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Re: Slash and Duff working on CD II according to MSL
An answer may be available through some background.
As time and dollars flew by, pressure mounted at Geffen. The label’s dry spell lingered [in the late 90's], making them more dependent than ever on new music from their heavy hitters. “The Hail Mary that’s going to save the game,” the recording expert who spoke on the condition of anonymity explained, “is a Guns N’ Roses record. It keeps not coming and not coming.” -NYT
Geffen could've, therefore, been keen to cash in on CD. However, the label was merged into Interscope in 1999, with Guns in tow. While the total recording bill was still on Universal's books, Interscope inherited the project with a clean slate. Axl was upset about losing the people he'd worked with dating to back to AFD, while Jimmy Iovine was apparently less concerned then Geffen had been about getting the album out ASAP.
Early on at Interscope, Axl was a good boy. He completed Live Era, included a reworked SCOM to an Adam Sandler movie, released OMG with End of Days and did press with Rolling Stone and MTV. 1999 must've appeared a good year for all concerned, at least there was a forward momentum and a desire to complete and release the album.
But Interscope may have been too big a label to accomodate Guns the way Geffen did. Trent Reznor left in 2007 and later described the company culture thusly.
“At Interscope, it felt like we were one of 50 bands, and we didn’t sell as much as Eminem, so no one cared about us,” Reznor says, having finished the coffee and moved on to the Diet Coke. “Combine that with unquestionably wrong move after wrong move in terms of the response to new technologies — I just felt like I could figure things out better than they could.” - Spin
This was NIN, certainly a prominent American band of the 90's/00's, being shuffled into the sidelines in favour of Interscope's bread n' butter, hip-hop. With Axl, the recurring pattern seemed to be, give him enough money to work on it towards something that fits the label's overall back catalogue and tell him to come back once he's done his thing. All that out of control spending happened during the Interscope era, the project funding was cut only after Guns returned to Geffen in the autumn of 2003.
From the top-dog of a starving label to a recluse big-money outfit on a prominent one, and back again to frugality, with less than sympathetic new faces waiting on them. That may be the label-side story of CD.
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Re: Slash and Duff working on CD II according to MSL
When UYI came out the biggest difference from Appetite and Lies was one thing, Axl's voice. Many songs sound nothing like his appetite era voice. That is what shocked me the most. The soaring vocals of Rocket Queen Outro etc seemed to be very rare and now he was manipulating his voice much more. Still badass though.
Best song I heard today on UYI may actually Don't Damn Me. Fuck that song kicks so much ass.
Re: Slash and Duff working on CD II according to MSL
When UYI came out the biggest difference from Appetite and Lies was one thing, Axl's voice. Many songs sound nothing like his appetite era voice. That is what shocked me the most. The soaring vocals of Rocket Queen Outro etc seemed to be very rare and now he was manipulating his voice much more. Still badass though.
Never thought about that, but it seems accurate. Only AFD type song on UYI is You Could Be Mine imo. I would say his vocals are pretty bad ass and raspy on that one though.
Best song I heard today on UYI may actually Don't Damn Me. Fuck that song kicks so much ass.
Most underrated song in the discography. Never even played live. I'd put it in my top 5 easily.
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- Rep: 330
Re: Slash and Duff working on CD II according to MSL
Pollux we agree too much lately. Have you become ill? Lol. Sorum's drumming on the non hits is pretty fucking impressive.
Re: Slash and Duff working on CD II according to MSL
When UYI came out the biggest difference from Appetite and Lies was one thing, Axl's voice. Many songs sound nothing like his appetite era voice. That is what shocked me the most. The soaring vocals of Rocket Queen Outro etc seemed to be very rare and now he was manipulating his voice much more. Still badass though.
Best song I heard today on UYI may actually Don't Damn Me. Fuck that song kicks so much ass.
Don't Damn Me is one of my favorites. Lyrics are great. And when that solo kicks in. Izzy's rhythm.
{{{fine print: obligatory fuck matt's drumming}}}
Re: Slash and Duff working on CD II according to MSL
In terms of Axl suddenly deciding to empty the vault - why is this different?
