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Re: Bumblefoot not happy? Speculating....
If AC/DC and Metallica can make big comebacks on mediocre material surely Axl can too.
For that to happen he needs to play ball though.
I guess it depends on what you call big comebacks. Neither band infultrated my circle of close friends.
I knew this a while ago and I said it many times: the general public isn't going to accept Axl's GnR no matter how good it is. The fact that the album was marginal didn't help, but quite frankly it didn't make much of a difference. No amount of label support would have made CD a hit.
Re: Bumblefoot not happy? Speculating....
polluxlm wrote:If AC/DC and Metallica can make big comebacks on mediocre material surely Axl can too.
For that to happen he needs to play ball though.
I guess it depends on what you call big comebacks. Neither band infultrated my circle of close friends.
I knew this a while ago and I said it many times: the general public isn't going to accept Axl's GnR no matter how good it is. The fact that the album was marginal didn't help, but quite frankly it didn't make much of a difference. No amount of label support would have made CD a hit.
I don't think anyone is arguing that. The argument is, the album would have done better than it did if Axl got out there and pushed the thing a little. How much is debatable, but I do think it would have had SOME impact. And I'm not even placing blame on the label. I think they actually gave it moderate support at the beginning, but when Axl went into hibernation they gave up. And you can't blame them for that.
- elevendayempire
- Rep: 96
Re: Bumblefoot not happy? Speculating....
Yeah, but both AC/DC and Metallica weren't struggling against the ill-will generated by firing the entire original band. Okay, 'tallica had a new bassist, but bluntly, to the general public, bassists and drummers are pretty much interchangeable. Chinese Democracy was his big chance to sell the world on the idea of a new line-up for Guns N' Roses, and he didn't promote it sufficiently. In the wake of CD's mediocre reception - however unjustified that is - the only way Axl will have a Black Ice/Death Magnetic level of success with the general public is if Slash is on the new album.
Re: Bumblefoot not happy? Speculating....
The argument is, the album would have done better than it did if Axl got out there and pushed the thing a little. How much is debatable, but I do think it would have had SOME impact. And I'm not even placing blame on the label. I think they actually gave it moderate support at the beginning, but when Axl went into hibernation they gave up. And you can't blame them for that.
was it the case Axl wasn't happy w/the label's amount of support so took his ball & went home?
i recall when MJ released Invincible he was unhappy w/the amount the label were willing to spend on promo etc & i thought maybe something similar happened w/Axl?
like they wouldn't commit to the video's & budget demands of yesteryear, which he felt he deserved, & then the bottom fell out?
i would kinda like to know what exactly went wrong in '08.
but then again i'd like to know what exactly has gone wrong all the years prior to that as well!
& at the end of the day the answer does seem to rest at Axl's door one way or the other.....
Re: Bumblefoot not happy? Speculating....
That's the case according to Axl. There hasn't been sufficient info as far as I'm concerned for me to buy that. Even if the label wasn't as supportive as they could have been, Axl could have put forth SOME effort. He did nothing for an entire year.
Re: Bumblefoot not happy? Speculating....
buzzsaw wrote:polluxlm wrote:If AC/DC and Metallica can make big comebacks on mediocre material surely Axl can too.
For that to happen he needs to play ball though.
I guess it depends on what you call big comebacks. Neither band infultrated my circle of close friends.
I knew this a while ago and I said it many times: the general public isn't going to accept Axl's GnR no matter how good it is. The fact that the album was marginal didn't help, but quite frankly it didn't make much of a difference. No amount of label support would have made CD a hit.
I don't think anyone is arguing that. The argument is, the album would have done better than it did if Axl got out there and pushed the thing a little. How much is debatable, but I do think it would have had SOME impact. And I'm not even placing blame on the label. I think they actually gave it moderate support at the beginning, but when Axl went into hibernation they gave up. And you can't blame them for that.
I guess I should clarify - I included Axl not doing anything in the label comment. Axl getting out and doing something would have made no difference either...he'd been pimping the album for 14 years, playing songs off it at shows off and on since 2002 (and actively in 2006), and streamed the thing on myspace. Add in the leaks and I still say people had plenty of chances to hear it and weren't impressed enough to go out and buy a copy for themselves after the first couple weeks (when the diehards picked up their copies). Nothing anybody says will convince me that everything that happened wasn't as a direct result of a) it not being GnR to most people; and b) it not sounding like GnR to almost anybody. Axl promoting it couldn't fix either of those.
