You are not logged in. Please register or login.
- Topics: Active | Unanswered
Re: If The World....
It really highlights how with no leaks there is no album. Axl set unreasonably high expectations for himself that even his staunchest supporters never needed him to reach.
Well Christ...and then the way it happened was so forgettable.
No promotion, no press, No tour, no nothing...Axl could barely even acknowledge it publicly.
If you weren’t paying close attention you would’ve never known it was released.
Then that whole weird Best Buy deal. I’m sure there’s a Best Buy warehouse somewhere with a million copies of CD in it.
All i think about when i think about November 2008 is shame. He released it begrudgingly and with shame. Not exactly sure how the Best Buy Deal benefited him but it just screamed like a total sell out and bail to me.
Re: If The World....
It's a giant mess no one wants to cop to.
In 2000, Bob Ezrin's comments fucked with Axl's already-fucked head. Bob Ezrin's comments scared off Iovine and the record company. Despite this, if Axl isn't a mental case and is reasonable with the record company, the record comes out 2001-2002. Everyone involved should've supported this. New GNR is a success or failure, victory or death; the record company gets it off its books; the record company has proof for the reunion.
Axl forced the record company's hand in absentia. They should've cut him off way earlier.
The stuff from 2006-2008 can only be interpreted in the lens of Axl clawing for survival motivated by a late night hate-boner for Slash. The record was never coming out. It was used to sell a tour. The big guns were Better, TWAT, and IRS. They're great songs but everyone was over them by January 1, 2007 let alone November 26, 2008. Everything was politics to force Universal's hand. But they weren't coming back to the table after Axl gnawed off their hands the last time.
We can thank Irving Azoff for the record. Same blueprint as the Merck-sold tour in 2006, leaks as political plot. If Axl were a chick, they would've leaked his sextape. The record came out, crickets. I get both sides. The songs are interesting but the mix is an abortion and people are stupid and need to be sold things by the television. In 2006, it wouldn't have done GNR numbers but it would've done well.
Axl had another breakdown.
When he picked up the pieces, he had another bipolar delusion of grandeur. The 2010-2015 saga is Axl trying to convince himself he's not washed up and then accepting his fate as a touring-has been.
The reunion was the best option on the table. Make tons of money and have your balls rubbed or play to half-filled arenas. Comfortable rockstar likes money. News at 11.
Re: If The World....
I've said it for years and after hearing the Village Sessions, it reinforced it....
Do you know what could have saved the album in 2000-01 from the Ezrins and Iovines, label politics, and from a legacy that tarnished the band and by proxy his career?
Napster.
2001 was the fork in the road....go big or go home. The moment the label essentially shit canned the project, leak the damn thing on Napster. Not only does it force the label's hand to rush a release, it does so under a wave of massive promo and if you time it with Rio......it's a game changer.
Harmon is right....the Village Sessions prove there is an album ready to go. Cherry pick the best, give it a proper mix/master, and wrap it in cellophane, and strap it to the launch pad.
Is it an album of massive epics and other hyped nonsense?
No....but it didn't really need to be. It just needed to be a decent comeback record and a first concrete step to establishing new GNR as its own entity.
The only legitimate issue he had is with the lineup. The album (at the time) is in flux. It has an outside yet famous guitarist on 3 songs, he has a new guitar whiz as a recent addition, the lead guitarist slot is wide open (issues with Finck).
This is a solvable issue.
Tell the band members you wish to include, "it's on like Donkey Kong. Get your shit together and be ready to roll".
You can promote Mays contributions as a guest appearance. If not releasing those songs as singles, it's even less of an issue.
One of the band's problems... start to finish...and a big part of this is due to constant shit management....is the need to turn molehills into Mt Everest sized obstacles.
If you can get the album out in that late 2000- mid 2001 period, it changes everything.
Axl didn't realize what or how much was at stake. He talked a big game during that period but other than the false start of HOB/Rio, there was zero follow through.
In 2002 and beyond, while the hardcore base acted like it was still the cat's meow, the project was actually a dead duck to be laughed at and mocked....its fate being a popcorn fart in the wind release and an eventual burial at Dollar Stores nationwide.
Then he stalled for 8 years delaying the inevitable. It was obvious even to the likes of Stevie Wonder that "the second half of Chinese" was never coming.
Re: If The World....
Do you know what could have saved the album... and his career?
Napster.
Big agree.
The problem is Axl is a boomer at heart. Fuck you, pay me. I need my feet rubbed.
I mean it with dead seriousness that him throwing a shit fit about the fan praising Better in 2006 is more embarrassing than his Rio disaster or the Bridge School debacle combined.
I think Bucket might be the only one cool enough to do that.
Pitman, maybe. Robin? Nah. Freese? Nah. Tommy? What's a computer.
