You are not logged in. Please register or login.
- Topics: Active | Unanswered
Re: Eddie Trunk on Chinese Democracy
comparing it to Ozzy doesn't really make sense.
Its a pretty fair comparison. Axl can only dream of having the success Ozzy had post Sabbath.
Ozzy was able to move on from Sabbath and build a legacy. I would assume Axl would eventually like to build one as well that doesn't revolve around the old lineup.
Re: Eddie Trunk on Chinese Democracy
Guns N' Roses weren't Slash to everyone outside these boards.
...And for the final time, I don't think it's gonna go multi-diamond, I just think that it's more than capable of selling a few million albums, instead of 10,000 what you guys seem to think...
Anyway we'll see whens it's released, if it ever is.
haha i said around 500,000 (In 6 months) not 10,000 
i just think it'll be comparable to Ozzy is all....
Re: Eddie Trunk on Chinese Democracy
bucketfoot wrote:Ozzy didn't have the biggest rock band of the late 80s and early 90s.
no but he was pretty close....
no more tears has gone like 4-5 times platinum and UYI went like 6-7 times platinum (In the USA)
Combined worldwide UYI album sales stand at over 40 million....
Just saying.
Re: Eddie Trunk on Chinese Democracy
Neemo wrote:bucketfoot wrote:Ozzy didn't have the biggest rock band of the late 80s and early 90s.
no but he was pretty close....
no more tears has gone like 4-5 times platinum and UYI went like 6-7 times platinum (In the USA)
Combined worldwide UYI album sales stand at over 40 million....
aledgedly....anyway i have no idea on world wide sales of no more tears but i'll look
why are we comparing the old band here i hope JB doesnt see this 
Re: Eddie Trunk on Chinese Democracy
Combined worldwide UYI album sales stand at over 40 million....
How does that relate to Chinese Democracy?
I don't recall anyone ever saying it would only sell 10 thousand copies. I just don't think its gonna do much damage on the charts.
I'll bet anyone a hundred bucks its not even the top selling album of the year its released in.
The album can be good without it selling a ton of copies. Kala was the best album of 07 and it didn't sell shitloads of copies.
Re: Eddie Trunk on Chinese Democracy
UYI sold 40 million, allegedly. That was when albums sold. I don't know very many people who downloaded the Illusions in 1991. It's a completely different situation.
As for bringing up the old band, I think that Slash is promoting this album more than anyone right now. He's the only member of GNR past or present in the news day in, day out. Keeping GNR in the media is going to help sales of this album, whether he appears on it. It's all about getting the name out there.
There's little doubt that this album can easily sell a few million copies, but it's near impossible for it to be profitable. Too much money has already gone into this. Besides, if the record execs thought they could get their money back, they'd have released it already.
Re: Eddie Trunk on Chinese Democracy
Wow.
Fast night at GNRE. I'll go back to where I left, I reckon I have more to say there.
madagas wrote:James, I don't believe the whole trilogy thing either. I do believe he recorded 30-40 tracks for the chinese democracy sessions-he said himself in Mar 06 that he was working on 32 songs-then you have the Bach comments about 4 albums worth of material. Which means, until there is a final tracklist, all songs recorded are fair game. In the end, I think we will get 6 songs we have already heard and the rest will be unheard stuff.
Take into account band members saying there are several versions of each song, and that so called trilogy shrinks into one album with the best version of each song.
"We're working on thirty-two songs, and twenty-six are nearly done," he says. Of those, thirteen are slated for the final album."
32 songs, 13 on CD. Not two or three mixes of each song, but 32 separate pieces of music, each of which with obviously more than one version (in various stages of completion) in existence. Calling 32 songs a trilogy (or even three separate albums) is a bit of a stretch, as if the first album would have 13 tracks, the other two would have 19 combined. Let's say a follow-up album of the same sessions would have 15 songs. That would leave a total of four songs to what could be called an 'A-list', meaning songs that have been labored upon enough for Axl to write the lyrics (which he's said tends to come very late in the game in the CD project) - they could be released as B-sides, free downloads, whatever. That would make two separate albums of material, with the inevitable scratched tracks.
As has been pointed out by various posters (check pollux's excellent breakdown for the actual quotes), the amount of tracks Axl has under development has narrowed down considerably in the course of the years. I reckon this is due to the fact that CD sessions were for a good while late-night freestyling, with people from the '01 lineup and many others (incl. Josh Freese) just jamming together and recording everything they play, night after night. Then Axl has stepped in, listened to the latest batch, asked choice cuts to be imported to a ProTools deck, and started to literally cut n' paste songs together with his engineers.
