The elephant in the room is what happened to the songwriting.

Obviously we know he's one of the greatest songwriters of his generation and indeed probably all time...yet somewhere after UYI he seemed to hit a wall.

Axl rejected most of the Slash riffs of the past because as he has said - he does not like to try and write around finished guitar pieces. So it seems unlikely he's going to sit down with a new instrumental album composed by slash and duff and richard now and make it into GNR.

This is probably the same reason nothing came of the pieces submitted by DJ and Bumble.

Most accounts suggest that of the many pieces submitted by brain/bucklet/robin most never got lyrics.

Of the songs he did finish and release the 2008 Chinese Democracy - it's clear a lot of them are made by frankenstiening half song ideas together to try and make a full length song. They jump styles. They jump genres. They stop and start. They mix all kinds of things together including different bands decades apart. They made full length songs but a lot of them don't flow together easily, you need the click running and samples to perform them.

Of the songs post Chinese Democracy - it's the same story - but these ones were put out without the additional inspiration. Hardschool is mostly choruses with a long instrumental in the middle. Absurd is a classic rant repeated over and over with no third verse or chorus. Perhaps is the most developed - but even it fundamentally repeats itself from half way through. The general is what one verse and one chorus repeated three times without an outro. Don't get me wrong I love these songs, but it's clear the difference between these and Novermber Rain or Coma was these songs were waiting for additional ideas that don't exist.

When asked if Axl could write for Ac/Dc in 2016 he joked that he would love to do an album if someone could just give him some good finished songs to sing.

Given how the old songs evolved this may have always been his process, but I think it's a process that has basically stopped working. 

As I said in a recent post I think most of the song ideas came from traumas that are now solved, he's not living an AFD lifestyle so he can't write AFD2, I think the young man fire in them all is tempered. They could co-operate to fill the gaps - but as we've seen from the general and so on - slash and duff will not risk another breakup of the enterprise to push things by challenging a strong structure or demanding a new verse or adding on a huge change. They just overdub whatever bucket and robin did - which was mostly unmarkatable art noodles in the first place or random jams in the studio watching porn - and only even became what it did cos younger Axl hacked it into something on a 8 hour pro tools stint in his youth.

As for Slash - I wonder if he's just finally run out of ideas. Dude put out 8 full length albums outside of GNR most of them have classic riffs and solos - but even the last couple of those have started to rehash structures, rehash guitar patterns, or stock slash fills, or some clearly tribute other players or songs in ways that make me think he's starting to hit the wall too.

All that said - they are them - musical geniuses - so I mean - maybe - and just maybe - it still happens - maybe they get in the back of a room in person one day and write a classic in 5 mins...dumber things have happened....but even so...we have a wall - Axl likes to write from the piano but can't finish, Slash likes to write riffs but Axl doesn't know what to do with them, Izzy is gone, Tommy, Bucket, DJ, Bumble, and Co already sent in what they had and it didn't light a fire under anyone....

I mean i'm sure there's still good stuff...the Eye on You melody is cool, and Atlas was an ineresting verse, state of grace was fun sounding....and at least the band gives us these kind of things even if they are incomplete...as I think otherwise we'd be waiting on something thats never going to come.