What is the last 'great' unheard GnR song?

[gavgnr]

We need to get this dude on the case 

[El Nono Pololo]

7 hours ago, Rindmelon said:

I'd say Machine Gun but mainly Ides Of March

Not much is known about this one except Dizzy had a large hand in the writing,

That doesn't sound promising at all lol.

I love the leak for Oklahoma that we've all heard, but I cannot imagine what Axl could sing over it to improve it, tbh. Anyhow, wasn't that supposed to be a "big gun" as well? It would be nice to hear a full version. Me & My Elvis is pretty cool too, and it has a more classic Illusion-type sound (in the bridge at least) than most of the leaks and CD songs.

Considering how lackbuster The General was to me, I'm not really hyped for anything that's left from the CD sessions. Monsters was an unexpected pleasure, but the feeling of "Axl may truly be hiding something massive after all" is long gone. "Atlas Shrugged" truly made me shrug as well.

[sploit]

I am sure there's plenty of great ungeard stuff, but for me I'd love to hear Quick Song with full lyrics. 🤘😎

Edited September 2 by sploit

[Dani_1455]

Seven

Oklahoma

Ides of March

Me & My Elvis or whatever other name It has

Soul Monster (Bucket Version)

State of Grace

 

Axl truly had a great album on his own:

Hardschool

Perhaps

State of Grace

Soul Monster

Me & My Elvis

Oklahoma

This are nearly 50% of a possible album then we have Atlas which in my opinion is not great not bad and imagine if Ides of March + Seven are good songs, you just have a better album than Chinese Democracy

 

[jimisbatman]

I honestly love PRL and I'd say whatever it was joined to, or turned into, would have been epic. 

[Gordon Comstock]

5 hours ago, El Nono Pololo said:

That doesn't sound promising at all lol.

I love the leak for Oklahoma that we've all heard, but I cannot imagine what Axl could sing over it to improve it, tbh. Anyhow, wasn't that supposed to be a "big gun" as well? It would be nice to hear a full version. Me & My Elvis is pretty cool too, and it has a more classic Illusion-type sound (in the bridge at least) than most of the leaks and CD songs.

Considering how lackbuster The General was to me, I'm not really hyped for anything that's left from the CD sessions. Monsters was an unexpected pleasure, but the feeling of "Axl may truly be hiding something massive after all" is long gone. "Atlas Shrugged" truly made me shrug as well.

 

With hindsight, it's hilarious how over-hyped Atlas and The General were. Atlas is mediocre and it's still easily the better song.

Monsters is the only thing we've heard that ended up being a 'big gun', it's a top 5 CD-era song IMO. The Bucket/Finck version would've been even better. There's some great instrumentals in the Village leaks, Zodiac, Oklahoma, Me & My Elvis, Circus Maximus... but they'd be wasted if Axl only wrote one verse for them.

[jamillos]

11 hours ago, gavgnr said:

We need to get this dude on the case 

Errr... just one more thing before I go, sir. Have you heard of Berlin, Seven, or Ides of March? You see, my wife is a big fan, and I promised her to get some info for her. Originally, my niece was gonna do it, but what she had turned out to be just The General, and we’re not too crazy about that, if ya know what I mean. 

[SoulMonster]

7 hours ago, sploit said:

I am sure there's plenty of great ungeard stuff, but for me I'd love to hear Quick Song with full lyrics. 🤘😎

Yep, and with Bucket's solo integrated. 

[gavgnr]

6 hours ago, jamillos said:

Errr... just one more thing before I go, sir. Have you heard of Berlin, Seven, or Ides of March? You see, my wife is a big fan, and I promised her to get some info for her. Originally, my niece was gonna do it, but what she had turned out to be just The General, and we’re not too crazy about that, if ya know what I mean. 

I read that in his voice 

[Twinaleblood]

21 hours ago, JimiRose said:

Closing in on you and Substitute though I cannot think of any other references to, aside from this leaked tracklist. Anyone heard anything?

If I remember correctly, Closing In On You was "proved" false during Axl's chats. People posted a list of rumored song titles including this one, I think, and he didn't confirm it as one of the real ones.

Substitute just sounds like a typo/misheard of Prostitute, which is nowhere else in that tracklist, so I'd bet one dollar on that.

[Cosmo]

I think the only Chinese leftover I'm curious about is Seven.

[Sweersa]

Don't forget Tonto and Monstrocity. (The latter may be something else we know of by a different name) I wonder what became of P.R.L. and Thyme as well. Berlin/Oklahoma would be incredible with a great Axl vocal track. Cuban Skies could potentially be great as well. I'm sure there are others we may have never heard of out there, and/or in the vault. Some have probably been discarded entirely, State Of Grace could be in that realm, which would be unfortunately.  

Quick Song is probably done by now too, assuming it's not Monstrocity, which could also be Zodiac 13 or Seven. Quick Song is fun, but I wouldn't call it a "great" song or a big gun from what versions we have heard.

[Spoon87]

"Oklahoma" and anything which could somehow be connected to the last GNR days or earliest NuGNR days up to 1999-2002, as that era is still so mystical. Everything after that doesn't interest me that much anymore.

Sure, CD was still great but what had come after that was underwhelming, apart from "Perhaps" and the way they handled that release (mainly meaning the video, I'll ignore the pixelated cover "artwork"). 

[JimiRose]

2 hours ago, Twinaleblood said:

Substitute just sounds like a typo/misheard of Prostitute, which is nowhere else in that tracklist, so I'd bet one dollar on that.

Ah That is a good shout to be fair

[Ollster42]

Seven + Oklahoma/Berlin  are musts. 