Obviously, at this point there are several different musical pieces, as the structures are still aloof and with the amount of material the players generated, you could literally chop down one version of a song and scatter the bits to other songs, which would have nothing else in common with each other. Also, the more some songs come into focus, the more less-successful experiments get scrapped. And Axl's not giving up on his fondness to options even with the lyrics; as each single instrumental part of each song has been played to death in a studio setting with alternative takes, I'd imagine he could compile something like seven different versions of Better, each with a unique sound on top of the same structure.
I know a lot of people believe in it, but I never really bought the whole trilogy thing. Uni tells him to go back to the drawing board in 01(Axl admitted this), and here we are in 2008 and those same songs are still in play.
Nay.
I believe Axl alluded to Bob Ezrin, which takes us back to the infamous Alice Cooper quote. To recap, Ezrin came in around the time the (mostly) Sean Beavan-produced album was nearing completion. He does this a lot, Reznor thanked him in Fragile's notes for providing 'flow' to the track listing. So, Ezrin says out of all the songs Axl lets him hear, three are good ones. This happened in the fall of 2000, the latest, as Ezrin's involvement in GNR was confirmed in the same press release as Buckets and Robins, on Halloween '00.
The interview you speak of came to pass on 01/22/01, so Ezrin shared his opinion with Axl (and Interscope theirs, whatever it may be) well before RIR3 and the first live performances of the new material.
As for why the same songs... I believe some fans met Del James on the eve of one of the 01/02 Vegas gigs, and he told them there'd be no unheard songs as the ones played in RIR3 had spread like wildfire. No surprise there, but when you think of it, there's no point in playing the most promising option for a single nor the most magnificient ballad you have in store upfront when the release date of the record is still hanging by a thread.
And you said it yourself (I agree with the below statement, btw)
Playing Jungle on tour is safe. Releasing an album with CD, Madagascar,etc. is not.
In RIR3, there were CD, Maddy and The Blues in a relatively finished and sophisticated form. Axl had to feed the masses with something, as the legend of Chinese Democracy was still at all-time high. Showcasing nothing but subpar songs and whatnot would've resulted in a disaster. He had to hand out some of his babies. Rhiad and Silkworms on the other hand should be considered more 'experimental', in the sense with which I described the overall recording/song compiling process earlier in this post. They were likely something the band had worked on, and were played for the fuck of it, to see audience reactions and at the same time, round up the setlist with enough unreleased material to smokescreen some of the critics. OMG falls into that category as well, even when considering the enthusiasm with which it was performed.
'02 tour: Drop Silkworms, eventually drop Rhiad as well. The three main attractions of The Project maintain their lure and late showstarts mean the setlists don't have to be as long, nor does Axl need to convince people the new music exists. No need for new songs before the album release, as AFD is what most random concert-goers are interested in at the moment (as they've hardly even heard the new songs). OMG is another filler that's unceremoniously dropped.
'06 tour: CITR, TWAT, Better and IRS have leaked (either with the clandestine aid of the GNR camp or not) and there's no reason not to keep the cat in the bag. Imagine the response amongst the hardcore fans if they'd gone out with simply the '02 setlist again. Adding the songs signaled that Axl meant business; that he was really pushing for the album to be released in the course of the year. CITR is one song that's intentionally kept under wraps, even with the Brian May-version making rounds among the fans. The general public and random concertgoers remain oblivious of the song. Better and IRS are both good, fast rock tracks, which fit any setlist nicely and provide some alternatives for the band (this is demonstrated by the comings and goings of Rocket Queen and CD, for instance). Again, no sense in adding completely unheard material because there's not even a deal with the record company in place during the tour.
Therefore, whatever songs have been performed live have been hand-picked, or selected due to the circumstances (depending on whether one believes in Axl's people having a hand in the leaks). No point in continuously handing out new material without a firm release plan in motion - that would be the commercial suicide you speak of. However, with the '06 leaks we've likely heard 7-8 songs out of the 32 A-listed ones. Even with two separate albums, that's still fair amount.
At the moment, the only reliable way to hear new music are indeed the leaks. I'd say that as a compensation for last years cancellation, we got Axl's letter. This year, we got Angel Down. On a speculative basis, Sorry seems a very, very likely canditate to leak within the next year should there be no album release, eventually followed by some ancient artillery like This I Love or Prostitute. Should the band tour in between the leaks and the album release (again), expect atleast Sorry to be featured on the setlist.
The onstage situation might unfold something like this:
Axl (midset): "Mr. Sebastian Bach."
Baz (enters stage): "Alright motherfuckers, here's the song I've been talking about all these years!"
Robin turns in a slow doom metal guitar riff. Crowd goes silent.
The GNR message boards are flooded as the most eager response is met within the confinement of whatever quarters all the downloading motherfuckers are situated within.