Re: Bumblefoot not happy? Speculating....
You could be right and we'll never know for sure unless Axl gets out there and promotes the next album, if there is a next album. I'll give you that a lot of people weren't going to accept the album simply because it wasn't GNR to them and nothing Axl did could have changed that. Maybe that was part of his reasoning for putting such little effort into it. Maybe he was content to live off of the diehards and those with a casual interest. I just think he could have won SOME people over, those who had an open mind about things. In the end, he gave no reason for anyone who was on the fence to buy into the whole charade. He let the music stand on its own in a sense, and as you alluded to, the music couldn't sell itself. I KNOW there are some good songs on the album. I've heard from friends and fans of other bands say they've liked certain songs. Again, I'm not saying this album was destined to become an all time masterpiece. But a little push here and there certainly wouldn't have hurt the cause.
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Bumblefoot not happy? Speculating....
Just thinking about it.
I think there's 4 groups of people:
1. Diehard Fans.
These people will or won't accept new GNR based on the billion preferences each one of us has around here. To us specific members are very important overall and changing one brings up strong views.
GNR is extremely important in our lives or at least was at stages in our life.
2. General Public People who like Rock.
These people liked GNR but are not quite as hardcore. It's a level down. They like GNR the same way they like all the other rock bands at Classic Rock or whatever as they just like rock music in general. Or perhaps GNR is not their primary band or even top 3 bands - but they still dig them.
In my opinion these types are the kind who are least likely to accept the new line up - as they hold broad views that all bands should be the original line up. They won't except a slash replacement. They want marty freidman back in megadeth. They want newsted back in metallica. They grew up liking these things and want them the way they like them.
3. People who don't really know GNR well
They probably know there was a guy in a hat and an angry singer. Or maybe the remember the bikepants in the YCBM video clip. If you played them jungle they'd know it from sports. Or SCOM from radio as a kid.
This how I am about pop music. I don't follow it like I do rock, but I have the occasional song I like, or artist I'm loosely familiar with. Axl has a very distinctive voice...so people are going to remember things like the "aye aye yeah" on knocking on heaven's door that they've heard around.
I think these people could be won over because they don't much care about GNR directly, they just like random songs, and Axl could still sound like Axl to them if put with something they generally liked. They're not into the politics of who or what's in the band.
I feel this way about say soundgarden. I like cornell's voice. Don't much give a shit if he's solo, or with timberland, or audioslave, or the soundgarden boys. I just know Chris's voice when I hear it and tend to like it if the general song is also interesting.
4.People who just don't like rock / hate Axl's voice / Just don't get it.
These people won't be won over. They're not into it.
So in conclusion: I think Axl could win over people from group #1 (many of them would hate him anyway for getting rid of slash - but hate him while going to the shows anyway, buying an album etc), group #2 is not really going to accept much he does unless it's absolutely insane genius level but even then, they're not going to give it a fair run. Group #3 are people that with promotion are the easy targets to win over. And group #4 are never going to be won over.
So i think he had sort of a 50/50 shot at stuff. There are a lot of people in group #2...but there's also probably a lot in group #3.
Re: Bumblefoot not happy? Speculating....
Well said monkey. That's my only point. I think SOME people could have been won over if they came out with a video or two, did the late night circuit, did press, interviews. You know, the things ALL other bands do. The album had SOME songs that were somewhat close to at least UYI era GNR. It had a few ballads that could have appealed to females.
I don't think it would have ever done as well as any of us hoped, but I don't see why it couldn't have done better if the regular business plan was followed, or at least some of the aforementioned things were done. Hell, Axl doesn't like doing interviews. Fine. Make a video and start the tour a year earlier and that there should make a difference. By the time they got around to touring the US, Best Buy had already cleared their shelves of CD. Great planning!
Now I do realize Robin leaving the band at the time he did probably didn't help things. But if Axl really had DJ on his radar for so long they could've made that move a lot earlier and gotten the ball rolling.
Re: Bumblefoot not happy? Speculating....
Group 3 doesn't like rock. He wasn't winning them over. Group 2 isn't any more likely than group 1 to accept the band; in fact I'd say they'd be less likely.
I think you're way overestimating the amount of people that were going to accept a completely new band. It's never happened in the history of the world. Why do you think Axl was going to be the one person to pull it off?
