The "New Album" Thread. Thanks to the long ass thread, I’m going home!

[Sweersa]

2 hours ago, Rovim said:

but how do you know that he's massively exaggerating or exactly how much unreleased material Axl currently has? he didn't get into specifics in recent years so when it comes to number of tunes with vocals, finished tunes, CD era instrumentals, etc, it seems like we really don't know.

He doesn't know. Basic logic, added to what band members and associates (including Axl) have said, leads to there being over one album of material existing in the vault. 

[Sledge]

Look on the bright side, the new merch is slightly better than awful. 

[Sweersa]

29 minutes ago, Sledge said:

Look on the bright side, the new merch is slightly better than awful. 

I think I'll get my dad one of the Nascar 43 shirts and save it for Christmas. 

[ChrisW]

“There’s been some concern.  That if we play five or six new songs, then there can’t that many more on the album.  Au contraire, mon frére.  We’re just playing the songs we’re not considering putting out as singles or anything.  So, you’ll get 18 songs, and about 10 extra tracks.  And when that, when the record company feels that has run its course, then you’ll get it all over again.  By that time, I should be done with the third album.  So we’ll see if all goes well boys and girls.”

 - Axl, August 26, 2002

That was over 20 years ago.  If you count 'Sympathy for the Devil," "Oh My God," "Hard School" and "Absurd," there's the 18 songs, so where are the 10 extra tracks?  Slash and Duff could have added whatever to those and released them by now, if they actually existed.  There is nothing there that would make anybody think of Guns'n'Roses.

Axl is just lying.  His employees probably recorded stuff in the studio but there's little to nothing in the way of Axl vocals and he's the sole owner of the G'n'R franchise.  If the music was actually finished, it could be released.  The Metallica video shows that they made their new album on record, CD and cassette, it's not like those require some magical abilities no one else can possess.  They made a decision and carried it through.  They had finished work and wanted their fans to hear it.  They did that so they can move on and do the next work.

Axl lies, Axl's employees sign contracts telling them to lie, there is no finished work that can be released and that's the end.  They could just sit in a room for a few hours and crank out something like they did for the songs on Appetite that they still play in every concert but they don't get paid for that.

Edited April 11, 2023 by ChrisW
I misspelled a word, like you've never done that!

[Rovim]

4 minutes ago, ChrisW said:

“There’s been some concern.  That if we play five or six new songs, then there can’t that many more on the album.  Au contraire, mon frére.  We’re just playing the songs we’re not considering putting out as singles or anything.  So, you’ll get 18 songs, and about 10 extra tracks.  And when that, when the record company feels that has run its course, then you’ll get it all over again.  By that time, I should be done with the third album.  So we’ll see if all goes well boys and girls.”

 - Axl, August 26, 2002

That was over 20 years ago.  If you count 'Sympathy for the Devil," "Oh My God," "Hard School" and "Absurd," there's the 18 songs, so where are the 10 extra tracks?  Slash and Duff could have added whatever to those and released them by now, if they actually existed.  There is nothing there that would make anybody think of Guns'n'Roses.

Axl is just lying.  His employees probably recorded stuff in the studio but there's little to nothing in the way of Axl vocals and he's the sole owner of the G'n'R franchise.  If the music was actually finished, it could be released.  The Metallica video shows that they made their new album on record, CD and cassette, it's not like those require some magical abilities no one else can possess.  They made a decision and carried it through.  They had finished work and wanted their fans to hear it.  They did that so they can move on and do the next work.

Axl lies, Axl's employees sign contracts telling them to lie, there is no finished work that can be released and that's the end.  They could just sit in a room for a few hours and crank out something like they did for the songs on Appetite that they still play in every concert but they don't get paid for that.

sometimes people make promises that they truly believe they can and will  keep at the time of making them, but then shit doesn't work out for some reason.

my guess is that Axl has some issues with releasing his music cause he overthinks it and rethinks his plans maybe so that's why you're not seeing him making any big, specific statements on new material anymore like he did in 2002 for example. Doesn't mean that Axl is a liar.

if anything, going by what he said through the years regarding Gn'R, he seems to be very honest from what I can tell, just as a fan who doesn't know the guy and you don't know him either, but it seems like you jump to conclusions anyway which are not based on factual information. 

