Is it safe to admit releasing singles only didn’t work?

[Dr. Blutarsky]

They were good songs & it gave the band a few new additions to the set lists. So I think they worked to a certain extent. But a solid album would have made more of an impact on the charts and/ or the non- diehard fan instead of a song here and there.  But regardless, I don't see the band making an impact like they did in the previous century.  Too much time has passed at this point.

[jarmo]

I think there'd be interest for sure. But with that comes expectations. A majority of the focus would be on it being the "first album with Axl, Duff and Slash since 1991".

And with that in mind, what are these people expecting?



/jarmo

[Executioner]

I think there'd be interest for sure. But with that comes expectations. A majority of the focus would be on it being the "first album with Axl, Duff and Slash since 1991".

And with that in mind, what are these people expecting?



/jarmo

There will be a large cohort that would dish it regardless because it won’t be as good as Appetite or Illusions etc a lot of their fanbase are stuck in the early 90s mainly because of their age demographic and lack of output from the band which has kept them in a sort of time warp, now you could say the same thing about a lot of other bands from their era but bands like ACDC and Metallica have continued to release new albums and work the songs into the setlist which keeps it fresh for them and the fans ,hopefully GnR are thinking that way aswell after releasing 4 good songs and playing them live which had a positive impact on their gigs

[Gavgnr]

I get that the band might feel a huge amount of pressure in terms of a new record, particularly as the media will no doubt compare the music to AFD & UYI. However, the thing that I loved most about this band as a teenager in the early 90’s was the band’s we’ll do the fuck what we want attitude, musically and otherwise.

Might the actual issue be a lack of intent to release a record?

[slashsbaconpit]

The problem is a band, any band, has about five years to make an impact on popular culture. The songs they released from the point they made it big to the point that the general public’s interest shifted somewhere else.
No one cares about songs on Michael Jackson’s Dangerous album.
The Rolling Stones released a whole album last year, and it was a pretty damn good album. No one can name a song off it, no radio or streaming service plays anything from it. The Stones show up all the time with videos of 81-year-old killing it with dance moves and performance, but no one says, “check out Hackney Diamonds!”
Has anyone listened to a Pearl Jam album since 2001?
The reality is that GNR’s last chance to make an impact on anyone but fans was about 1992. The general public associates it with Sweet Child, Jungle and November Rain and that’s it.
No album they ever release will live up to AFD or UYI in sales or general audience impact, no matter how good, no matter if they drag Izzy into the studio or spray the vomit off Steven and make him drum, it will never have the impact it had in the late 80s early 90s. That’s just natural.

So really if they release an album, it will just be for the fans. It will never compete with the current crop of artists’ releases. But hey, in 10 years neither will Taylor Swift! You can’t change the physics of it.

Maybe that’s the frustrating thing as a fan. They’re  never going to have another top 10 song for 20 weeks or whatever, no matter how much we love the new stuff. It’s just not going to happen, so why not release some albums for your fans to enjoy? Maybe give yourself a break from playing all the same music again and again while on tour?

Who knows, the core of the band has been back together for nearly a decade now. It might not actually kill them to release an album of new stuff. On the other hand maybe releasing an album will somehow cause a rift in space time and they’ll get sucked into a black hole and be crushed in a singularity. I don’t suspect that will happen, but you never know!

[pilferk]

Now, if you're of the opinion that the band wanted headlines or a massive hit single, well, no, then that didn't happen. I'm not sure, given the way these played out, that that was the goal however. Seems like it was about just getting a few tracks out finally.

I think anyone expecting a "massive hit single" in todays environment, in rock, is, perhaps, going to be disappointed for a long time.  We're just not in that environment anymore, in the industry.

And they got headlines.  It was all over the music press and the like.  Again, expecting it to make mainstream press, "front page", top of the site news just....it's not going to do that.  Taylor does that. Beyonce does that.  GnR is not going to do that (and neither does Metallica, or The Cure, or the ROLLING FREAKING STONES).  It would take the Beatles reuniting (including required resurrections) to get that kind of press for a rock act.  Or Elvis finally being confirmed as being alive (still).

I think it got the attention they wanted and expected.  And I think it got people talking.  We're STILL talking about them.....and they're still getting streamed.  

