Absurd Perhaps/General were all announced in August in 2021 and 2023 with Hardskool announced in September of 2021 with the aim of being out for Christmas. So if the intent for this package of songs (probably including Monsters) is to have it out for Christmas then it needs to be announced in the next two weeks really.

So if they don't announce this in the next two weeks then it isn't happening this year I think.

Obviously they could drop something like Monsters to streaming without issue  (in theory at least , this gnr after all) but as all the songs have been put out on vinyl then it's obvious this collection will be too, and production bottle necks in the 4th quarter.

If they were to just do it on CD with Vinyl at a later date then the CD production time would be 4 to 5 weeks.

They should just put Monsters streaming for Halloween and release the collection next year when they are off so it can serve as filler to tide over the few who still care.

Random update on this probably not worthy of it's own thread, at least yet.

A few years back I looked into Iron Mountain and stumbled on that video of the Beer & Cigarette ADAT being scanned whilst I was looking into how GN'Rs vault access works. Anyway I mentioned at the time there was a plan for a TV series on Iron Mountain in the early works, well work has moved on and here is more information...

https://newnoisemagazine.com/news-cnn-a … ry-series/

CNN and Universal Music Group have joined forces to launch a new television series which will premiere later this year. American comedian and actor Fred Armisen will be serving the show as a host. At this moment, no name for the show has been revealed. The show will feature many unreleased behind-the-scenes moments from UMG’s huge music archives. Pioneering artists such as Nirvana, Guns N’ Roses, and others will be featured in the show. It will showcase pop culture’s crucial moments and stories of legendary artists and songwriters who have made incredible impact in the history of music.

The vaults of UMG is located in Boyers, Pennsylvania, in a 220 feet underground former limestone mine. It holds thousands of iconic antiquities such as original recordings, master tapings, unreleased photos, alternative album art, and unreleased live recordings.

Armisen made the following statement at UMG’s “Music Is Universal” showcase:

“I’m honored, and I can’t wait to get started with this project. I want to move into that vault! I hope we get to dive in, deeper and deeper, into these recordings.”

He added:

“And I also want to say that to Universal Music Group that whenever you put out boxed sets with the demos and everything on them, I buy all of it! For real, I buy the LPs and CDs, because I want both collections. I’m really honored, and thank you so much for having me—I can’t wait to get started.”

The show will be a unique experience for music enthusiasts. Details regarding the show will be revealed soon.

As I recall the early idea was to have a single episodes based around an individual bands (eg) ep 1 The who, ep 2 gnr and so forth , can't say if that's still the case or not or if there stuff will be featured over several episodes, we shall see I guess.

In November of 1999 Rolling stone were played several songs from the Chinese democracy session's, they were also played an instrumental of Oklahoma.

Them being played just an instrumental, when they were played other songs that did have vocals suggests to me that none were recorded in 99 at all. The version that is out there is from March 2000 and obviously doesn't have any either.

But if you consider it was inspired by the bombing, (same week Izzy ect were writing Ocean ect) then that suggests the spark of the song came from Axl and not other members. That to me means it's likely he had a few lyrics for it but probably not all lyrics for it and just had not recorded them yet.

That he played it for magazines suggests he might have had more confidence in it than other songs they had at the time though, as I think aside from Atlas Shrugged all the other songs wound up on CD.