The more artists age, the more they want to branch out on their own for better and worse.

The business end of the thing has four pain points. The album that GNR owes the record company and other legal hurdles, the fact that Universal owns the Chinese session recordings, the artist feared concept of commercial viability, and the market on a micro and macro scale (rock, music, tie-ins, general).

To the first, it's entirely possible GN'R is under no further obligation as of AFD Remastered.

To the second, Axl has no leverage whatsoever. If he wants CD2 out it's either play by our rules or fuck off.

To the third, we don't really know what is through the looking glass.

To the fourth, music isn't selling these days or valued as an art form.

We've subsisted on rumors and vagaries for years. "Electronica with aggressive guitars", "If you don't like this, you won't like that", etc. The only sliver of hope is a 16 second section of a song that is equally hyped as Chinese Democracy itself.

I think you make a salient point about a blockbuster album but that's easier said than done and hardly artistic or in all probability a palatable concept to Axl. I can show you the grosses on Avengers or Star Wars but if you put that in the same breath as art, anyone with a modicum of taste will laugh in your face.

The sum total is GN'R is in an unenviable spot with no leverage and everything to lose (i.e. money) by releasing new music.

Our only hope, in my estimation, are (a) Leaks or (b) Universal trying to milk GNR while the economy is acceptable in the form of a CD box set (which would be barebones in the form of 14 older mixes and maybe 1 bonus track).

It doesn't look good.

Most happenings in Gunsland are more or less Rorschach tests for the commenters.

You see what you want to see.

In my case, I see an asshole trying to charge the price of a new car for what amounts to the least interesting, least desirable thing being hoarded.

Are we sure that the Chinese Democracy saga wasn't one big Stanford Milgram Experiment to see how much pain the human animal can withstand?

Not a bad point when you consider how rough The General intro sounded in 2002 compared to the "finished" intro in later years.

Then again TWAT and IRS were pretty much there in 1999.

Shackler's Revenge was announced to be in Rock Band 2 around July 2008 IIRC.

A couple of weeks later, it leaked online under the title Chicken Dinner.

Chinese Democracy was released as DLC in April 2009 after the album came out in November 2008.

It featured the "Red Hand" cover which confused many of us at the time. But it later came out a re-release was planned. Of course that didn't happen.

I have no idea about Rock Band 3 or 4 but I know for one of them you could transfer old DLC songs for a small fee. I don't know if CD was one of them as sometimes certain albums/songs don't carry over for legal reasons.

The leaker put that in there.

What I never got an answer on was where they got that logo / cover artwork.