What will the general attitude toward Guns 'N' Roses be in twenty or thirty years?

They'll be considered a great band, because they are a great band.

No they weren't.

They'll be considered a great band, because they are a great band.

I think the word you're looking for is "were", not "are".

The attitude towards G'n'R in thirty years? "Gosh, I hope Chinese Democracy gets released soon!"

were, yes...up through about half of Use Yr Illusion I&II....they're more consistent than MC5 up through that point though...

Only thing that doesn't sync up is that the Dolls were a flop commercially.

Yeah, the Dolls comparison seems fairer, especially considering how long the name continued with line-ups that had not much to do with the original band.

GnR neither influenced nor pre-figured anything. Name me one major artist in their wake who's namechecked them.

GnR, if anything, were the last (major)gasp of hair metal weren't they?

Just so you can have a giggle, I'd nominate To Mega Therion, Balls to the Wall and Nothing's Shocking as better albums.

absofuckinlutely not.

What's so specifically traditional and "classic rock" about Appetite, in the context of 1987, though? Sure, Poison were more removed from, say, early Aerosmith than Guns were. But each 80s pop metal bands owed at least something to a band in the classic rock era... GNR weren't alone there.

GORGOROTH LAUGHS AT YOUR GIRLY 80S METAL CREDENTIALS!

"metal" is going to get more "XTREEEEEM", darker, and more "I'm more metal than you, so fuck off, before I SLAY THEE".. as we're seeing now, sorta.

80s metal is going to be pastel-colored bubblegum rock to the kids in the 2020's and 2030's. "Welcome To The Jungle" and "Sweet Child 'O' Mine" are going to be the "Sugar Sugar" and "Yummy Yummy Yummy I Got Luv In My Tummy" to those kids, respectively.

Now, I think "Helter Skelter" is a great song, but in retrospect, it isn't any louder than something on the poppier side of the Estrus Records catalog when heard today, much much less THE LOUDEST SONG EVAH!

So, the idea of "the best metal" is very mutable.

It already is, surely. There was a kid we saw in Vegas I pointed out to you who couldn't have been more than ten with a new Appetite for Destruction T-shirt on. He'll just remember that as catchy music he heard when he was young (and maybe still loves, in the same way that Hall and Oates, who I first heard when I was ten, sticks in my memory).

G'n'R will still be rated because they are damn catchy much in the same way that nobody today cares if Motown artistes or the Monkees were authentic auteurs or not.

How in the world can that not be correct, they pretty much embodied the genre.

Alex is absolutely right - end of story.

i'm sure the replacements would've been happy to be called a hair-metal band, but the thought probably never occurred to them, as they were always way more '70s (bad company, thin lizzy, kiss) than '80s.

Mr. Brownstone wouldn't sound out of place on an Alice n Chains record.

what would guns in roses have to say about that?

in 20 years, west arkeen is going to be acknowledged as the true musical mastermind of gnr. slash will go down as a footnote/anomaly with top hat and perpetual fag in mouth

General Attitude?

Same as any band that's recorded lots and lots of songs, but get represented by two songs usually. "Sweet Child" and "Paradise City"

'welcome to the jungle' has definitely gotta be their signature song. now and into the future.

Bullshit. I hear "Welcome To The Jungle" and a half dozen Use Your Illusion tracks on the radio just as much as those 2 on a daily basis. (xpost)

"don't cry" is so awesome

they will represent the seedy glamour of a long-vanished "rock and roll lifestyle" that the rollings stones are already too safe to represent

"bad apples" is a really good song.

i love how "i think about you" suddenly turns into a really great bob mould song in the chorus

erin everly was apparently a bob mould fan

<i>i love how "i think about you" suddenly turns into a really great bob mould song in the chorus

-- gff, Wednesday, March 26, 2008 4:12 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Link</i>

^^woah i never thought about that but yeah the chord change is very mould and very NOT l.a. rock

Does anybody care in the UK about them right now?

I dare say that they might after this album is released.

oh, you're British? I'll forgive your completely warped perspective on the popularity of an American band, then.

yeah, I did mean 'from this island' so fair enough.

they will represent the seedy glamour of a long-vanished "rock and roll lifestyle" that the rollings stones are already too safe to represent

OK, which issue of Mojo did this come from, Tracer?

the one 20-30 years from now

in 20 years, west arkeen is going to be acknowledged as the true musical mastermind of gnr.

According to the always correct and omnipotently authoritative Wikipedia entry, West Arkeen "...co-wrote "It's So Easy," "Crash Diet," "Bad Obsession," "The Garden" and "Yesterdays" for Guns N' Roses..."

Did Arkeen co-write/co-author GNR songs for which he wasn't credited? Otherwise, I'm not so sure about his future acknowledgment as GNR's Svengali.

treated for burns over much of his body after his indoor barbecue exploded 11 days before his death.

sounds methy

the one 20-30 years from now

Hey, maybe I should read the thread title! Awesome!

Mr. Brownstone wouldn't sound out of place on an Alice n Chains record.

This is completely insane, but if there are Alice in Chains songs that sound like "Mr. Brownstone," I'd love to hear which ones they are.

Personally I regret it, but the fact that their albums are now being picked up by a generation of kids who were hardly even born when "Appetite For Destruction" was released, well, it kinda suggests that they will last, you know.

A case in point: my son (12) is at the stage of defining his music taste more seriously for the first time. Guns 'n' Roses are his current favourite band (three or four months ago it was classic period Elton John). He plays me tracks on youtube and I'll say, yeah quite nice but it sounds a bit like the Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin .. so he'll listen to something by them and see the connection but he prefers Guns 'n' Roses. Perhaps because he discovered them for himself rather than his father pointing something out to him.

Alice told me how good "Sweet Child" was, and she's right.

the fact that their albums are now being picked up by a generation of kids who were hardly even born when "Appetite For Destruction" was released, well, it kinda suggests that they will last, you know

Hm. There are 15 copies of Guns 'N Roses Greatest Hits in the used record store near my house (tho, mind you, there are a ton of used Led Zepplin discs there, too, so maybe Miami's not the best place to make this assessment).

Weren't Guns 'N Roses a really tight band, certainly moreso than most of the hair-metal bands of their era? I mean, am I wrong to remember Slash as being a very good guitarist, fluid, with good dexterity, and a good ear for melody (e.g., Sweet Child 'O Mine, November Rain)? I was never a big G-'N-R fan, but I think they'll be fondly remembered as having been a great band.

I feel like I'm one of the few people who have never managed to love up on GnR. Admittedly, I've never heard the non-hit Appetite tracks. The Bob Mould reference sounds intriguing. I'll investigate...

I think time will see them as a great barroom band that had some excellent songs, and when at peak form, could rock the fuck out of any room from your bedroom to Wembley Stadium.

Axl will slide further into oddball obscurity, Slash will continue to be the blooze riff rocker in a series of bands, and...well, shit. That's all that we remember, right? Duff, maybe?

I personally think that the beginning of the end was Izzy's departure. That man's rhythm was the lynchpin to Appetite for Destruction.

Did CHINESE DEMOCRACY ever come out?

xposts

Yeah, I don't think anyone could fault them for not having a tight-as-hell rhythm section. And Slash's playing, though his style may not be my personal cup of tea, is pretty unimpeachable

What don't you like about Slash's guitar playing? (Just curious).

Slash's guitar playing is the only thing I like about GnR, I believe.

I can go back and listen to it and spit out more, but just off the top of my head, the intro to Sweet Child doesn't sit well with me. That's terribly vague, I realize...the thing is, they always get the Stones or even Zep comparisons, but I think maybe Slash's guitar playing is too grounded in the eighties l.a. glamrock idiom for me to appreciate? It's just a personal prejudice, I guess. I like me some Ron Woodisms or Jimmy Pageishness, but I don't hear that sort of thing much in his playing. Rather, I hear a sort of vacant-ish showboating that doesn't do it for me...

I believe the term your looking for is "soul" (as in Slash doesn't have any - his playing is very mechanical)

ha, xpost

Like, he's got chops and then some, but to my ears he's erring just a bit on this side of soulfulness, if that makes any sense...

grounded in the eighties

Yes, when my son played that track to me on youtube the intro guitar figure reminded me of U2 rather than anything hard rock.