Maybe because the label will be willing to play ball now? Its THE music story of 2016. If they don't want to release a product and capitalize on that....they should go out of business because they clearly don't know what they are doing.
but if they're just adding their own take to tracks along the lines of Riad and Scrapped.....I dunno....
Like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVcWolluUQE
I suppose if the theory was that Axl found all guitarists other than slash uninspiring he might have always been waiting until he found that right part...and wasn't able to do it with the previous guitarists....but it seems that lack of guitar ability has never been the problem for nu-GNR.
Other than some crowds not digging Finck or Bucket, I don't think he thought they were uninspiring. Hell...Bucket can literally do anything.
He gets blamed too much for the delay of CD. We know more than we did during that era. Apex brings up great points regarding the changing of the guard late 90s/early 00s, and polluxlm mentions Ezrin..who I now believe altered the fate of the project completely. We used to laugh about his "3 songs" comment but I don't laugh anymore. Its what led to the rejection and then adding infinite layers to the same album he had handed in back then. Iovine deserves much of the blame but it comes back to Ezrin's negative assessment of the material that helped kick the album into purgatory.
Tommy came clean on the project after it was released. I'll always respect the guy for that. He gave fans a peak behind the curtain and after hearing what they went through, felt sorry for them and understood even more why people kept jumping from the sinking ship.
We have never heard the real Chinese Democracy. The album we got is not CD...it is a version of CD the label finally decided to unload after it had been tinkered to death, a mix that makes some of the songs not even worth listening to, and I'm not surprised he didn't want to promote it. They had ruined the experience for him and it helps explain his disinterest in the project as the years went by. Instead of recording new songs, he has the band just add extra layers to the Beavan sessions.
I hope someday that he lets the fans hear the songs how he wanted it released 15 years ago. The title track sure kicked a lot of ass back then. Still wound up being one of my favorite songs on the album but is noise pollution compared to this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P9qTtiH8uA
While I believe this. What never really added up is why Geffen/Interscope (the label name at the time is irrelevant) wouldn't have just took whatever Axl gave them back in the day as a cash grab. I do like Chinese Democracy, but even if it was awful in 2001... why wouldn't the label just release it anyway
It is a brain teaser. If it sucks, he can still tour and release the second one a year or two later. Honestly I think it boils down to the label thinking "it's not GNR" and maybe expecting a backlash. When the media was giving GNR positive reviews in 2001, they should have taken that into consideration and just unloaded it. Look what not releasing it caused.
Perhaps the delivered product just didn't reflect the money they'd pumped in at that point.
If it didn't in 2001, it sure as hell didn't in 2008.
edit: Bri....serious question....did you dislike Sorum at the time? They were looking at a variety of drummers at the time. Any specific drummer you would have preferred they hired to replace Adler?
Re: Slash and Duff working on CD II according to MSL
James, my hate for Sorum is just a joke now. I always thought he was kind of a weird addition. In 1991, I was 18 and he was not the badass I was looking for at the time. I don't know who they were considering, but he just seemed to be an odd fit, at least image-wise, from the start.
Who were they considering?
Re: Slash and Duff working on CD II according to MSL
They were going for either Adam Maples of the Sea Hags or Martin Chambers from The Pretenders. Then Slash & Duff went to see The Cult perform...snagged him immediately. Funny how something such as those two guys getting too wasted that one night to even go to a show could've changed the course of history.
At 16 I didn't know who in the hell those two guys were even though Circus Magazine was making it out to be a big deal. I did know who Sorum was though.
Re: Slash and Duff working on CD II according to MSL
They were going for either Adam Maples of the Sea Hags or Martin Chambers from The Pretenders. Then Slash & Duff went to see The Cult perform...snagged him immediately. Funny how something such as those two guys getting too wasted that one night to even go to a show could've changed the course of history.
At 16 I didn't know who in the hell those two guys were even though Circus Magazine was making it out to be a big deal. I did know who Sorum was though.
Chambers too old. Adam Maples, meh.
Adler is the drummer that should be in GNR.