 

 

[ChrisW]

How do you make 18 songs + 10 bonus tracks into 14 songs + 0 bonus tracks six years later?

How do you say "soon is the word" for the video you'll be releasing next week and still hasn't been released 14 years later?

That's not honesty.  That's making up nonsense and being surrounded by people who never call him out on it, as Axl has been doing for decades.  An honest person would make sure to tell people what they were wrong about.  Liars surrounded by sycophants have no reason to clarify what they were wrong about.

[Billy Cundy]

Ah ‘the vault’ theory. Lulling fans into false hope that the best is yet to come, that a masterpiece will present itself once an artist shuffles off their mortal coil.

I’m no fan of his, but I’ll never forget what Wolfgang said when his dad died and the VH nerds were hounding him for an update on THE 5150 VAULT. He said ‘if it wasn’t on an album, there’s probably a reason for that’. Same with Prince. Shit don’t float, and sometimes it’s best left on the shelf. 
 

sure, I’d listen to whatever sketches and scraps Axl has lying on his hard drive. Is it going to be some magnificent swan song and provide a satisfying resolution and conclusion to the GNR saga? Of course not. 

[TheSlashrose]

Can anyone tell me if Axl is banned from releasing new music? Or is he the only musician on the planet who thinks the fans are happy that he simply doesn't give them a reward in the form of a new album, for the fans who have followed GNR since the original lineup's demise. Axl is indebted to the band's fans, but I don't think he's going to pay it back.

[gavgnr]

From what I can gather, GnR now ‘owns’ its music and is licensing the label to put the stuff out. There’s no record company shenanigans holding anything up. Oh no, it’s all down to the band (Axl).

[ChrisW]

At least with Eddie Van Halen, you would think there'd at least be a bunch of tracks of him playing guitar for five or ten minutes.  He's EVH, at least some fans would like that.  I think it was Metallica but I may be mis-remembering, one of the big bands were going to put out a bunch of guitar riffs that they'd never used.  That sounds like a neat idea.  With Prince, I could believe that he'd put out so damn many albums that there really is nothing left.

They could just have the band jamming and Axl going 'woah oh oh' because there's no lyrics, that would be worth listening to at least once.  Hell, they could do it right now, except for...

[SoulMonster]

13 hours ago, ChrisW said:

“There’s been some concern.  That if we play five or six new songs, then there can’t that many more on the album.  Au contraire, mon frére.  We’re just playing the songs we’re not considering putting out as singles or anything.  So, you’ll get 18 songs, and about 10 extra tracks.  And when that, when the record company feels that has run its course, then you’ll get it all over again.  By that time, I should be done with the third album.  So we’ll see if all goes well boys and girls.”

 - Axl, August 26, 2002

That was over 20 years ago.  If you count 'Sympathy for the Devil," "Oh My God," "Hard School" and "Absurd," there's the 18 songs, so where are the 10 extra tracks?  Slash and Duff could have added whatever to those and released them by now, if they actually existed.  There is nothing there that would make anybody think of Guns'n'Roses.

Axl is just lying. 

It is not a lie. Axl was talking about his plans based on what they had worked on in the studio by then (more or less what we know as the Village leaks). He didn't say they had 18 songs fully completed in 2002.

Edited April 12, 2023 by SoulMonster

[SoulMonster]

7 hours ago, Billy Cundy said:

Ah ‘the vault’ theory. Lulling fans into false hope that the best is yet to come, that a masterpiece will present itself once an artist shuffles off their mortal coil.

I’m no fan of his, but I’ll never forget what Wolfgang said when his dad died and the VH nerds were hounding him for an update on THE 5150 VAULT. He said ‘if it wasn’t on an album, there’s probably a reason for that’. Same with Prince. Shit don’t float, and sometimes it’s best left on the shelf. 

GN'R left November Rain, Perfect Crime, Don't Cry, Bad Obsession, etc off Appetite because those songs didn't fit on that album (or weren't completed), not because they thought they were worse than every song on that album. So GN'R obviously is a band that can decide to not put out their best material whenever they release something, but consider what works over multiple releases.