If we go back and research the different strains of stuff these guys were putting in their veins, we could probably figure out which strains of junk cut off access to the guitar rock magic soul whatever more than the others. Like, maybe Slash just had bad dealers or something

Surprising. I thought that Slash would be considered to have lots of "soul," at least in comparison to other guitarists in this genre (or similar genres). What guitarists -- again, within Slash's genre -- do you think have more soul than him? Keith Richards, I guess, since I see a few people drawing Stones/G'NR comparisons (tho, obv., the Rolling Stones aren't in Guns 'N Roses genre). Others?

I don't think Slash sounds anything like Keith. Like, not at ALL.

I just got that Reckless Road book by their photographer, it's pretty great. Slash does play like Keith a little but more like Brian May only with different effects/tone.

shitty LA glam metal in general not really about "soul", seeing as how it was an inherently pasty-white genre

Brian May is a good ref point tho - totally hear that.

I mean most of the LA glam metal scene was cribbing from Brits (T. Rex, Queen, Sabbath, Zep) who in turn were cribbing from old blues dudes so they ended up being like three generations removed from what is conventionally identified as "soul" in terms of guitar playing (which you can break down into pretty technical terms - playing behind the beat, various kinds of fills, etc., most of which the guys in Decline of Western Civ Pt II were not particularly interested in)

the shit you feel in your soul is a little different when your drug of choice is tweak

While GnR may have more rock'n'roll roots than heavy rock roots, I would say Slash's playing - like Axl's vocal style - is more influenced by heavy rock. It would be a lot more natural to compare Slash with Eddie Van Halen than with Keith Richards.

it is hard for me to say this but... Geir... OTM

What guitarists -- again, within Slash's genre -- do you think have more soul than him?

Well, again, I have to confess personal prejudices here. I am not much of a fan of the idiom that he is operating within. I am not much of a fan of lead guitar "wankery", but instead habitually focus my ears guitar-wise more on chord progressions that I find compelling. That being said, I know that there are some guitar solos that wreck my head...I dunno if I can call them up to mind right now, but off the top of my head, I would invoke the examples of say, some Steely Dan stuff, f'rinstance, the solo in Rikki...or to throw out some other big names, I find some Jimi and Jerry Garcia moments to be genuinely affecting. Slash's stuff, by comparison seems too dry or something

xpost

yeah, and J0hnD otm as well.

Also, all in all, I like Van Halen loads better, but that's probably more to do with them expressing a broader sense of humor than anything relating to the guitar playing

<i>I mean most of the LA glam metal scene was cribbing from Brits (T. Rex, Queen, Sabbath, Zep</i>

i don't hear much if any sabbath in LA glam metal....queen and zep probably...but it seems like the 2000lb gorilla in the room w/r/t to LA metal is AEROSMITH

plus...all kinda bands like April Wine and Tommy Bolin's Teaser and shit that no one remembers that well

April Wine used to play the Coach House all the damn time, good call Matt. Also popular in late 70s SoCal: Montrose.

hmm yeah Sabbath not as important given that none of these bands were into slow heavy sludge. Montrose tho (and by extension Van Halen) = definitely

Aerosmith do actually exhibit some soul tho (and they were heavy on the Keith-isms too) - I think their impact was more visual and vocally than guitar-wise.

there's a lot more to the Sabs than slow and heavy though - listen to Vol. 4 & Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (esp. "Wheels of Confusion" and "Killing Yourself to Live") and tell me Slash doesn't know those backwards and forwards

Did Arkeen co-write/co-author GNR songs for which he wasn't credited? Otherwise, I'm not so sure about his future acknowledgment as GNR's Svengali.

-- dblcheeksneek, Wednesday, 26 March 2008 18:34 (Yesterday) Link

oh, that thing about west arkeen was just a frail attempt to make a joke at 3am. i've only ever heard about arkeen in gnr liner notes. slash, on the other hand, seems to epitomise the band for me

I see. Well-played. Sort of.

oh i'm sure all those dudes liked Sabbath, but it was just weird to me that Sabbath (which seems like a more tangental influence on LA metal) was getting a nod over Aerosmith, who seem -- esp in the case of GnR -- to be the direct ancestor.

Also, maybe another stealth influence -- Y&T, who got some shine in the 80s but i think were actually kicking around the west coast as early as the late 60s

I thought this was funny. The Jays had their annual charity auction today, and you could follow the various bids as you watched the game on TV. There were ongoing bids for upcoming Toronto shows by Guns N' Roses and by Springsteen. The bids were both in the neighborhood of $5,000 with an hour to go. The Springsteen was for two tickets, presumably very good ones; the Guns N' Roses for a luxury box accommodating 16 people.

I've always thought they were shit.

Re: the next generation, my 22-year-old, who is huge on heavy bands like Sabbath, Metallica, Motorhead, et al., as well as the better grunge bands like Alice in Chains, also thinks they're shit.

I'll always like "Sweet Child" and "Patience." As human beings, I don't think I miss them.

The charity ticket thing isn't really a fair comparison – considering that Bruce is one of the top 3 current concert draws (and top 3 living rock icons), and GN'R is... this crew.

(Btw, I did not know that a current GN'R member is a 33-year-old woman keyboard player / backing vocalist... that's pretty cool)

and GN'R is... this crew

Which was basically my point, thinking about how huge they once were.

Could have even been funnier: "For $5,000, you can get two tickets to next week's Bruce Springsteen concert, or Guns N' Roses will play your next birthday party for you and 100 of your closest friends, and they'll also look after your lawn chores for the next three months."

judging from Twitter, Axl seems like he's a lot better now

pic.twitter.com/czpIcTPPAP

— Axl Rose (@axlrose) February 8, 2023

pic.twitter.com/GodW6Xa5HH

— Axl Rose (@axlrose) December 2, 2022

Slash and Duff give a lot of interviews nowadays and I find both of them endlessly intriguing. Kinda glad Axl never does, because I prefer to leave him a total mystery.

Which was basically my point, thinking about how huge they once were.

Which of those ppl do you think are out of place in the lineup?

Steven Adler has been touring lately, and he looks/sounds good, but whoever he got to sing in his band does a pretty spot on 80s Axl Rose impression

Is Slash's hat actually a hat/wig combo?

The “these guys are randos and washouts now” jokes don’t really scan to me. The tour they did right before Covid was one of the 10 highest grossing tours of all time

They do look rode hard and put away wet, though.

box tickets for GnR here are $300 and for Springsteen were $5000 (and we don’t know if there was any minimum bid on these prizes at “The Jays,” which would be more relevant than what they went up to) but the difference does not make me think less of the members of the band with the lower price

They do look rode hard and put away wet, though.

Post a side-by-side of you and a bareheaded Little Steven on wdyll?

WTF?

“these guys are randos and washouts now” jokes don’t really scan to me. The tour they did right before Covid was one of the 10 highest grossing tours of all time

#4

and the three randos have been in the band for seven, seventeen and twenty-one years respectively

WTF?

If you’re going to make fun of sixty-year-old ppl who aren’t in the E Street Band for being a) old and b) potentially bald, why not really flex?

I've posted a pic of myself, and anyway I'm not an aging rock star still running on the strength of a 30-year-old catalog that sucked in the first place.

how dare u

Fwiw, I wasn’t making fun of 2023 GNR with my post… my point was just that it doesn’t make sense to compare them to a bona fide living legend (and reportedly one of best performers on the planet) for this charity auction.

one of the top 3 current concert draws

how many tickets has he sold this year, and how many have the other two sold?

My initial post was about something that made me laugh. I'm not sure it bears this much analysis.

do you know where you are man

xp Is one of those guys your dad?

I always thought that Izzy was the smart one - even more so now.

I tried watching their set on the Glastonbury livestream and had to punch out.

I've mellowed a bit on GnR over the years - I mean they're clearly not the smartest people in the business and this hair metal stuff still isn't my thing musically but for those people who were 12 somewhere in the 1987-1991 era, who am I to shit on their beloved gateway to sex drugs & rock 'n roll?

There are tickets for $50 (all-in) next week, that's a good price to pay for the Pretenders alone.