Interested as to what Ides of March, Cuban Skies and Monstrocityare

Zodiac and Quiksong could be cool too. I love the riff in Quiksong and the 5/8 time sections

[SlashisGOD]

Oklahoma and Me and My Elvis for sure. Those are the only remaining CD era songs I have real interest in. I’d also love to hear the Izzy/Duff 96 sessions.

Edited September 3 by SlashisGOD

[Sweersa]

I forget where, but wasn't Ides of March said to not be a "completed" song? I know Axl confirmed it existed, but I seem to recall hearing that it wasn't necessarily a song they continued to work on. 

[Rindmelon]

9 minutes ago, Sweersa said:

I forget where, but wasn't Ides of March said to not be a "completed" song? I know Axl confirmed it existed, but I seem to recall hearing that it wasn't necessarily a song they continued to work on. 

The engineer from Rumbo who worked there in 1998 David Dominguez said Ides and Oklahoma were 'almost complete' when SP1AT interviewed him back in the day (2005 I think)

also

'So the studio technicians burned as many as five CD's per week with various mixes of different songs, which were driven to Malibu for Mr. Rose to study. The band's archive of recorded material swelled to include more than 1,000 digital audio tapes and other media, according to people who were there at the time, all elaborately labeled to chart the progress of songs. "It was like the Library of Congress in there," said one production expert who spent time on the album there.

By one count, the band kept roughly 20 songs it considered on the A list and another 40 or so in various stages of completion on the B list.

 The Most Expensive Album Never Made - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

So according to that piece in 98 there were around 60 songs at least being worked on. If you buy that then it's unlikely all that exists as songs in the Locker leaks. There were probably abandoned songs from 98 not included in those

Edited September 3 by Rindmelon

[sploit]

13 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

Yep, and with Bucket's solo integrated. 

Agreed. 😄

[thelostrose]

7 hours ago, gavgnr said:

I read that in his voice 

we all did  

[Sweersa]

2 hours ago, Rindmelon said:

So according to that piece in 98 there were around 60 songs at least being worked on. If you buy that then it's unlikely all that exists as songs in the Locker leaks. There were probably abandoned songs from 98 not included in those

I agree. I believe there were additional songs that existed then as well, even with vocals that we didn't get in those leaks. In other words, and I think most would agree, the locker leaks isn't fully representative of what the band had completed up to that point. 

[gunsnchalupas]

8 hours ago, Rindmelon said:

The engineer from Rumbo who worked there in 1998 David Dominguez said Ides and Oklahoma were 'almost complete' when SP1AT interviewed him back in the day (2005 I think)

also

'So the studio technicians burned as many as five CD's per week with various mixes of different songs, which were driven to Malibu for Mr. Rose to study. The band's archive of recorded material swelled to include more than 1,000 digital audio tapes and other media, according to people who were there at the time, all elaborately labeled to chart the progress of songs. "It was like the Library of Congress in there," said one production expert who spent time on the album there.

By one count, the band kept roughly 20 songs it considered on the A list and another 40 or so in various stages of completion on the B list.

 The Most Expensive Album Never Made - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

So according to that piece in 98 there were around 60 songs at least being worked on. If you buy that then it's unlikely all that exists as songs in the Locker leaks. There were probably abandoned songs from 98 not included in those

 

 

60 instrumentals or rough sketches for songs isn't that outlandish, considering that between Chinese Democracy, the NuGNR songs Axl/Slash/Duff chose to cover, and the locker leaks - there are already close to 60 songs. I'm not going to go back and count, but just spitballing it I'd guess we 40 or so. 

I think the big sticking point is that people don't consider them Guns N' Roses songs until Axl at least lays down vocals. I suspect there are less than 30-35 songs with actual vocals, and that we have heard most of them already. It's basically two albums, CD I & II, and then a few extras. It would surprise me if there is a lot out there that have vocals. The instrumentals from the Village Session have some cool stuff, but I don't think the average Axl fan cares about instrumentals. It would be like if a Slash fan listened to leaked Slash demos that only had the backup band, and didn't have his parts oni t. 

If you go through the history and people who worked on the album, the bottleneck in the studio was always getting vocals on songs. My hope is that AI technology can become a new "auto tune" and liberate Axl to record vocals that are able to be edited and on par with his best work. Basically, think of a professional version of those dorks who try to add rasp to This I Love on Youtube. Peter Jackson can save Guns N' Roses. 

 

[estrangedtwat]

I would say Oklahoma, only cause it's the one we've known about the longest and still haven't heard.

Unless of course, Axl never actually laid down any vocals for it.  That would suck.

 

After all, in the Rolling Stone article from 2000 where he talked about the song, it was still only an instrumental.  Maybe that's all there ever was.

 

Other than that, I wanna hear the other Beltrami tracks, cause we heard a lot about them too.

[SoulMonster]

29 minutes ago, estrangedtwat said:

I would say Oklahoma, only cause it's the one we've known about the longest and still haven't heard.

Unless of course, Axl never actually laid down any vocals for it.  That would suck.

 

After all, in the Rolling Stone article from 2000 where he talked about the song, it was still only an instrumental.  Maybe that's all there ever was.

 

Other than that, I wanna hear the other Beltrami tracks, cause we heard a lot about them too.

Oklahoma became Berlin. I find it unlikely anything besides lyrics could result in a track changing name. And if he had written lyrics it is more likely he had also recorded vocals.

The Beltrami tracks were The General, Monsters, Thyme and Seven. 

[betterman]

First I want officially released Atlas shrugged and Monsters. 

Then two more tracks, lets say Oklahoma/Berlin and Zodiac

After that, lets get some completely new music - a lot of the other tracks is great to have as instrumental only (rest of village tracks)