The same goes for Chinese Democracy, because Hard Skool was left out despite it being likely the first song to be completed and despite it being a much better song than at least half of what ended up on CD (my subjective opinion, of course). Axl himself talked about his plans for two records, where the first would be a bridge between UYI to the more experimental nature of the second. This also fits well with the material they were working on back in 1999-2001.

As for whether "the best is yet to come". I don't know if anyone here actually says anything like that. But if you like what they were working on back in 1999-2001 and you believe that the band could have worked on even more music after that (which I find highly plausible), then it is not unreasonable to think that we could get great music in the future. 

 

7 hours ago, TheSlashrose said:

Can anyone tell me if Axl is banned from releasing new music? Or is he the only musician on the planet who thinks the fans are happy that he simply doesn't give them a reward in the form of a new album, for the fans who have followed GNR since the original lineup's demise. Axl is indebted to the band's fans, but I don't think he's going to pay it back.

Banned? What are you talking about?

Thinks that the fans are happy? Of course he knows that the hardcore fans want more music

No, he is not indebted to the fans 

[Rovim]

10 hours ago, Billy Cundy said:

Ah ‘the vault’ theory. Lulling fans into false hope that the best is yet to come, that a masterpiece will present itself once an artist shuffles off their mortal coil.

I’m no fan of his, but I’ll never forget what Wolfgang said when his dad died and the VH nerds were hounding him for an update on THE 5150 VAULT. He said ‘if it wasn’t on an album, there’s probably a reason for that’. Same with Prince. Shit don’t float, and sometimes it’s best left on the shelf. 
 

sure, I’d listen to whatever sketches and scraps Axl has lying on his hard drive. Is it going to be some magnificent swan song and provide a satisfying resolution and conclusion to the GNR saga? Of course not. 

so 1 rule for how it is for all musicians around the world. If it's not released, it's cause the only possible reason for it is that it's shit, not good enough. Is that your logic here? nevermind the fact that Van Halen's last album, A Different Kind Of Truth is comprised of mostly reworked old as shit tunes from decades before that release happened which yeilded a great album imo and got great reviews. (even if a completely new quality album by them would have been cool to have)

I think that you're missing the possibility here that it's not always a problem of quality with the material or lack of inspiration. It could have more to do with Axl's perception of it and approach which is counter productive cause maybe he's not happy with just releasing what he has if it's not exactly what he wants to release. 

did he not want to release This I Love because he thought it was shit? seems like he always had a problem with letting it go when it came to his music, so maybe he becomes too attached to it to just not put too much meaning into every single Gn'R album release. He had trouble letting go of UYI as well, it's not a new thing.

 

 

Edited April 12, 2023 by Rovim

[rumandraisin]

12 hours ago, Billy Cundy said:

Ah ‘the vault’ theory. Lulling fans into false hope that the best is yet to come, that a masterpiece will present itself once an artist shuffles off their mortal coil.

I’m no fan of his, but I’ll never forget what Wolfgang said when his dad died and the VH nerds were hounding him for an update on THE 5150 VAULT. He said ‘if it wasn’t on an album, there’s probably a reason for that’. Same with Prince. Shit don’t float, and sometimes it’s best left on the shelf. 
 

sure, I’d listen to whatever sketches and scraps Axl has lying on his hard drive. Is it going to be some magnificent swan song and provide a satisfying resolution and conclusion to the GNR saga? Of course not. 

But it's an accepted fact that some of Prince's best work DIDN'T come out and remained in the vault, iconic leftovers and songs he played live that became fan favorites through bootlegging. 

The only song GNR has that hints at a similar situation is The General, through the orchestral intro we've heard, the cell phone leak and comments made from those in the know which has built it up in to this mythical track. 

[betterman]

5 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

It is not a lie. Axl was talking about his plans based on what they had worked on in the studio by then (more or less what we know as the Village leaks). He didn't say they had 18 songs fully completed in 2012.

He actually said before chinese release that they got 26 almost fully recorded out of 32 tracks being worked on

[SoulMonster]

2 minutes ago, betterman said:

He actually said before chinese release that they got 26 almost fully recorded out of 32 tracks being worked on

Sorry, there was a typo in my post, it should have said, "He didn't say they had 18 songs fully completed in 2002." We talked about the situation back in 2002, you see, not 2012.