[pilferk]

There will be a large cohort that would dish it regardless because it won’t be as good as Appetite or Illusions etc a lot of their fanbase are stuck in the early 90s mainly because of their age demographic and lack of output from the band which has kept them in a sort of time warp, now you could say the same thing about a lot of other bands from their era but bands like ACDC and Metallica have continued to release new albums and work the songs into the setlist which keeps it fresh for them and the fans ,hopefully GnR are thinking that way aswell after releasing 4 good songs and playing them live which had a positive impact on their gigs

And here's the rub:

It could be as good as AFD or Illusions.

And people will still dis it, or say it's not, because it's just not going to have the same kind of impact.  The material could be groundbreakingly good....and it will be consumed by a much smaller audience than AFD was back in the 80s and Illusions was in the 90s.  The media isn't going to tell them it's good, so they will yell that it's not...because it didn't sell what AFD or UYI 1/2 did.  They will guage quality by metrics that just aren't realistic anymore, instead of realistic ones based on cultural habits RIGHT NOW.  Watch and see.

I have bad news for those people: Rock is not king anymore.  It's just not the cultural monster it was back then.  Someone else said it's about time, and having a limited amount of time to have impact.  I disagree with that, specifically (because we've seen generational talents pivot with the times and stay relevant), but I agree that functionally it can work that way, because musical tastes change, and it can be VERY hard for acts to change their voice to match "current hotness".  And tastes tend to move slowly...and then stick there for a long time.

We are in the age of the pop princesses, squarely.  Probably right in the middle of it.  And we have been in it for about a decade or so.  People aren't showing signs of moving off it, yet.  We have awhile more of Tay Tay, Beyonce, Sabrina, et al dominating the charts and the headlines (and ticket sales). And GnR isn't going to penetrate that bubble, no matter what they release, no matter how good it is, no matter how much we all want it to.

Maybe by 2030 we'll start to move a bit to something else.  Until then, rock acts are not going to get the same exposure they did.  And we have to sort of adjust our expectations and metrics for success to match where we are, not where we were, or where we wish we were.

[jarmo]

Also worth noting is that when songs we consider classics now, were released, they weren't necessarily universally liked.

I wonder how many people went to get beers or visit the bathroom in the summer of 1991 before the Illusions were released, when the band played some of those new tracks.







/jarmo

[jarmo]

Did you guys see this?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2024/12/31/guns-n-roses-bring-their-most-recent-single-back-to-the-charts/





/jarmo

[Dr. Blutarsky]

Did you guys see this?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/hughmcintyre/2024/12/31/guns-n-roses-bring-their-most-recent-single-back-to-the-charts/





/jarmo

That is a nice surprise. Perhaps is a great song, my personal favorite for what the band has  released since CD.

[D-GenerationX]

Agreed.  'Perhaps' far and away the best of those 4 tunes.

[GNR4LIFEJD]

Is it fair to ask the question that the songs that GNR have released in the last couple of years a way for AXL to clean out the cubbard so to say on ChiDEm era songs that he may have liked and wanted to get out there. And Any new music that comes out is going to be by this version of the band meaning obviously Axl,Slash and Duff and Dizzy since he has been there as long as anyone at this point but full contributions by the likes of Richard, Melissa and Frank.

[jarmo]

No one knows.

I suspect the four singles might have been a combination of things. The songs were written and recorded. It fit their schedule to rework them before the tours in 2021 and 2023.

Will that be true for the next songs, whenever they release them? Who knows.




/jarmo

[DeN]

Agreed.  'Perhaps' far and away the best of those 4 tunes.

best? perhaps the one with the most commercial potential, in the sense that it's probably the most
recognizable song as being from Guns N' Roses as established since the '90s for the general public.

But in terms of artistic creativity, The General is far superior.

[jarmo]

Absurd is kinda like the Shotgun Blues of the four - punk attitude
Hard Skool is the You Could Be Mine - old school GN'R
Perhaps is the Breakdown - old school GN'R
The General is the My World - experimental and not like anything else from the past.

Before someone misunderstands what I said, I didn't compare the songs. Just pointing out that GN'R has released songs that don't sound the same in the past, and that's why some prefer one song to another.




/jarmo

[shadowofthewave]

Perhaps has a cool piano riff, but the chorus is an abortion from the deepest depths of hell.