Is he? I thought he was talking about the "surprise element". Surely, the surprise of hearing new songs is the same regardless of whether those songs are leaked or officially released. Whatever it is within the songs that are surprising remains the same regardless of how we obtain the songs.

But okay, we are now talking about "the album impact". I agree that the impact of the album necessarily must be reduced when the songs are already known. But what we gained was a huge impact of the leaks! I would dare to say that the impact of the leaks which we got is equal in size to the impact of the album which we lost. Hence it doesn't matter. Of course the album meant less to us when the content was already known compared to a situation where it was all novel. So we ended up buying the record to support the band, not to hear the songs. But I dare to say that what I lost album-wise I gained leak-wise. The impact of the music remains the same. And GN'R still got my money.