 

[Billy Cundy]

3 hours ago, Rovim said:

so 1 rule for how it is for all musicians around the world. If it's not released, it's cause the only possible reason for it is that it's shit, not good enough. Is that your logic here? nevermind the fact that Van Halen's last album, A Different Kind Of Truth is comprised of mostly reworked old as shit tunes from decades before that release happened which yeilded a great album imo and got great reviews. (even if a completely new quality album by them would have been cool to have)

I think that you're missing the possibility here that it's not always a problem of quality with the material or lack of inspiration. It could have more to do with Axl's perception of it and approach which is counter productive cause maybe he's not happy with just releasing what he has if it's not exactly what he wants to release. 

did he not want to release This I Love because he thought it was shit? seems like he always had a problem with letting it go when it came to his music, so maybe he becomes too attached to it to just not put too much meaning into every single Gn'R album release. He had trouble letting go of UYI as well, it's not a new thing.

 

 

DKOT is brilliant, which is exactly why it didn’t stay in ‘the vault’ 😂 the ideas got reworked and it got a major label release, with multiple singles and videos. Quite the opposite of ‘the vault’. And the main difference, in those ‘decades’ that the DKOT sketches and ideas sat dormant, VH put out a bunch of albums. 

6 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

GN'R left November Rain, Perfect Crime, Don't Cry, Bad Obsession, etc off Appetite because those songs didn't fit on that album (or weren't completed), not because they thought they were worse than every song on that album. So GN'R obviously is a band that can decide to not put out their best material whenever they release something, but consider what works over multiple releases.

The same goes for Chinese Democracy, because Hard Skool was left out despite it being likely the first song to be completed and despite it being a much better song than at least half of what ended up on CD (my subjective opinion, of course). Axl himself talked about his plans for two records, where the first would be a bridge between UYI to the more experimental nature of the second. This also fits well with the material they were working on back in 1999-2001.

As for whether "the best is yet to come". I don't know if anyone here actually says anything like that. But if you like what they were working on back in 1999-2001 and you believe that the band could have worked on even more music after that (which I find highly plausible), then it is not unreasonable to think that we could get great music in the future. 

 

Banned? What are you talking about?

Thinks that the fans are happy? Of course he knows that the hardcore fans want more music

No, he is not indebted to the fans 

Admire your optimism and I am hoping I am surprised and proved wrong one day 👍 

[SoulMonster]

22 minutes ago, Billy Cundy said:

Admire your optimism and I am hoping I am surprised and proved wrong one day 👍 

I don't think it is such a huge feat of optimism to believe we will hear more great music from GN'R in the future. I was very happy with Hard Skool. And I know they had songs, or sketches of songs, with a similar quality potential already back in 2001 and a recent desire and plan to release more music, so I feel any optimism is warranted. Additionally, I have been following this band for so long I am never discouraged by things taking an inordinate amount of time. That's par for the course. Years passing without new music does simply not mean new music becomes less likely since it is "just" matter of releasing what already exists. It might take another 2 years, or 5, or 10, but at some point I am sure we will get to hear new music. 

 

[Voodoochild]

2 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

I don't think it is such a huge feat of optimism to believe we will hear more great music from GN'R in the future. I was very happy with Hard Skool. And I know they had songs, or sketches of songs, with a similar quality potential already back in 2001 and a recent desire and plan to release more music, so I feel any optimism is warranted. Additionally, I have been following this band for so long I am never discouraged by things taking an inordinate amount of time. That's par for the course. Years passing without new music does simply not mean new music becomes less likely since it is "just" matter of releasing what already exists. It might take another 2 years, or 5, or 10, but at some point I am sure we will get to hear new music. 

 

I agree with you. It's a common thing in the forum for people to think the band needs to follow a pattern, or to repeat history. Can't follow this logic, as this band never really had a pattern for new music. And the fact that the Hard Skool EP didn't get much traction does not mean anything for future releases, really. If Axl feels like, he will put out other stuff, even though he often doesn't. 