I'm 25 and Guns N' Roses have easily the worst reputation among my friends, ex-friends, people I sort of know etc. etc. of basically any band. I have at least three friends for whom GN'R are the worst band of all time. And not that RYM is a good barometer for anything except itself but the joy people on there take in getting Appetite out of the charts and its overall rating continuing its steep decline suggests GN'R really are the main catnip for a certain venom. I've always quite liked them - more when I was a lot younger admittedly - and me merely quite liking them has brought me into conflict before.

for those people who were 12 somewhere in the 1987-1991 era, who am I to shit on their beloved gateway to sex drugs & rock 'n roll?

This was basically my experience with Aerosmith 10 years before that period. I won't spend any time defending their "legacy," because lots of letters have been typed on this board about that, and it's basically indefensible anyway.

I have at least three friends for whom GN'R are the worst band of all time.

This is mind-boggling to me coming from the country that gave the world Oasis, Blur, the Arctic Monkeys...

won't spend any time defending their "legacy," because lots of letters have been typed on this board about that, and it's basically indefensible anyway.

yes it is

They were always hated in certain quarters--remember Kurt and Courtney mocking Axl at some award show. I went to see them on the UYI tour and kind of kept it a secret from my friends.

Yeah and that was a whole thing in itself... Axl loved Nirvana, and was pissed about being dissed by the cool kids.

Maybe he shouldn't have been such a colossal dick.

? They started it... Kurt slagged the band off, called them talentless, etc.

Well, Kurt was also a colossal dick. But in this case he wasn't wrong.

OK we get it, you think they suck

but for those people who were 12 somewhere in the 1987-1991 era, who am I to shit on their beloved gateway to sex drugs & rock 'n roll?

this x100 -- i was 12 in 1987 and this was the scariest shit i had ever heard...and i secretly liked it. i have strong memories of hearing the part of "welcome to the jungle" where he yells YOU'RE GONNA DIEEEEEE while i was at a -- of all things -- congressional retreat with my parents at the Greenbrier (of all places!) and it coincided with a much-anticipated Spinks/Holyfield (iirc?) fight as well as my personal encounter with one Bill Cosby. like what a FLORID time to hear this terrifying music. it made an impression for sure.

i never owned any of their albums but can still enjoy the singles for the most part. esp Sweet Child

xp Yes, and get off my lawn.

this x100 -- i was 12 in 1987 and this was the scariest shit i had ever heard...and i secretly liked it. i have strong memories of hearing the part of "welcome to the jungle" where he yells YOU'RE GONNA DIEEEEEE while i was at a -- of all things -- congressional retreat with my parents at the Greenbrier (of all places!)

yeah, this! When I heard "Welcome to the Jungle" I got that "This is sexy-dangerous!" response that I imagine listeners in 1977 did after listening to the Pistols.

I was indeed 12 by the time Appetite had crawled its way to the top of the Billboard 200 (and the videos were such a big deal)... like others here, I have a deeply rooted connection to how the band struck me at the time.

yeah it was both terrifying and exhilarating and, frankly, i was there for it.

no that i think about it, it may have been 1988, and i think i am misremembering the boxers involved but the whole thing was like O_O for adolescent me. also my friend's older sister Kristy was a big fan and i remember seeing her get ready to go out, spraying the living shit out of her hair and getting hairspray all over the bathroom counter. it was always sticky. her jacket, her boots, her makeup, her friends, her hair! all of it was mesmerizing

LL otm

i'm in that demo too and it's hard to express how much of a shock it was when my friend's uncle brett (everyone called him whopper) played appetite for us...it just cut through all the hair metal stuff like a knife through hot butter, seemed savage and exciting in a way the other stuff wasn't

i was not otherwise into hair metal either -- the implied danger of GnR appealed to me way more than Poison etc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMh6UjbjgRs

the next time i felt that same feeling was when i had a 10:30am lunch period in 9th gr and there was a jukebox in our cafeteria. the seniors would commandeer it and they played Metallica "One" literally every day. I was way more into REM and the Cure but I quietly loved hearing that loud ass song every single day.

recently i took my dog to get his vaccinations and the speaker in the vet's waiting room was playing Welcome to the Jungle and i loled to myself about GnR in 2023

i was not otherwise into hair metal either -- the implied danger of GnR appealed to me way more than Poison etc

LL OTM. I was so worn down by hair metal — due partly to the fact that I didn’t like metal anyway — that my snap judgment of GnR was, “Ugh, more of this shit.” Said snap judgment lasted maybe three seconds, and they felt like the genuinely dangerous and unpredictable entity that the hair bands only pretended to be.

(I remember something in I think Spin that said, “It’s ok to like them. Their hair is stringy; they don’t use mousse.”)

Seems like the Hair Bands had beef up post-GnR--like, "Dr. Feelgood" doesn't happen without them.

There's a BrooklynVegan review of their NJ concert up, mostly an excuse for a photo gallery, but none of the bandmembers are ID'd in the photos, so it made me laugh to see this photo simply captioned "Guns N' Roses":

https://www.brooklynvegan.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/17/gunsnroses-metlife-04-864x576.jpg

Pretty good set of photos!

Also -- GnR made it extremely clear that stuff that was marketed directly at me/tween girls like me (NKOTB por ejemplo) was desperate utter shit. GnR incinerated them many times over. And again, I was 100% there for it. NKOTB was an insult. I think you REALLY have to think about the landscape to appreciate how hard GnR landed in the late 80s.

"Señores y señoras . . ."

exactly!! i adored Jane's Addiction

Yeah, those were the death throes of arena/hair metal where it tried to dial back the glam excess and get (back) with the tough biker rock rebel image, but the target demographic was about to get hit by Biohazard and Pantera (the gateway bands for those who were 12 around 1991-1995, aka the Beavis & Butt-head generation) and clearly none of those strung out LA heroin addicts could pull off that level of badassery.

(XP)

Could Biohazard pull off "November Rain." I don't think so.

I suppose Hanoi Rocks figures in this somehow in that the Sunset Strip bands held them in high regard even though no actual kids listened to them

I loved Jane’s Addiction at the time, and saw them at a small-in-retrospect venue in 1988. For their encore, they placed a plastic dome-shaped garbage can lid over a mic on the floor, center stage, and the four band members pounded on it with drumsticks for about ten minutes.

November Rain feels like a true 80s song, while Biohazard was clearly 100% of the 90s. The kids instinctively felt this, the B&B music video segments really document this perfectly. *All* glam/“hard rock” bands were lame to them, with or without hairspray.

I guess, I don't remember a time that the kids were into Pantera and Biohazard. I kind of thought everyone started listening to rap around that time.

GNR made a lot of the hair/glam metal bands just seem really sloppy, too. not dissing the talent some of those bands had, but a lot of it was just these kinda emptily catchy shouty choruses and glitzy guitars that sounded a bit watery (and compared to the actual glam music i heard later, it definitely was.) GNR had this really serpentine, sinister sound, top to bottom. Axl sounded like a scary banshee or an absolutely horrifying nightmarish guy you'd encounter late night in an alley, depending on which vocal persona he was deploying at any given moment. it was a really palpable kind of sound, it truly sounded like it was from a place, vs some other bands which sounded like they were from a middle school locker poster. also you'd look at other bands and you could see that they were characters, whereas these guys felt like the real, frightening deal. the reality of it didn't matter, but the sensation one felt hearing AFD for the first time was immersive. i think if you were there at the time, yes, it was a very different experience.

it's not intended to diminish a lot of the excellent bands of that time, but GNR made the vast majority of them look minor league.

I like the idea of Axl as a David Lynch character, especially since Twin Peaks was around at the same time.

i don't remember anyone except the super metal dudes giving a shit about pantera or biohazard

There were definitely some Beavis & Butt-head type kids in my high school who were super into Pantera, in ’92 or ’93. I remember one of them saying to his buddies in the locker room, “I got the perfect idea for a vanity plate, it’s exactly 7 letters: PANTERA.”

Pantera had a #1 album back when that meant something. They were big. Biohazard, no.

yeah, that 1994 album hitting #1 impressed me

*All* glam/“hard rock” bands were lame to them, with or without hairspray.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/beavisandbutthead/images/7/7a/Stewart.jpeg/revision/latest/thumbnail/width/360/height/360?cb=20110910035309

Biohazard were very popular with Kerrang readers and MTV Europe viewers. Pantera were huge (and killed metal in the decade with their malign influence IMO)

XP

https://intensities.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/stew7.jpg

this thread got really good! LL i love your posts.

whoever he got to sing in his band does a pretty spot on 80s Axl Rose impression

Axl should ask him for tips lol

obv Pantera was a popular band for sure, but not even anywhere near the influence or cultural impact of GnR, I was just arguing against the suggestion that somehow the next "wave" after GnR was Pantera and Biohazard for your average kid and not alternative rock

nothing flipped overnight, Skid Row had a huge no.1 debut in 91

OK we get it, you think they suck

and are secretly bald

Pantera's biggest album sold 2.17 million, which is big for a metal album, but not G'n'R big.

