(Post by Will Entrekin)
Earlier this week, blogger Kevin somebody-or-other was arrested for posting and streaming 9 songs, all of which appeared to be near-studio perfect recordings of GN’R’s long-awaited 6th CD, Chinese Democracy, on his blog. He appeared in court on Wednesday morning, when his bail was set at $10,000. In June, after he streamed the songs on his website, he apparently told Rolling Stone:
I’m not so worried about that. It’s a legal grey area since it wasn’t for download, it wasn’t a finished product. We aren’t sure who owns the recordings. I feel like I might survive this.
And I’m sure he probably will, but one might wonder precisely how.
Apparently, the songs were only on his website for a little while before two things happened: first, it sounds like the host’s server crashed (which makes sense, because ZOMG NOO GNR!!!111!!!), and second, someone associated with GN’R asked the guy to take the songs down and erase the digital files, which he did (which was why he couldn’t supply the FBI with the original files when they later asked). So, really, no telling how many people managed to catch the audio stream at exactly the right time. In the meantime, after the songs were taken down at GN’R’s request, copies managed to make their way around the tubes. It was one of those copies a friend of mine convinced me to listen to.
I had mixed feelings about doing so. I’ve heard a few people call Axl names for suing the guy who posted them, but I just can’t help seeing the situation from Axl’s perspective: here’s a guy whose name is on two of the greatest rock albums of all time (Appetite for Destruction and Use Your Illusion). I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t want to have to try to make a follow up to Illusion; both CDs are, first minute to last, terrific. I still listen to them all the time. And Appetite? It’s turbo-charged summer on vinyl, barbecues and beers and bonfires, the groin-tightening excitement of making out for the first time, knowing you want to use your body but having not a clue what you want to use it for. So he’s got both those albums under his belt, and now everyone’s been waiting for the follow-up for, what, like, 13 years or something?
Not to mention all the press he’s gotten in the meantime. People who have probably never actually seen him in real life, even on a stage, writing about his “neuroses” and “depression” and “erratic behavior,” and etc. And I’m not saying his behavior hasn’t been erratic at times, but I am saying I can totally understand why he’d want to become total recluse. With pretty much everyone scrutinizing your every move, would you want to leave your house?
I wouldn’t. I’d sit down in the studio and I’d spend a decade trying to write something better than what I had done before, and it would probably take that long, too, because let’s face it; what he’d done before was awesome. So Axl spends more than a decade trying to get it right, trying to get it better, and then some random dude posts the unfinished work on his random website.
Heck, I’d be pissed, too.
But, then, as a fan, man, do I want to hear what he’s working on. Which was why I had mixed feelings about listening to the songs; on one hand, I’m just dying to. On the other, I know that if they’re not out yet, there’s a reason they’re not out yet, and Axl probably doesn’t think they’re finished yet. And I’ll admit I ain’t musical enough to detect an extra note here or a more produced layer there, most of the time, but then again, I’m not cinematic enough to really know anything about lighting or whathaveyou, and I wouldn’t presume to try to view, say, Quantum of Solace before I sit down to watch it in a theater.
In the end, the GN’R fan in me won out, and yes, I listened to those 9 songs. I thought it’d be neat to do a review of them, but then I thought: as a writer, would I want someone to review an unpublished novel I didn’t feel I had finished revising yet?
Of course I wouldn’t.
Hell, I’m not even sure I should tell you that I thought they were awesome. The kind of awesome, in fact, that’s worth waiting nearly a decade and a half for.
So I won’t. I’m not going to tell you that I think it’s the best thing the man behind Appetite for Destruction and Use Your Illusion (I & II) has ever done.
Not right now.
Maybe when it comes out.
In the meantime, I think we should all wish Mr. Rose luck in finishing what he’s started.
Soon.
(cross-posted to )
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Man, I want to hear those songs so bad my ears are crying out in longing.
That is unless the realization of what kind of piracy driven media junkies the fanbase he’s been working for has been reduced to drives Mr Rose deeper into depression and makes him torch the whole set.
And nothing of vaule was lost.
hahaha. Thank you for the restraint.
Personally, I always thought it would be cool to see not only the finished product but all the half-finished first attempts and pre-recordings and sound tests and remixes. Like watching a movie and then seeing the director’s cut. The idea that the music would be worse after hearing a different take… well, that might be true in the moment, but only because you know what it was like before he changed it.
