SI kicks ass...I've never understood the hate...i'm not so much a fan of the Duff lead songs though as I don't like punk singing much. But the tracks Axl is on kick ass. And the production owns. Sometimes i wish recording equipment had been around like that when AFD was written.

As for CD. I didn't mean to be "ranking them not quite as good as the weaker UYI tracks"

I ment to be more questioning the level of critism we apply to the tracks. I feel GNR has always been a band of varied output both in style and quality. While I love almost all GNR songs in some way, some of
them are definately much better than others.  I feel that some of the reviews of the CD leaks have been unfair in that all of a sudden we're expecting an album with nothing but the best GNR hits. And no GNR album has had only the best songs so far. I just wonder if we judged the old GNR albums with the same level of harshness that we apply to these tracks if we would also have found AFD, and UYI in particualr to be wanting. I'm not even saying this is the case. I just think its a danger. You can analise anything to the point where you set a standard that makes it impossible to live up to and enjoy. All i'm saying is I like these songs, I enjoy them, I sing them to myself sometimes in my journies through life, and some of them speak to me in a way. So i'm looking forward to a proper release of them.

As for "crying for slash". I didn't mean to be doing that, but, just as i react badly to raising the bar to an impossible level for CD, I also react badly to critism against slash, and some posts much earlier in the thread seemed to be praising bucket over slash and dissing the old songs. Which to me is madness. Bucket is better than slash technically, as in finger movment,  but in terms of adding to the GNR music there is a lot more than that. Anyway - i think we'll all agree it's stupid to put them up in competition against each other - especially for a fan of both like me.

So i wasn't crying for slash, I was crying for a proper guitar input to the songs, to raise them instrumentally to the epic level that the vocal melodies are already at. It doesn't have to be slash. But it has to happen, and that's why the album wasn't finsihed for years IMO. Everyone knew that the guitar parts were 2nd rate on these songs. So they remain as "demos" waiting for the next musican to take them to the next level.

To be fair to the guitarists involved, I think perhaps stylisticly it was Axl's intent to move away from being a guitar band. Like some of the positive posters here I enjoy seeing what Axl can do in different styles. My only question is why the need to blend them all into each track. I'd be more interested in an album where Axl did a pure classic rock song, then a full on industrial song, then a song that's pure rap, then one that's pure soul or blues or funk and so. Where he could show his versitility in each of the styles, and in areas where the old GNR never allowed him to musically tred, but where he could do it independently of the otehr styles. I feel the blending of each of them into each song is what's making the songs feel lost and unfinished. They lack identity and structure that a pure musical form brings.

I think its a fine line. On one hand mixing genres can lead to wonderful things. I mean old GNR is kinda a mix of punk from duff, aerosmith from slash, stones from izzy and queen/elton from Axl. Which makes it great. So i guess its a similar idea here to mix hip hop/industrial/metal guitar/flamenco/lounge music etc...but i'm not sure it's working in some of the songs. It's like they're pushing too much of each type into the one song. And i think that is the reason why a song one person likes is something another person hates. and there is no consensus on which are the good ones. We all like certain genres...and all of these songs have elements of most of them.

Anyway....i can't wait till this album is released as i'd love a finalised version of the tracks. But i can also see what people mean when they highlight certain things missing/strange about them.

Is it ment to be 12,000 words or pages? Is that a typo...cos 12,000 words isn't too far off 6 pages

I have mixed views because i don't think that word sounds like prostitute at all to my ears. (Although I often miss hear axl...so i wouldn't be surprised to be proven wrong)

However despite that....I think the "love that you crippled for fortune and fame" alone could easily be enough to justify a song title of prostitue....and its placement with the otehr setlist leaks.

Fuck yeah...this is the kinda slash stuff I want some more of!

Didn't axl say in a 2002 interview that reuniting would waste all the money he has spent on this project. I can't see him just giving this stuff up for free now.