The biggest gateway directly after Appetite was the Black Album, for those of a certain age. How many kids got that album for Christmas in 1991,92, 93 even?

Plus they were touring their asses off for that entire time - kids perhaps too young or missed out on the Damaged Justice tour would have been desperate for tickets.

I don’t think it’s possible for that album to be undervalued in terms of acting as a hard rock/metal gateway.

they aren't bald but they had bald role models (shout out to my bald brother angry anderson)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5D-0Ql3zY4

Or overvalue even

The biggest gateway directly after Appetite was the Black Album, for those of a certain age.

plus there was that metallica/gnr football stadium tour

my memory is "one" had broken metallica out of the metal zone a bit then with the black album everyone liked them

a million xp’s but LL otm

I was the same age, like 12 when Appetite came out and to me they sounded like the angriest scariest bag of feral cats to ever pick up guitars.

and they looked hot, in a way that i hadn’t experienced hottness like ratted hair but like they’d slept in it for a month, hanging in their faces and lived-in clothes … they looked more like the burnout metal dudes who hung out by my local swimming pool lol. it was kind of thrilling that i found them hot, like you weren’t supposed to. this was hottness that was definitely not agreed-upon societally and that was one of the first times i was aware of it & leaned into it

i had been devouring mass-produced hair metal bands in all forms up to that point and i think my interest in bands like Poison & White Lion literally dried up on the spot & disappeared when GNR showed up lol

like how, idk, as a kid you saw your childhood friend playing with a cool new toy that was so fucking badass it suddenly made all your other toys seem like childish baby toys & you want to throw them in the trash immediately

THAT is what GNR felt like

I only listened to commercial top 40 radio and watched music videos on tv, i didnt have any kind of vocabulary outside of mainstream music really at all, so it can’t be understated how different they sounded (and looked!) to teen me

(sidebar: I stayed a fan of Motley Crue through Feelgood because they had a ~little~ of that same NY Dolls roughness … but even then honestly nothing else was nearly as interesting to me to look at or listen to than GNR for at least another couple of years until i got into grunge and jane’s addiction etc.

🤘

I stayed a fan of Motley Crue through Feelgood because they had a ~little~ of that same NY Dolls roughness

It's incredible the polishing job Elektra did on Mötley Crüe because the more you find out about them, the more you realize they were, like, GG Allin-level scum in real life and yet somehow they had this "hair metal rebel" image.

great post vg

On a couple of fb music groups with thousands of members that I follow - filled to the brim with 16 year olds that seem fixated on defending either Kanye or Taylor Swift mind you - I’ve noticed Guns N Roses are usually the butt end of jokes and seen as really lame dad music.

I was a metal dude and liked all the GnR singles, but didn't listen to AfD in full until a little later in high school (maybe even early college?). Then I got into them for a little phase and it felt like a guilty pleasure, even though I only really listened to AfD and, like, some double live album??

For me the gateway was reversed, it was more like a gateway into rock n' roll from metal. Like, I had never really listened to the Stones or most of the rock influences that GnR has.

yeah I think I went from Metallica to GNR to the Replacements to the Stones

Btw when I was in high school Pantera was *the* band for the really scary burnout dudes of a certain type.

dudes being the operative word with pantera

Metallica and Slayer were like that for burnouts even before Guns'n'Roses appeared

Everyone likes Metallica, that's just baseline. But yeah Slayer for sure, as the more extreme (but still very well known) option.

Pantera felt real-world angry in a different way though, where Slayer is much more horror movie and fantastical by comparison. I had Pantera tapes too and liked the playing, but it seemed connected to something scarier than satanism (ie white rage, lol).

and are secretly bald

I was being mostly tongue in cheek, but I don't think I've ever seen him without the hat. It is like the Edge or the aforementioned Little Steven.

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/0bce09b18ae050471f80bd53029cdd97.jpg

("I'm lookin' at YOU, jimbeaux...")

Well, there you go.

Pantera felt real-world angry in a different way though, where Slayer is much more horror movie and fantastical by comparison. I had Pantera tapes too and liked the playing, but it seemed connected to something scarier than satanism (ie white rage, lol).

I'm old enough to remember people calling Phil Anselmo a mainstream answer to Henry Rollins.

Just popping into to say P4k leaving Pantera off their best songs of the '90s list was a glaring oversight. "Walk" might be the best riff of the whole decade

My kid maintains that Dimebag Darrell is the greatest metal guitarist of all time.

The last time I listened to Far Beyond Driven, I was surprised to realize how many drum fills had stuck in my head, and I had totally forgotten where they came from.

I probably knew as many girls my age who were into GNR as there were dudes in the period from Appetite to Illusion - they crossed gender lines in an interesting way especially given the perception of them as being wholly dude rock
and they for sure ~activated~ a lot of girls (like me) who didn’t seem to like that kind of music before then

less so w Metallica in my experience though again i knew a few girls at the time who liked them or were turned around by Nothing Else matters or whatever

angriest scariest bag of feral cats to ever pick up guitars.

VG otm in general but esp otm about GnR feeling like some poorly lit alley gateway to what my childish brain perceived as maturity too -- banish your babyish delights, leave them in your crib, you're in the jungle baby and you're gonna DIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEE

also i just watched the Depp/Heard thing on Netflix bc I only barely followed it at the time and everything about johnny depp reminded me of how disgusting this era actually was in reality. the misogyny/substance abuse aspect cannot be overstated. johnny depp was emerging as a star at this time as well. he seems visibly stuck back there.

GnR hair report:

Axl was thin and wispy from the beginning, visibly balding by UYI era. definitely has some kind a crazy hair plugs (cornrow plugs for a while?) going on

Duff - just an excellent head of punk rock hair, doesn't seem to have lost much, A+ rock hair

Slash - always had a nice big curly head of hair though I think it's thinning some now

Steven Adler - another great head of rock hair, this time of the poofy 70s feathered variety, seems to still have it based on IG

Izzy - had a great rooster/messy cool rock guy/junkie mop, but couldn't find a recent pic of him not wearing a hat - major cause for suspicion

Matt Sorum - appears to have a very slowly receding hairline but can still do that LA old rock dude spiked up blonde/short thing

not gonna break down the new members

xp - the only girl i knew who was into metallica was named renee and she once asked me for a marlboro in the bathroom and i asked her if she asked me for marbles and i bathed in shame for at least the rest of the day

i genuinely liked hearing One every day but felt like the scene was very clearly Not For Me, like i didn't belong and therefore should not openly like this band. ridiculous! but also real and of the time.

Ha ha, that's a great story (the marbles)

lol <3 LL

"Bathed in shame" is definitely a feeling we can all identify with.

i genuinely liked hearing One every day but felt like the scene was very clearly Not For Me, like i didn't belong and therefore should not openly like this band. ridiculous! but also real and of the time.

― Piggy Lepton (La Lechera)

damn i was just ("just" meaning 300 posts ago haha) posting about being on the flipside of this, thinking that it wasn't ok for me to openly like the music of tori amos when she was first hitting it big

Izzy had my favorite hair in that it was often unclear if he had a face because he was so be-curtained behind it

Axl had very fine textured hair it seemed like - when it was backcombed in the first video the light shines through it in a kinda normcore way lol

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/63/f1/d9/63f1d949438be7f801b3257d38d15e76.jpg

the biggest selling 1987 hard rock/metal albums are an interesting sample of the entire scene at that time. hard and nasty rock, glam pop metal, Led Zep gone adult contemporary, the revived '70s survivors, Sunset Strip hair metal.

