my lord...Axl makes Scott look...simple.

[D]

Great point Mike.

I love Lovin the Alien, YGNR etc but these ballads so far just take me to higher places than the VR songs.

Now does Axl have rockers on par with VR?

We will see.

VR fuckin rock regardless of how great CD turns out to be though.

[estrangedpaul]

Firstly, VR's ballads Fall To Pieces, You Got No Right and Loving The Alien are much better than the Blues and Catcher In The Rye.
 
Secondly, I agree Axl is better than Weiland, but thing is VR have Slash who is a hundred times better than Finck and Buckethead. In fact look how many times we have had the Axl vs. Weiland debate. A lot. But have we ever seen a Slash vs. Buckethead or Slash vs. Finck debate? No, because that would be plain stupid. Neither of those could pull off such an emotion-filled solo as Loving The Alien, a lead melody like Fall To Pieces or a heavy rock riff like Slither. So although GnR have the best frontmen of all time, a band is a sum of it parts. Weiland and Slash together are much, much better than Axl and Buckethead or Axl and Finck. Add in Duff who writes great songs and you have a better band. This is based off of what we have heard so far from the new GnR.

We don't know how good CD will be (even though so many people seem to be certain it will be amazing even though it hasn't been released) so it could be better than Contraband. But until its released we can only compare using the leaks and live tracks. There are a couple of great moments from the other band members other than Axl in Madagascar, The Blues, Better and TWAT, but so far they rely on one man. Axl was probably the most important member of the old GnR, but he can't carry a band or album on his own. That's not to say he has to, we wont know till we hear CD, but from what we've heard so far it seems like he has too.

VR, on the other hand have five talented guys who have each made some great contributions.

So to answer the question, Axl is better than Scott, but so far, VR is better than new-GnR.

Also, to the guy who said GnR sold more tickets in 2002 than VR since they formed: I'm not sure if that's true, but even if it is, bear in mind that a band should be judged mostly on its own material. The new band were playing 90% older material. VR played just 3 and none of the big hits. If Slash, Duff and Matt, got together with a high-pitched singer and started performing the big hits like WTTJ, SCOM, PC, Patience, NR, YCBM and 90% old-gnr material, they would sell as well, if not better.  You don't think people were coming to new-Gnr's shows to hear the new songs, do you?