Axl's material has already leaked and that's all we are going to get?

He talks about doing all these vocals but where is the evidence? To me it seems he had a major creative burst in 99-01 which basically gave us CD, and then a smaller burst in 06-07 which gave us Better, Sorry, Scraped, Shackler, If the World etc. Some good songs there, but clearly the 99-01 period is superior.

It's strange comparing fan attitudes on the forums with facebook. Here we struggle to find anything positive to say, but over there the fans are acting like it's 1991 and things couldn't be better.