Appetite
Hysteria
Whitesnake
Permanent Vacation
Girls Girls Girls

i owned all of these. that ranking is by sales and it's just about what my preferred ranking is, though i might switch the top two. haven't heard the Aerosmith in thirty years i'm sure, i might drop it down lower, and for me it was supplanted by Pump as the Aerosmith to listen to.

i know history kind of hands the subsequent years to GNR, but it's interesting how actually at that point, Motley Crue had yet to release their biggest success (and i guess Aerosmith too went on to bigger and dumber things.)

being on the flipside of this, thinking that it wasn't ok for me to openly like the music of tori amos

the era was awash in these absurd attitudes and gatekeeping behavior PLUS the economic reality of needing to invest actual cash in a recording if you can't borrow from someone or find it at the public library. that's a pretty high barrier to entry imo!

I never heard Tori Amos till my sister sent me a mixtape. I guess this would have been 94 or so.

It was a good mixtape.

Appetite
Hysteria
Whitesnake
Permanent Vacation
Girls Girls Girls

The only one of these I owned was Appetite. I owned Pyromania but was over Def Leppard by 1987; I liked the Whitesnake singles but not enough to buy the album; I didn't like new Aerosmith (had their red Greatest Hits, though), and had given up on Mötley Crüe when Theater of Pain came out. The two new albums I listened to most in 1987 were probably Appetite and Hüsker Dü's Warehouse: Songs and Stories, which came out in January of that year.

I sort of think of Permanent Vacation as the last “real” Aerosmith record

One could argue that title belongs to Rocks.

you could but that’s where i Draw The Line

Checkmate, honey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8NgNs3h20A

or the aforementioned

(it was 93% the absurdity of making secret baldness accusations in a weighted comparison to the E Street Band that I was poking)

Nice to see a thread revival where the original title isn't "hubba hubba check dem tiddies out"

xp The first time I ever saw Springsteen was on the Tunnel of Love tour. We had seats behind the stage and got a great view of his incipient bald spot.

are we not talking about the new single here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCHPBDN2Tp0

well I guess they decided against rocking

I like it, in a weird, Cultösaurus Erectus kind of way.

I know I'm the only one here who's listened to Chinese Democracy more than once, but this sounds like about half that album. It's...OK. Buckethead would have made a meal out of that solo spot.

When did Carrot Top take over as lead singer?

I know I'm the only one here who's listened to Chinese Democracy more than once

no, I was obsessed with Chinese Democracy but this sounds a lot bigger and less confused than that. it's still not very good, though there's something sweet in that refrain, the "you're all alone," bit -- I think A's right, there's a little BOC in it, weirdly. but it doesn't hang together very well. what an amazing thing, to be a "they haven't released a song in forever" band and then you do release a song and it's called f'in "Perhaps"

Lyrics are pretty hard to understand, kinda got a bit of Suel Forrester vibe.

Expected a more blistering solo than that tbh! Big latter-day Val Kilmer energy from Axl. He looks like he's got about nine steel rods holding him together. This song suits his voice though.

hair metal skeletons in everyone's closet!

it's great seeing Slash play the BC Rich Bich, which he played even some in the early GnR days...

1984: Axl Rose and Slash in the band Hollywood Rose - a year before Guns'n'Roses formed. pic.twitter.com/EWRzOk8bTa

— Sofa Critic (@Sofa_Critic) August 19, 2023

I know this is talked about some itt, but in retrospect I think it's hard to see how much of a break G'n'R seemed like at the time with the prevailing hair metal ethos. They seemed more raw, more rooted in "hard rock" (whatever we meant by that back then), and crucially to me as an 18-year-old punk fan who was mostly dismissive of MTV metal, you could tell they knew and liked punk. (As later confirmed by The Spaghetti Incident?, my second-favorite G'n'R album.)

And the tunes! Intrigued by "Welcome to the Jungle," I borrowed and dubbed the tape from a metal-fan friend and I was pretty amazed by how good just about every track was. This was before I'd heard any other singles, so the first time I heard "Sweet Child" or "Paradise City" or anything else was all in the context of the album, just one killer song after another. I loved it and brought the tape home from college with me the summer after freshman year and started making all my friends listen to it. Then "Sweet Child" was released as a single about a month later and pretty quick any sense of my-secret-metal-band of course completely disappeared, because everyone had the album.

On one hand I understand latter-day skepticism of them, I don't really like anything much they released post-Appetite except for the covers album, and Axl hasn't exactly covered himself with glory in the intervening years. Although I'll say this, all those guys are still alive, which I wouldn't have predicted 30 years ago.

Anyway, I still think Appetite is close to perfect and it's one of my favorite rock albums. As is Nothing's Shocking, which came out the next year and to me is the other great weird-scary-dangerous L.A. rock album of that late '80s pre-grunge era. Both of those albums and bands seemed legitimately dangerous to me in my late adolescence, in a way that very little else of that moment did.

I realize that at this point maybe more than half of the G&R repertoire is midtempo stuff, so this new thing isn't atypical in any way, but I wish they could still write a rocker.

quality of the Appetite track listing is a great point —- sooo many of the also-ran hair bands by this time, fuck even rock bands were putting out albums that had like ~a~ good song and the rest of the album was whatever, maybe two good songs if you were lucky. you got used to it!

but even though GNR presented as junkie dirtbag buncha dudes they could fully craft great songs. Appetite is just song after song that hits you immediately and are memorable, songs you want to hear again
I mean it’s on some Sticky Fingers shit how little filler there is.

To me, as a head, anyway.

like the album cuts feel like singles to me because i’ve heard them all so much, there’s no skips!

Yeah, there are some songs that are not quite as good as the others but not one where you think, "Jesus, you didn't have anything else you could have put in that slot?" No stupid joke tracks, no ill-advised cover songs (they'd do that three albums later, ha ha), no morose ballads (even "Sweet Child" is at least midtempo), it's just one punch after another.

exactly.

and even like, half the great stuff on Illusion is holdovers from what they were churning out during Appetite! like the fuckin ~quality~ of the creative output is really wild when you start tallying it up

Izzy was a huge part of that — he provided a lot of, idk, ballast in his style & influences that kept them interesting. I mean I adore axl’s Queen tendencies & i think they’re crucial but it can’t just be all that all the time.

GNR also had a serious way with groove, they were funky in ways so many of their other contemporaries not only couldn't approach, but didn't ever even attempt. what passed for groove in other bands was Poison trying for the pop metal Footloose w/Talk Dirty to Me. But Guns n Roses just had the actual, true chops.

actually i think one of the few groups of that particular era which gave groove and funk a shot (Jane's Addiction aside, but of course they weren't necessarily part of the same playlists at the time) was perhaps Extreme.

Yeah and Steven Adler was a big part of that on Appetite, there’s much less groove on the Illusion albums. Strum’s more of a heavy-footed thudder.

Sorum, dang autocorrect

Sorum was so corrosive to the band musically

Yeah and Steven Adler was a big part of that on Appetite, there’s much less groove on the Illusion albums. Strum’s more of a heavy-footed thudder.

Yeah, I talked about that in my long write-up of the UYI reissues.

There’s not one genuinely great song on either album, and even the pretty-good ones are sunk by the overcooked performances. The newer bandmembers, keyboardist Dizzy Reed and drummer Matt Sorum, are mostly to blame for that; the keyboards are either frilly or superfluous or both, and Sorum drags the music down like an anchor. He has no sense of swing, and there’s no air in his playing — he’s a relentlessly thudding timekeeper, and nothing he plays ever raises the music’s energy level, a cardinal sin in rock drumming. He makes the songs sound slower than they are. (Hearing him pound away at “Welcome to the Jungle” like he’s driving nails into the stage during the New York concert included in the giant boxed set is enough to make one weep.)

i think for all the ambition and the relative sales success of UYI 1&2, what made the albums disappointing at least for me is that it wasn't the GNR everyone loved in the first place, and what they tried was something they were pretty good at executing but not among the best ever at executing.

Yeah very much otm

disagree overall but I am a deep Illusion stan

i do agree re Sorum’s drumming, def enjoy Adler much more

There’s not one genuinely great song on either album

So painfully NOT otm

I have concluded that they will continue to be a band that generates strong opinions.

yeah xxpost unperson i gotta say that is egregiously untrue! i take deep personal offense to such an assertion… but unlike axl i will not demand that you fight me in a boxing ring lol

“Antagonize me, motherf*****r!”

I was about to defend Sorum by saying he was good with the Cult, but I see he only toured with them supporting Sonic Temple, and wasn't actually on said album, so instead uh...The Cult rule?!

