This is simply just... not true. Axl is a man that can't even walk into any club, building, TV production office, anything... without being surrounded by butt kissers and people marking out to him like God just walked through the building.

People in the media who bash him, post videos of his suckage, go to concerts and swear that "he's back, and vocally the best i've ever seen" blah blah blah.

Axl Rose is a legendary rock star. He wouldn't have been inducted into the Hall of Fame if he didn't have some celebrity value. And even when GN'R DID go in to the Rock Hall, the media covered the whole spectacle from the perspective of if, when, and what Axl was going to do. Even Axl turned down the Hall, nobody even noticed Izzy did the same. Nobody talked about who "Slash will perform with". Nobody cared. It was all about Axl.

The man continues to be a myth among mere mortals to those who properly pay attention to what Axl has done. He's the original troll. Pre-internet, and he's punked the entire business. The entire fucking BUSINESS.

You gotta love him for that, and he's still doing it today. Nobody cares anymore, because they are tired of "not getting it".

Axl doesn't give a fuck. Not about their system. Their business. How they fucking fry eggs. Axl doesn't care, and the older I get, the MORE I love him for that, not hate him.

The music business isn't built around that. Axl DOES NOT have a master plan. He's just a man. Nothing more. But he's an INDIVIDUAL. With an INDIVIDUAL perspective.

The music business is built to be collectivists for capitalism, or the other way around. Whatever. The whole thing is built for conformity. And Axl still refuses to do that. Axl doesn't get out of bed for Universal, or Geffen, or RCA, or MTV, or those guys. Axl gets out of bed for AXL. And that doesn't make him a narcissist, it makes him the last of his kind.

A Rebel Without A Cause

Yeah this documentary would only ever happen if Axl had full-control over how it was done and distributed, and there would just be too many hand in the jar.

I thought the expansive Eagles one done was really good, but you could tell there was still a ton of contention Glenn Frey had with several members, and those he still didn't like or get alone with. It was very obvious from the start of that doc that The Eagles was always Don Henley & Glenn Frey. Don was more humble about it, and gracious, but Glenn was very antagonistic and dickish.

I think a GN'R one, if it ever happened, would go the same way with Axl. No matter what member they were talking about. Obviously he'd rape Slash on-air, but I think he probably wouldn't be too kind in hind-sight about Izzy, Duff, and certainly members like Steve & Matt.

And yet i'm accused of not living in reality. I would reach through the computer and break his nose if I wasn't so astonished at the amazement of him basically calling me -- him.

The Axl myths have been snuffed out. I agree, but i'll give Mikka that one, just to be nice because I know the Stone Cold Stunner comes next.

Hipster to defend Axl Rose?

What fucking reality are you living in? This man is more hated than the Ferguson, MO police force.

Oh I totally agree. I definitely side with Chinese being a straight-forward hard rock record with industrial elements, but I don't feel that was because that was just the rockers Axl wanted to do then, as much as it was truly leftovers from this magical industrial-only album that Axl had been tinkering with as soon as Robin, Chris, and various producers came on board to drive the bus in that direction. The dream record Axl had wanted to record since My World. Despite Axl's huge love for all things grunge, there's no doubt that Axl was blasting Pretty Hate Machine at a time with most of his LA contemporaries would've had ear bleeds listening to it. Totally not there scene, even though even I myself, no NIN expert by any means, totally see Pretty Hate Machine as an absolute underrated masterpiece. Just for his audaciousness to 'go there' when fucking nobody, other than noise rock-version White Zombie, and Ministry were doing that kind of music.

Oh My God & Silkworms still rock fucking balls, and might be among the better rockers of that era (imho).

Axl definitely deserves credit for 'making the call'. Because he could've easily took Slash & Duff's stuff, and turned that '95 Guns album into a grunge/blues piece, with what i've called many times before 'Brother Cane rockers meets Jar of Flies ballads, except by Guns N' Roses'. That would've been the compromise.

But Axl saw the writing on the wall, or was just damn lucky, in realizing that grunge was going to be a fleeting artform of rock music, and that the true direction was White Zombie, Marilyn Manson, and Rage Against The Machine types, as well as NIN. But by the time they hit, post-grunge had become "the chick music", and that female demo is where the men flock. Suddenly there's Creed. Then Nickleback, then more and more. Before long, now nu-metal, as well as industrial/electronic is dead as hell by the mid-2000's, and that's being generous, other than Korn's Twisted Transistor moment being the funeral for the entire scene. It never recovered.

Chinese happens in 2008, and by that point, Axl might as well of had fucking Glenn Miller numbers on there, because that was the relevancy of those rockers. The ballads were a bit more timeless, except it's not 1977, or 1991 for that matter.

I wonder if Axl's reluctance now to record is the fact that rock truly is -- dead. There are no new artforms, GN'R are long past relevancy, the 80's sleaze scene is over, the early 90's old blues rock tribute show is over, grunge is over, industrial is over, nu metal is over, and post-grunge is just a generic form of pushing out new music. It's not even a scene anymore either.

When you really think about it on this level, it might be far more beneficial for Axl to just release "2000 Intentions", and just dump his industrial stuff as a lost album. Record maybe one more true "Chinese II" as his sequel to that album, and then retire GN'R as a studio act.

Play Vegas as GN'R, do the hits, and release solo albums of nothing but the stuff he wants to do. Orchestral piano numbers in the vein of Elton, Freddie, with even some 70's Elvis-style covers.

Not really sure what's left in the tank at this point, other than becoming a tribute act to his favorite decade of rock music... the 1970s.

From MTV (Slash & Duff side) Aug. 17, 2005:

It's been over a decade since the original members of Guns N' Roses went their separate ways, but their feud is still going strong.

Slash and Duff McKagan filed a federal lawsuit in Los Angeles on Wednesday against Axl Rose, accusing the GN'R

frontman of changing the publisher of the group's copyrighted songs without their consent and pocketing the royalties.

The lawsuit follows Rose's multimillion-dollar publishing deal with Sanctuary earlier this year, in which he sold the publishing rights to the GN'R back catalog. "Suffering an apparent attack of arrogance and ego ... Rose recently decided that he is no longer willing to acknowledge the contributions of his former partners and bandmates in having created some of rock's greatest hits," the lawsuit reads.

Though the Sanctuary deal was reported on by the press, Slash and Duff claim they weren't aware of the scope of Rose's dealings — which they say he "omitted and concealed" — until their expected royalty payments for the first quarter of 2005 didn't arrive in the mail. "When the ASCAP check didn't come, we called and they looked into it," McKagan's lawyer, Glen Miskel, said. "We didn't know all the facts at first."

Miskel said that only last week did they discover that Rose had notified ASCAP on or around May 26 that he was switching over the publishing from Guns N' Roses to Black Frog Music Publishing (which he owns) and Kobalt Songs Music Publishing (which is a joint venture with and handles the administration of Sanctuary's publishing). Consequently, the ASCAP check for the first quarter of 2005 — some $92,000 — went to Rose and "his accomplices" instead, the lawsuit contends.

"Rose's actions were malicious, fraudulent and oppressive, and undertaken in conscious disregard of [Slash and Duff's] property rights," the lawsuit reads. They're seeking damages for fraud, copyright infringement and breach of fiduciary duty, among other things.

Sanctuary could not be reached for comment by press time.