Re: If The World....
The problem is Axl is a boomer at heart. Fuck you, pay me. I need my feet rubbed
Maybe so.....but hindsight tells us he still gets paid at the end of the day.
At that point in time, downloading music is a new phenomenon and most people are not doing it. They're just hearing about it. CDs are still selling like hotcakes. It would take about 5-6 more years to reach the point where everyone and their grandma are downloading entire discographies on torrents and albums on megaupload, yousendit, etc.
The perception of CD leaking on Napster would've put the ball in Axl's court. It probably sells around 2-3 million copies in that environment.... assuming at least one track can become a hit.
This lack of any sort of response by Axl....excluding polishing the same songs over and over for years....is one of the reasons I believe he threw his hands in the air and practically gave up on it in the early years of the saga.
Re: If The World....
Maybe so.....but hindsight tells us he still gets paid at the end of the day.
Yes but boomers like Axl are incapable of seeing past their nose.
The time for a "Ryan Reynolds leaks Deadpool demo" powerplay was pre-VMAs in 2001-2002.
He didn't have a band ready to make good until then.
Everything after the tour cancellation should be interpreted as Axl falling back to earth and acting like a mere mortal.
I have no idea about 2004. That's always been the most interesting part of the saga to me.
This lack of any sort of response by Axl....excluding polishing the same songs over and over for years....is one of the reasons I believe he threw his hands in the air and practically gave up on it in the early years of the saga.
What do you mean?
I think it's a result of being out of touch with the music business and real life shit. He was a child star, he wasn't a businessman. He had his ass kissed from the jump and he could get away with it because he was in the Top 5 entertainers in the world. I'd like to give him credit but tearing down YouTube videos in 2020 doesn't exactly prove he's wisened up. Him having the clarity of mind to leak something on Napster in 1999-2002? You're more likely to see pigs fly...
In regards to never releasing it: he was afraid, pure and simple. Everyone treated him like a fragile snowflake. So he went into turtle mode and tried to polish TWAT on repeat. He didn't want to admit that he needed a producer. He just wanted to delay reality to maintain control in his head.
And the finished album had to be a Caram abomination, no one was gonna fund it, he wasn't paying Wallace, and he had to change it from the leaks somehow to justify its commercial existence.
Azoff knew exactly what he was doing on both sides of the aisle.
- davegnfnr2k
- Rep: 1
Re: If The World....
I've said it for years and after hearing the Village Sessions, it reinforced it....
Do you know what could have saved the album in 2000-01 from the Ezrins and Iovines, label politics, and from a legacy that tarnished the band and by proxy his career?
Napster.
2001 was the fork in the road....go big or go home. The moment the label essentially shit canned the project, leak the damn thing on Napster. Not only does it force the label's hand to rush a release, it does so under a wave of massive promo and if you time it with Rio......it's a game changer.
Harmon is right....the Village Sessions prove there is an album ready to go. Cherry pick the best, give it a proper mix/master, and wrap it in cellophane, and strap it to the launch pad.
Is it an album of massive epics and other hyped nonsense?
No....but it didn't really need to be. It just needed to be a decent comeback record and a first concrete step to establishing new GNR as its own entity.
The only legitimate issue he had is with the lineup. The album (at the time) is in flux. It has an outside yet famous guitarist on 3 songs, he has a new guitar whiz as a recent addition, the lead guitarist slot is wide open (issues with Finck).
This is a solvable issue.
Tell the band members you wish to include, "it's on like Donkey Kong. Get your shit together and be ready to roll".
You can promote Mays contributions as a guest appearance. If not releasing those songs as singles, it's even less of an issue.
One of the band's problems... start to finish...and a big part of this is due to constant shit management....is the need to turn molehills into Mt Everest sized obstacles.
If you can get the album out in that late 2000- mid 2001 period, it changes everything.
Axl didn't realize what or how much was at stake. He talked a big game during that period but other than the false start of HOB/Rio, there was zero follow through.
In 2002 and beyond, while the hardcore base acted like it was still the cat's meow, the project was actually a dead duck to be laughed at and mocked....its fate being a popcorn fart in the wind release and an eventual burial at Dollar Stores nationwide.
Then he stalled for 8 years delaying the inevitable. It was obvious even to the likes of Stevie Wonder that "the second half of Chinese" was never coming.
If CD was released in 2001/02 and you take the best of the village stuff it would have been an amazing album.
12 tracks
Chinese Democracy
Better
Hard School
Perhaps
Atlas
Catcher in the Rye
The blues
Madagascar
Prostitute
TWAT
Zodiac
Quick Song
That album would have been killer and album isn't even 70 minutes. You could add a couple more like
If the world, The Rebel, and Elvis
then you would have enough for a second album and a bunch of B side singles too