Maybe they should have hired Mickey Curry.

i do agree re Sorum’s drumming, def enjoy Adler much more

Seconded. I find Sorum GnR unlistenable. And it’s not like he’s flailing or trying to be Neil Peart or anything; as unperson noted, he has no sense of dynamics whatsoever, or rather, he has a single dynamic.

Adler had that perfectly menacing just-slightly-behind-the-beat approach, and when the song called for it, he got bigger. Not louder, not faster, but larger, and more pervasive (see also: Kenney Jones’ re-entrance on the Small Faces’ “Tin Soldier,” one of Phil Rudd’s key influences).

And apparently, and inexplicably, this happened:

Adler was again absent during a performance at the American Music Awards in January 1989; Don Henley filled in for him on drums.[14]

damn unperson be rippin off the fuckin kids while they payin their hard earned money to read about the bands they wanna know about

Adler was again absent during a performance at the American Music Awards in January 1989; Don Henley filled in for him on drums.[14]

Axl sang on "I Will Not Go Quietly" iirc

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2807355502843487

oooh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vELopIo6oJ0

To prove it's really him, Henley leans into the cymbals way the fuck too much.

I don't like any of the songs on Illusion but I might if they had been played by the same ppl in the same circumstances as Appetite

What did Don 'n' Glenn say afterward?

xxxxpost looool thank u for that ums

also because of the pub quiz in the 1991 issue of NME, I have spent thirty years autoreplacing "Sorum" with "that Matt fooker from The Cult"

no great songs on Illusion?

besides the actual irl majesty of November Rain, Estranged, So Fine & Coma, Dust & Bones definitely wants a word
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZpqejQMcPE

I actually agree w/unperson about Sorum, as I think I expounded upon in one of the UYI threads (when they were reissued recently)… but it sure doesn’t bring down my favorite songs on the album(s) too much for me.

There are definitely songs on the UYI records I like (the new version of "November Rain" is a huge improvement on the original), but nothing that I'd swap for anything on Appetite, let's put it that way.

I find this observation in your write-up curious:

Sorry, but a song called “Locomotive” should be fast and short. (Motörhead’s “Locomotive,” the last track on No Remorse, is one of their fastest songs — and that’s saying something — and it blasts by in 3:22. You could listen to Motörhead’s “Locomotive” 2 1/2 times, or Guns N’ Roses’ “Locomotive” once. The choice should be obvious.)

A locomotive doesn’t just zoom by when you watch it from the side of the tracks… you could also be sitting inside it!

hey, "Nightrain" is faster!

I respect the pedantry but that is a funny and enjoyable comparison

Dust & Bones definitely wants a word

I listened and apparently that word is "zzzzz"

xp lol alf

your ears are broken

"Now, comrades, let us pretend that the train is still moving."

Hey, you don’t like ‘em to begin with!

No, and that live clip upthread was downright embarrassing, but it is very enlightening to hear such different impressions from those who were more "in the moment."

I was just trying to think of a train joke, though. That was the punchline to an old Soviet joke about the train to communism.

the "Estranged" video is a masterpiece of avant garde cinema

Axl you should have stayed with the dolphins be free

I know this is talked about some itt, but in retrospect I think it's hard to see how much of a break G'n'R seemed like at the time with the prevailing hair metal ethos. They seemed more raw, more rooted in "hard rock" (whatever we meant by that back then), and crucially to me as an 18-year-old punk fan who was mostly dismissive of MTV metal, you could tell they knew and liked punk. (As later confirmed by The Spaghetti Incident?, my second-favorite G'n'R album.)

this is both otm & notm -- in LA they did not represent a break with the prevailing hair metal ethos by themselves; they were one example of many NY Dolls/Hanoi Rocks worshipping scuzz metal bands in the clubs around LA, less the clubs on the Strip (where Crüe came from) than around town, tiny rooms like Wong's West, which is where I think that Hollywood Rose pic upthread was taken. The Mau Maus, the Flower Lepards, a dozen forgotten bands mining the same strain. One of them was bound to hit a winning formula and that formula turned out to be 1) a guy with generational charisma and the, ahem, patience to eat shit for a year or two playing the exact same set in tiny rooms over an over until there was enough buzz and 2) an excellent guitarist with an ear for licks. so, yeah, the successful hair metal, the stuff making money, they were a break from that, but there was a whole local scene of which they were the most capable representative.

awesome post - important context!!

True, there were lots of bands like them, not all the hair bands wore make-up and pink leotards. But few of those reached the charts and that 12yo demographic.

It’s weird to think that Slash auditioned for Poison - imagine how the two bands would’ve sounded!

I found it a bit of a head-scratcher that Slash and Scott Weiland ended up in the same band.

I always saw GnR as a throwback to 1983-ish Motley Crue when they still had a (somewhat) true badass image.

xpost cocaine is a great leveller

I sometimes think about the scuzzy hair metal band I saw open for Pussy Galore on a Monday night in L.A. in 1989. They were called the Dirt Merchants (a name several other bands have taken, making Googling them a challenge). They weren't great.

xxp I still remember getting the first Crue album at the record store. We all had a good laugh, they were so obviously aping KISS.

that first LA Guns record really goes too IMO, very good sleaze

the first Crue record is charming, something they never were again

there's actually a really good if low budget doc about the very Jane's/goth/GnR/sleaze/metal/punk interzone years, definitely feels appropriate to this thread

https://m.imdb.com/title/tt6402950/

love that LA Guns album
First Crue album is great, still love that one - esp the original Leathür version without all the stupid sped-up vocal effects etc.

iirc one of the first GnR gigs was with Red. Hot Chili Peppers and Tex & the Horseheads

I love "On With the Show", borderline power pop, especially love when Tommy comes in with these hilariously inept drum fills

Tbf, KISS was generally terrible.

yah Kiss is a dumb band

they have like 10-12 good songs maybe?

I'd be more inclined to give them a break if Gene wasn't such an arrogant prick

I met him once, I have to confess it was a highlight for me. He's a weird dude but also very funny.

His poor wife is a plastic surgery disaster.

they have like 10-12 good songs maybe?

you are generous

Alive is still a banger, but you don't need to listen to all four sides.

I remember a SPIN interview from '96 when the original foursome reunited where the reporter claimed that Simmons "spoke knowledgeably" about German Expressionist film.

wtf you prefer KISS to GNR?! That makes no sense.

As I think this thread has made clear, when it comes to bands like these a lot depends on when they hit you. KISS was the first band I got into that my dad hated.

But I pretty much lost interest by the time the solo albums came out.

"Tears are Falling" off Asylum is good

KISS are stupid & fun

My old man (whose voluminous record collection was a source of delight for me) thought they were talentless hacks.

He wasn't exactly wrong.

KISS was the first band I got into that my dad hated.

ha yes this is the common demographic connecting Kiss to GnR to 100 Gecs

kiss alive is a great album

alive ii as well

iirc one of the first GnR gigs was with Red. Hot Chili Peppers and Tex & the Horseheads

This wasn't the best show of 1986, but it was a hell of a double-bill. This is the band that should be referenced rather than dumb Kiss.

http://www.gnrontour.com/sets1986/19861221flyer.jpg

dang

Welcome to the hospice
We got meds and drips

Cheap Trick is one of the great American bands

one of my favorite random things abt Axl is how much loves WASP

i remember Sebastian Bach saying years ago that “I Wanna Be Somebody” was one of Axl’s get-fired-up songs on tour & he would like, jump up on couches singing along <3

also this too https://loudwire.com/blackie-lawless-axl-rose-credits-wasp-guns-n-roses-welcome-to-the-jungle/

Cheap Trick is one of the great American bands

how much *HE loves WASP, dammit

xpost um that is FACTS sir

Whoahhhhh sweet oxy of miyyyine

The first three WASP albums are really fucking good.

I've never liked Cheap Trick but having listened to some early live recordings in the last year or two I am willing to admit they are harder and more aggressive than I thought (based solely on seeing and hating the video for "Dream Police" as a kid, and then "The Flame").

Cheap Trick is still touring. Not sure who is left from the original band? Theseus Nielsen, presumably?

I was on a fishing trip with a couple guys a couple of months ago, and one of them had no idea. Cheap Trick was awesome. So I played him one of those recent 1977 or 1978 Live at the Whiskey albums, and he lost his shit and became a fan for life.

I stand corrected, it's everyone except Bun E.

