Musically I'm right with you....Bucket has the skills to pull off anything.

But my idea in the other thread was about  replacing two things lost when slash left:

#1 : the musical street cred (bucket has this no question)

and

#2 : the media skills and verbal ability to be the 'nice' spokesman of the band as a counter balance to Axl's rants and etc.

IMO Bucket was not the man for #2 because his own gimick means he's unable to freely chat to the press.

I figure the old GNR worked cos Axl called people motherfuckers and pulled off the Rock attitute excellently, while Slash was friendly enough to take care of the PR side enough so that you didn't get years of wierdness like we do now. Like shit went wrong with the old band, but you didn't feel they were a freakshow...dangerous yes, but not odd. Bumble can bring back the 'normalness'.

I totally agree about Bucket's skills though. I know everyone loves TWAT but to me I feel he could have done so much more in GNR. And probab;y would have if it had all worked out better.
Like stuff like Soothsayer and Notthiham...i'd kill to hear a solo that powerful structured into Axl's stuff.

It's made my day to see some of the pro-bucket fans showing slash a little love. It frustrates me like I can't explain when people insult either slash or bucket.  They are both such amazing players, and both give music so much.

It's interesting what's being said about an instrumental album. While i'd like it, a singer can give a soloist something to bounce off.

What's more important to me, although related, is that the song structures need to be designed to give slash something to work with. I'd hate to see this be an album of just normal songs - each with a kickass 20 second solo in the middle.

One of the reasons slash was so cool in GNR is that songs like estranged, even civil war and locotomative or breakdown, they gave him a lot of room to do stuff....the problem in VR by and large is that the song structures were less complex and more basic...which lead to just small solos.

I wish he'd release the actuall singer list soon too!

An interesting question.

It's apparent from his interviews that Axl himself still has a problem with slash. It would seem that many who surround him share his view points, folks such as Del James, Beta and others who have made public statements similar in intent.

My belief is that Jarmo, in his capacity as head of one of the largest GNR communities, was approached by GNR managment to assist in normal media discourse. That is, they approached him as a way to present informatuion to the fan base when they wanted to, and to assist in shooting down false rumours, and probably also to enure he doesn't do things unacceptable to the brand. (he is afterall using their trademarks etc). This is all quite proper.

My belief then is that he was given access to the band and managment, and because he was a huge fan, he found this fantastic and overwhelming and was understandably keen to foster the relationship and careful not to do anything to damage it.

I doubt he was formally told to bash slash, but I suspect it's more of a case of "when in rome, do as the roman's do". As he got closer and witnessed hostility to slash within the GNR family he  naturally would have stoped posting defences of the old band, if those defences were likely to upset those in managment or Axl himself. It's then only a small step into joining into the group of people who do bash slash.

I think jarmo was put in a very hard situation, he'd be desperate to keep his ties with Axl and co, but at the same was previously a fan of VR and so forth. He found himself wound up in the politics all of a sudden.

I doubt Axl phones people up and tells them to insult slash, but when Axl himself calls slash a cancer and insults the UYI albums, , and when such things are posted on the offical site, and when you run an unoffical site trying to keep it's approval from managment, then if you are a person who want's to keep favour with Axl or better yet impress him,  then it's not too hard to guess what kind of spin to begin posting with...even if they've never been instructed to.

I still listen to it a lot. I agree that you need to spin something else to clense the pallete every couple of listens...but to be honest although GNR has always been my favourite band...I'm like that with all their albums. I wouldn't listen to UYI on repeat either...i just like to chop and change my cds.

Anyway...i agree with *some* of this review. It's interesting his notes that Axl is singing about similar themes to his previous works, ie, heartbreak, isolation etc. Although, that's axl's gift to be able to vocalise these pains into words and sound so well, so I'm glad he has done that as opposed to writing an album about something he doesn't feel.

Where i disagree is actually the 'good' not 'great' stuff. yes it's true - i've apparently turned into the resident nutswinger - despite that i also love slash etc - but I honestly no bullshit think this album is great. I can understand others may not share my opinion. But that's how I feel. Some of the songs on this album are Axl at his absolute best IMO. I still think Madagascar is one of the most beautiful songs ever, and "This I Love" is just a work of genius to me.

I think hearing all the different leaks and stuff, while it kept us going as fans, has made people become familair with a song or obsessed with an alternate version of a song. Imagine if you'd not heard anything since 2000 and you heard these songs, it would be so much to digest at once, but it would be very happy making. It think a lot of people who feel let down esentially discount Better, Maddy, Twat, SOD and others that are pretty much what we had and then feel let down that there isn't something else. If you think of this album as the true origin of these songs, yet hidden from us until now, then it puts a different perspective. Imagine if you'd heard jungle since 1985 live, but they never released AFD until this year, it wouldn't make AFD less of a kickass album that we'd be polarised about which version was best etc. Anyway...i'm rambling.

I'm a huge fan of the old band, the old records, and for that matter slash, so some might not expect me to be talking like this, but CD shows in my opinion just how tallented Axl is. These songs arn't just 'good'. I hear a 'good' song at the local pub by the house band. This album is far better than that.

I agree... It's fine for people to like either band line up...but the disrespect around is quite simply unfathomable.

it's a tradgic legacy of the slash/axl fight it seems....axl doesn't like slash for personal reasons...therefore some people feel the need to hate him.

It's the same with the minority of slash fans who express their love of slash by insulting bucket when bucket is clearly also an awesome player.

I like to think that in say 20 years time, the politics will be lost and the greatness will remian of all the music from all sides.

The on-stage Axl/Slash chemestry was one of those rare things found only a handful of times in generations.