But of course it's frustrating for the fans. It's not like anyone here is sitting waiting, but it's still hard to get excited about the band in its current state. That's why I hardly visit the board now. 

[Sweersa]

I feel material that gets tinkered with over several years diminishes the overall feel and quality of it. I'm sure some have been improved, and from their inception to how they are today, there are probably superior mixes that were realized, then discarded and took into a direction that took them down a few notches. 

We have heard the 2000 Hard Skool, and got the 2021 final product. Between the two mixes, I'm sure there were several others. It would be interesting to hear the evolution of this and other tracks, especially after we get to hear whatever official versions of CD2 and CD3 songs are released. (More will probably leak as well)

A bulk of the tracks from the 2008 album had great mixes in the Village leaks from 2000-2001, and I feel many of these mixes were better than the album version, so I'm certain the eventual new album or additional singles will suffer even worse from additional time passed and changes, especially if more tracks are re-worked almost completely like Hard Skool was from how it was in 2000. 

[Rovim]

3 hours ago, Billy Cundy said:

DKOT is brilliant, which is exactly why it didn’t stay in ‘the vault’ 😂 the ideas got reworked and it got a major label release, with multiple singles and videos. Quite the opposite of ‘the vault’. And the main difference, in those ‘decades’ that the DKOT sketches and ideas sat dormant, VH put out a bunch of albums. 

Admire your optimism and I am hoping I am surprised and proved wrong one day 👍 

it sat dormant, it was in "the vault:...  point is it wasn't released, not because it was shit, but because it wasn't completed, or didn't fit with what the artist wanted to do at the time. 

Axl had a bunch of musicians in new Guns who were also writers, or could compose a tune (Axl, Josh, Robin, Bucket, Tommy, Richard, Brain, Pitman, etc)

Axl also had the '96 old Slash sessions for example which he said had a lot of potential and he didn't use that either probably cause he didn't want to release something that Slash came up with at the time, and a version of a complete album (CD ll) which he also didn't release,

so especially in Axl's case, I don't think we only got Chinese and a few single tunes because he had nothing worth listening to, that's not always the reason for why a musician doesn't release his work. Maybe not masterpiece material, but also we don't know that it's shit just because he didn't release it.

Eddie seemed to have had a limited amount of material to work with, I don't think it's the same thing for Axl.

Edited April 12, 2023 by Rovim

[ChrisW]

Queen didn't put "Stone Cold Crazy" or "White Queen" on their first album, but they finished the songs, released them and moved on with their lives.

The Beatles didn't put "When I'm 64" or "One After 909" on their first album, but they finished the songs and released them.  It helps that they had a lot of other songs the fans wanted to hear.

Aerosmith had songs left over after Pump.  The Who had songs left over after Who's Next.  Led Zeppelin had songs left over after their third, fourth and fifth albums, so they released Physical Graffiti less than two years after their previous album.

What do these bands have in comment?  They weren't rich old men surrounded by people who talk about the amazing music they'd made in the last 30 years which nobody gets to hear.  They were much younger and much more productive than Axl has been for the last 30 years.  They made music and wanted people to hear it so they made it happen.

They also had plenty of opportunity to look back on what they'd done and see when mistakes were made.  Can't learn from your mistakes if you don't do anything and Axl doesn't make mistakes.  He could have put out an album where he sings everything in pig-latin and he'd say now 'what was I thinking?  Never do that again!'  But instead there's nothing to learn from.  He'll just live in a mansion and go out sometimes to go "It's so easy, so fuckin easy, it's so easy, so damn easy, it's so easy, so fuckin easy, it's so easy, yeah it's so easy."  An old man clinging to a long-gone era.

[Lies They Tell]

13 hours ago, ChrisW said:

What do these bands have in comment?  They weren't rich old men surrounded by people who talk about the amazing music they'd made in the last 30 years which nobody gets to hear.  They were much younger and much more productive than Axl has been for the last 30 years.  They made music and wanted people to hear it so they made it happen.

Not sure what your point with this is? Everyone knows that the GNR guys aren't young anymore. Everyone knows that they are rich. So what? What is your point? Are you saying that GNR is never going to release music because they're old and rich?