Everybody from the original band is there except for, more recently, Bun E.. Rick's son plays drums, Robin's son plays second guitar.

Not second guitar, third guitar, and backing vocals. Robin Zander remains a pretty awesome singer, but he's also a pretty hot shit rhythm guitarist.

yawns

(based solely on seeing and hating the video for "Dream Police" as a kid, and then "The Flame").

― read-only (unperson)

omg have you really never heard the first album? go straight to "Elo Kiddies", that's what converted me for good

Cheap Trick's Live at the Whisky 1977 might as well be retitled No Sleep 'Till The Sunset Strip

cheap trick rules

_Cheap Trick is one of the great American bands_

lol

zing

no need to be mean about it

there was a whole local scene of which they were the most capable representative.

Oh for sure, and my perspective was as a nonmetal fan on the other side of the country. I didn’t have any context for them except that they rocked.

The number of us kids in 1978 who played the shit out of Live at Budokan is legion.

My context: I was 21 going on 22 in the summer of 1987, working as a pizza delivery guy post-college in Bloomington Indiana, trying to figure shit out. I distinctly remember starting to hear THIS SONG out of every rural kid's 4x4 as they cruised Main Street a.k.a. 5th Avenue (it was Sweet Child of course). It took me a couple years to put the pieces together, how they were basically home town heroes (Axl and Slash are from West Lafayette IN, ~2 hours NW of Bloomington), but yes to whoever mentioned that their funky/groovy chops are the key to the whole thing. I never bought the records but I def got the appeal.

super great posts by LL and VG here, thank you both

my HS cafeteria jukebox mostly played "Elvira" by the Oak Ridge Boys, but later on that was overtaken by "Red Corvette"

Kiss is pretty boring stuff. Cheap Trick is phenomenal of course. I really love them, moreso having spent a number of years in and around Rockford. You'd just see those guys around town. A couple of my friends are pals with Daxx, another one who lives in L.A. is friends w/Robin's kid.

A real people’s band, I guess you could say

The number of us kids in 1978 who played the shit out of Live at Budokan is legion.

I didn’t really get on the Trick train until I was in college in the early ‘90s and heard the debut (same week I first heard Coltrane’s ”Live” At The Village Vanguard. That was a good week). But WLS-AM in Chicago played the shit out of their late ‘70s and early ‘80s singles. They even played “So Good To See You” regularly, and that was pre-Budokan.

The 1977 Whisky box is their greatest album. No letup whatsoever.

I find this observation in your write-up curious:

_Sorry, but a song called “Locomotive” should be fast and short. (Motörhead’s “Locomotive,” the last track on No Remorse, is one of their fastest songs — and that’s saying something — and it blasts by in 3:22. You could listen to Motörhead’s “Locomotive” 2 1/2 times, or Guns N’ Roses’ “Locomotive” once. The choice should be obvious.)_

A locomotive doesn’t just zoom by when you watch it from the side of the tracks… you could also be sitting inside it!

One thing about UYI is that although the songs are not as good as Appetite’s and the band itself was inferior without Adler and Izzy on the way out, they still released two albums that are actually equivalent to two double albums (2h30 in total… longer than Sandinista for instance !) with enough good to great songs for one album minimum… I mean I made a version of the UYIs without the songs I dislike and it’s still 110min long ! And it’s so varied : hard rock, 70s rock, pompous stadium ballads, industrial, punk, country rock, glam, funk, covers…
Basically they released 6 albums worth of material between 87 and 91 : no wonder they were burnt out by the end of the YUI tour…

What I personally love and will stan forever about Illusion is that it’s like…
Appetite =here’s what we can do
Illusion = here’s where we can GO

It reaches SO far beyond what people expected of them because as good as they were on Appetite, no one out in the regular world truly thought they had this in them. Which is a very Axl thing to do, yknow, inject whatever (real or implied) underratedness he’s feeling in the universe directly into his veins.
Like “oh you liked our New York Dolls syphillis grooves? well here’s a fuckin ten minute paean to Queen and ballads and symphonies and whales and blooze and trains and Cool Hand Luke and we’re going to challenge Bob Guccione JR to a goddamn FIGHT”
(also we’re going to be deeply racist & homophobic because well the train is a little off the tracks here let’s be honest)

It’s waaaay too much but the reach of it to me is breathtaking. Like okay sure the wax melts off your wings if you fly too close to the sun but how many bands even try to fly that close?

Not all of it works but I love them for taking such a huge (some may say even unnecessary) swing

Just remembered they did a censored single-disc edit of UYI for Walmart.

Issued in '98 for some reason:

Track listing

"Live and Let Die"
"Don't Cry" (original)
"You Ain't the First"
"November Rain"
"The Garden"
"Dead Horse"
"Civil War"
"14 Years"
"Yesterdays"
"Knockin' on Heaven's Door"
"Estranged"
"Don't Cry" (alternate lyrics)

SO FINE was robbed

DUST AND BONES also robbed

single disc edit is a crime hmph

Somehow a high school friend was slipped a GNR bootleg of demos or whatever. I don't remember everything that was on it, but there was an early version of Don't Cry which I latched onto because, at the time, they were a band without power ballads and Don't Cry was one of those. I think that's the song I was most excited about when the UYI albums dropped and then...for some reason...Shannon Hoon from Blind Melon was in the video?

I was radicalized by KISS as a child in the 70’s and still have a warped perception of the band. I still love these dumb songs:

100,000 Years
Cold Gin
Parasite
Love Her All I Can
King of the Nighttime World
Flaming Youth
Plaster Caster

Don’t judge me.

i know the answer to this!

Shannon Hoon was from Indiana, Axl was friends w Hoon’s sister. Axl met Hoon when Hoon moved to LA and because of Indiana connections & Hoon already having some singing aspirations Axl gave him a shot singing backing vocals on Don’t Cry. And that’s how he ended up in the video. Rikki Rachman’s in there too - Axl got Hoon a job working in the office of Rachtman’s Cathouse production office.

Don’t judge me.

Don't damn me when I speak a piece of mind / KISS fandom isn't golden when I’m holding it inside

Cold Gin is my favorite Kiss song!

I have to give the nod to “Detroit Rock City.”

ooh and heaven’s on fire :D

"War Machine" is one of my favorites.

Kiss fans who were 12 somewhere 1975-1980
vs
GnR fans who were 12 somewhere 1987-1991

And caught in the crossfire are the Van Halen fans.

Van Halen are one of the bands that I abandoned KISS for. They were the first band I saw live, back in 1979.

new GNR song sounds like a filler/mid-album track from UYI2, which is not bad in itself, but no idea why that's the first thing they released. and it feels like it needs a bridge.

Kiss fans who were 12 somewhere 1975-1980

This feels off to me; I always believed Kiss were a band who could really get their hooks in you if you were, like, eight or nine between 1975-78, and hadn't heard any actual hard rock or metal bands yet, so the combination of the music — badass enough for a small child — and the makeup and costumes and lights would be absolutely brainwashing. But if you missed that window by even a year or two (I was three in 1975, so too young to hear them at their peak of popularity, and by the time I heard more than one or two Kiss songs had already heard Judas Priest and Iron Maiden) they would never work on/for you.

The problem for an eight or nine year old then was access. I was ten in 1975, and my very indulgent parents let me read CREEM and my dad's copies of Rolling Stone.

I'm far from a KISS fan, at like, all, but I will speak up for Destroyer, which is pretty solid front to back.

I remember being bored to fucking tears by Love Gun, on the other hand, other than "Stole Your Love" and the title track.

the first time I heard "Shock Me", I was like *this* is a song people are going nuts for at shows?

I was 15 in 1976 and loved Kiss. Maybe I was atypical, but when I saw them that year at Varsity Stadium (with Blue Oyster Cult and Artful Dodger), I recall being younger than most everyone else, not older.

i had a KISS tshirt when I was 4 in 1980

See also: Dazed and Confused.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DHeszzUXUAEHuW_.jpg

The KISS Army, like so much else around the band's marketing (thanks, Gene), was absolute genius.

"New York Groove" is better than most KISS songs

Fwiw, a few other new GN’R songs were released back in 2021.

^^I listened to those last night...they're not very good.

Like, imagine if Axl & Slash had a joint SoundCloud...

"New York Groove" is better than most KISS songs

Cosign this.