It’s like in Star Wars, when fans became horrified over editing out the scene in Mos Eisley Space Port when Han shoots first. Imagine if Lucas just never released that first cut in theaters and you only ever saw the latest version. What a loss. I can see how it drives George batshit crazy every time he gets another angry fan letter lambasting him for altering that iconic moment, but I think the audience as a whole gains a great deal by knowing that alternate version of the story exists.
:-p
As good as you say these are, I can’t shake the suspicion that there are versions a few attempts previous to the latest ones that are probably superior. I find it really hard to believe that “improvement” has actually been a part of the process for some time. He should have just released it a long time ago.
1) Erratic does not describe Axl by itself. He completely no showed a concert here in Philly without notifying anyone, while the rest of the substitute GNR lineup waited until the last minute. There was a riot because Axl couldn’t even bother to let someone know he wasn’t coming.
2) Speaking of the substitute band, if Slash ain’t playing, I’m not interested. Is the CD from back in 95 when he was still there, or am I hearing some shitty substitute playing behind Axl’s obnoxious voice?
I understand there was another incident where Axl delayed playing while he ate a multi-course dinner before a show.
@karellan: I neither condone nor encourage it, but from I understand, the songs are not altogether difficult to locate for the industrious soul actively and determinedly seeking them.
@Zifnab: I think a director’s cut is slightly different from the idea of demos, though I agree that seeing the process is often interesting (I like seeing alternate takes myself, and I love when covers reinvent/reinterpret songs in interesting ways). But this is another level of different besides; there’s a creator releasing his demos so his fans can see what he’s working on and get excited, and then there’s someone altogether different getting hold of the unfinished product and sharing it with people. It sounds like what you’re talking about is more akin to, say, a bonus CD bundled with the album, which would include the demos or a video about the studio production.
Which, I have to admit, would be awesome. Imagine a DVD on the making of the most expensive rock CD ever produced? I would line up to watch that.
@Jack Norris (Ed): I think it’s a creator’s right to determine when, how, and if what he’s working is ready. Ultimately, it’ll be Axl’s name on the finished product, so it’s up to him. That said, my same friend played some of previous cuts, and it’s amazing the difference a little extra work can make.
@Ken and Andrew: Yeah, you’re right. Erratic and unprofessional.
Also @Ken: I see your point, and I’ve always admired Slash’s playing, but the guitars I heard on those cuts far outpace anything Velvet Revolver’s ever done, and, more importantly, the songs seem better. They’ve got an incredible bombast with a visceral undercurrent I don’t think VR has ever achieved.
Torrents had them, the tracks, and a friend told me they were not worth the download. So I am happy. Appetite was the only good album anyways.
Appetite, and if they had cut down Illusions to one CD only it would have been great. Still, ‘Don’t damn me’ is one of the best songs they’ve ever made.
I have to say I have little hope. But then again, after reading this, and after watching At the Gates get back together and go on a tour and rock my socks of… I guess that anything can happen.
I wonder what we’ll see first? Chinese Democracy, or Duke Nukem . . . whatever the title is.
“I think it’s a creator’s right to determine when, how, and if what he’s working is ready.”
In no way did I dispute that (or even bring up the idea of what he had the right to release), so I don’t really see where this response is coming from. I just mentioned a feeling I had, and didn’t even try to represent it as anything more. There’s this inexplicable tendency recently to respond to all criticisms as some kind of infringement on a creator’s right to release what he sees fit, which is just plain absurd. It’s the mirror twin of fan entitlement and is no more legitimate.
“That said, my same friend played some of previous cuts, and it’s amazing the difference a little extra work can make.”
Well, if you actually heard the relevant tracks, then clearly you have a more accurate impression. Nevertheless, having heard successive versions of stuff from other albums and other artists, just as often that “little extra work” can mean a difference for the worse.
@Jack: I was responding to your “He should have just released it a long time ago.” I think I might have read that differently than you apparently meant it. Sorry.
I suspect the best route for his label would be to package the tracks in a special container designed by Damien Hirst, and then try to sell that one item for as much as possible.
Ideally Axl Rose would participate by conveniently passing away, after which Hirst would mount his body in formaldehyde, the CD clenched in Axl’s teeth.
I suspect they could actually recoup the cost of production that way.
I don’t think Guns ‘N Roses is a particularly good band, and I’m posting the comment under the misguided delusion that anyone cares what I think.