13 hours ago, ChrisW said:

They also had plenty of opportunity to look back on what they'd done and see when mistakes were made.  Can't learn from your mistakes if you don't do anything and Axl doesn't make mistakes.  He could have put out an album where he sings everything in pig-latin and he'd say now 'what was I thinking?  Never do that again!'  But instead there's nothing to learn from. 

But Axl has made "mistakes". The UYI records were called overproduced and some people complained that the songs are too long and pompous. Then Oh My God was released and people complained that it's too industrial. Then Chinese Democracy was released and it was again considered overproduced. Then Absurd and Hard Skool were released and some people called especially Hard Skool underproduced.

Some might argue that the reason why he's releasing music so rarely is because he has already made plenty of "mistakes" and he's learned that the frames of accepted GNR music are very limited. That might be why he seems currently more interested in composing film scores instead of GNR music. Cause the limits for what people accept as GNR music might seem too restricting

13 hours ago, ChrisW said:

He'll just live in a mansion and go out sometimes to go "It's so easy, so fuckin easy, it's so easy, so damn easy, it's so easy, so fuckin easy, it's so easy, yeah it's so easy."  An old man clinging to a long-gone era.

So your point is that you don't think that GNR will ever release music again? Or what exactly is your point?

[Rovim]

5 minutes ago, Lies They Tell said:

Some might argue that the reason why he's releasing music so rarely is because he has already made plenty of "mistakes" and he's learned that the frames of accepted GNR music are very limited. That might be why he seems currently more interested in composing film scores instead of GNR music. Cause the limits for what people accept as GNR music might seem too restricting

Axl did release Absurd though, a song that I'm guessing he knew would be accepted poorly by most Gn'R fans before releasing it, but maybe because he wanted to do it and thought it had a place in the Gn'R catalog and it was a good time to release it, it got released.

speculation again, but it seems to me like the hurdle with Axl is if a Gn'R song he has fits within what he wants the "Gn'R big picture" to be, but I really don't know. I also believe that if he really wanted to compose film scores he would have done it by now or at least for now, he prefers his Gn'R gig. Maybe when Gn'R no longer exists, he'll do other shit like film scores and writing his autobiography or whatever. 

[Lies They Tell]

3 minutes ago, Rovim said:

Axl did release Absurd though, a song that I'm guessing he knew would be accepted poorly by most Gn'R fans before releasing it, but maybe because he wanted to do it and thought it had a place in the Gn'R catalog and it was a good time to release it, it got released.

speculation again, but it seems to me like the hurdle with Axl is if a Gn'R song he has fits within what he wants the "Gn'R big picture" to be, but I really don't know. I also believe that if he really wanted to compose film scores he would have done it by now or at least for now, he prefers his Gn'R gig. Maybe when Gn'R no longer exists, he'll do other shit like film scores and writing his autobiography or whatever. 

I agree! Releasing Absurd was a surprisingly ballsy move from Axl who sometimes seems too concerned about criticism these days. But then again Hard Skool was a very safe song that he probably knew would be well accepted by fans (even if some criticize it for being underproduced). I'm guessing that Axl likes Absurd a lot himself and releasing it at this point felt like a good move cause he could follow it up with the safer song Hard Skool.

I don't think that Axl is only interested in pleasing fans. Otherwise the band would be more like AC/DC. I think that Axl wants to experiment and push the boundaries of GNR music, but simultaneously he also cares about criticism and he's trying to both please the fans and push the boundaries of GNR music. That's not an easy thing to do and might partly explain why he's so slow at releasing music.

I'm not sure how interested he actually is about composing film music. Maybe he is interested and mentioned it in hopes that some movie directors would approach him about it. But maybe no one has approached him. At least no director that Axl would have been interested in working with. I don't know. This is obviously just speculation from my part too.

Sometimes Axl seems bored with the limitations of what is considered acceptable GNR music. But I do think that Axl still cares a lot about GNR. He probably cares too much. Seems to me that Axl wants to be remembered as someone who never stopped pushing the boundaries of what GNR music can sound like, but at the same time he doesn't want to alienate the fans who want more of the classic sound. At least that's my interpretation of the situation.