Pardon some more KISS digression but I was eight in 1976 and can confirm what unperson said, that KISS were THE gateway band for countless American eight-year-olds. Even kids who hitherto hadn’t cared about music at all. Remember too that they were heavily covered in teen mags such as 16 and Tiger Beat, as well as in Dynamite and Bananas for the preteens.

They were literally marketed as superheroes, which would have been difficult for GnR.

They were literally marketed as superheroes

This actually seems like a concept ripe for another try, updated for the superheroes pantheon of 2023.

I love Kiss, and thus I love many more than 10-12 songs as such. and I don't particularly care for G&R. I will not try to convince anyone here that they are wrong or snobby assholes for disliking Kiss, nor will I go into a number of matters re: that band. Only two: 1. it is kinda funny, indeed lovable, that one would expect a band with super hero/villain persona/visual styling to have lyrics concerning fantasy subjects, and yet the overwhelming majority concern fucking groupies, or the kind of women who would consent to fuck Eisen and Klein before they were not famous/not yet grease painted.

2. Peter Criss sucks. Very clearly, Eisen and Klein were in a hurry and settled for the wrong kind of drummer for this kind of band; and for that matter, he wasn't very good re: the basic R&B music he played before Kiss.

I had to look up Eisen and Klein. Learn something new every day.

Man, Kiss. I always knew who they were, because I was around 4 or so living in California in the late '70s, and there was this ice cream truck that would also sell bubblegum card packs of, like, Star Wars and stuff, but also Kiss. And of course the band was literally iconic, so everyone knew who they were; whenever that terrible killer robot movie with Tom Selleck came out, with Gene Simmons as the villain, I totally knew who Gene Simmons was without knowingly ever having heard Kiss (and for that matter, I knew who Tom Selleck was, without ever having watched, what, Magnum PI?). But I never listened to Kiss on purpose until I got into the Replacements, and kind of like Cheap Trick, all sorts of bands would rep for Kiss, at least to some extent or another. I dug "Black Diamond," at least via the Mats, but boy does Kiss pretty much suck. There's just no there there, like stale bubblegum you can't and don't want to chew. And the band only got worse and (literally) uglier as time went on. But I suppose if all I ever knew them for was the Paul Stanley banter bootleg and his terrible guitar solo video, I guess that means I've gotten my money's worth.

Which is to say, this costs nothing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jxIORSFySo

I do love the first GNR album, and most of the Illusion albums, though. I've always appreciated the "Jungle" demo, which ends with Axl shouting "hah!" instead of grunting "huuuh!" It's all about the details.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qr9-3vHzuhQ

xp Kind of a weird affectation to refer to them by those names. Sort of like insisting on calling Barack Obama "Barry Soetoro."

Co-sign (and why not “Criscuola”)?

do this every few years when a discussion like this comes up, but just confirmed that I love the idea of Hanoi Rocks but not the actual music of Hanoi Rocks.

Hanoi Rocks was the biggest fraudulent bill of goods sold to teen metal fans who read Hit Parader and Circus and RIP in the 80s. When those albums finally became widely available, you could hear the collective groan on the moon.

^^^

they looked cool in pictures for sure

They were big in Japan.

I don't know, I love the first Hanoi Rocks album. The rest are a bit spotty, but there are a couple tunes on each that are pretty good. None of their albums sound particularly ace or anything production wise which probably does not help.

I love Hanoi Rocks <3

but they def have a pop sensibility that isn’t for everyone

like 50’s girlgroup kinda pop

Finland was kind of ground zero for 50s girlgroup pop.

I always believed Kiss were a band who could really get their hooks in you if you were, like, eight or nine between 1975-78

Yeah, I was eight in 1977 and a bunch of my grade-school friends were big KISS fans. I didn't really have access to them except via cassettes my friends played me. I liked "Hotter Than Hell" — not least because the title contained a swear word, at least by the standards of 4th-graders. But I don't feel like that fandom really stuck, by middle school we were all listening to punk or new wave. My friend who was the biggest KISS fan I knew was the one who first played the Ramones and Bowie for me.

Yeah, the older kids were all, "KISS sucks, listen to Led Zeppelin."

I think "I Was Made for Lovin' You" was KISS's shark-jumping moment in the late spring of '79 and as far as us then-11-year olds were concerned the summer of '79 belonged to Cheap Trick's Live at Budokan and Van Halen II.

Yeah, KISS tried to score a disco hit at a time when their fanbase was pretty much universally hostile to disco.

Yeah, the older kids were all, "KISS sucks, listen to Led Zeppelin."

lol this is literally what my dad said when I borrowed my friend's KISS tape. He wasn't even a Zep fan, but he was like, "If you like this, there are better people doing it."

My dad wasn't a Zeppelin fan--he was a Stones guy all the way, saw them a bunch back in the 70s--but he respected their musicianship. He rightly recognized that KISS had very little musical talent.

He was also a huge aficionado of actual blues music.

I think "I Was Made for Lovin' You" was KISS's shark-jumping moment in the late spring of '79 and

as far as us then-11-year olds were concerned the summer of '79 belonged to Cheap Trick's Live at Budokan and Van Halen II.

― Josefa, Sunday, August 20, 2023 3:44 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, KISS tried to score a disco hit at a time when their fanbase was pretty much universally hostile to disco.

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Sunday, August 20, 2023 3:47 PM (seventeen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

...and, oddly enough, as we learned over in the "Legacy Song" thread--that was the song that broke them in most non-US territories.

Hanoi Rocks piss all over every band mentioned ITT

especially Kiss

Over Van Halen? LOL

Anything after dave left for sure

well, yeah ...

Europe never had a Disco Sucks movement, hence KISS's triumph there in 1979

But did Europe ever have a Kiss sucks movement?

America had a Europe sucks movement, but only after the Final Countdown

Faster Pussycat’s debut came out a few weeks before A4D. It’s sleazier and punkier, but definitely shares some qualities with GNR.

Faster Pussycat's debut came out on 4AD

I was gonna say, the "Welcome to the Jungle" video appeared at the same time as the video for Faster Pussycat's "Don't Change that Song" and the two bands were clearly of the same ilk and from the same scene, and initially I could not discern which was the more talented band of the two

2. Peter Criss sucks. Very clearly, Eisen and Klein were in a hurry and settled for the wrong kind of drummer for this kind of band; and for that matter, he wasn't very good re: the basic R&B music he played before Kiss.

yeah it's just remarkable how bad he is, and how bad his taste is. I think by '80 they're letting other people play for him and crediting him on the sleeve.

updated for the superheroes pantheon of 2023

which superheroes have been added to the 2023 pantheon since KISS' heyday?

It's David Letterman's old drummer Anton Fig actually playing on "I Was Made for Lovin' You"

xxp He did have the best makeup, though.

I read Criss’s book… wasn’t a bad read

"Drummer available - Will do anything"

I guess his time with Gene Krupa didn't help.

I read Criss’s book… wasn’t a bad read

he calls his penis "the spoiler"

I'm sure it smells like rotten cabbage.

<SPOILER ALERT>

I have a memory, no idea where it came from, that his dad was a jazz musician. Obviously, Sonny Criss is not his dad, but I wonder if that's where he got the name.

Trying to remember from the hair metal oral history, but I seem to recall Faster Pussycat being the band that everybody in the scene thought could not play at all. Them and, later, Poison.

Wikipedia sez of FP's debut (with no supporting citation):

Also, although its original release met with modest success, the album is considered an incredibly influential classic within the glam metal musical community.

my favorite thing abt Faster pussycat is that their drummer was arrested for sending himself heroin in the mail & fired from the band lmao

Rock n roll lmao

and faster pussycat were already a trashfire so being fired obv you are doing the MOST

That story reminds me of the origin of a certain GNR album title

I read Criss’s book… wasn’t a bad read

― Cone of uncertainty (morrisp), Sunday, 20 August 2023 22:41 (yesterday) link

i love reading shitty musician autobiographies and his is in that upper tier with Mike Love's auto and Dirt.

Have you read Sammy Hagar’s? There are a few details that I’ve, uh, always remembered…

no, but i will now!

howard kaylan's is another all-timer. has one of my favorite quotes:

"My advice. Never cross Gail Zappa."

my favorite thing abt Faster pussycat is that their drummer was arrested for sending himself heroin in the mail & fired from the band lmao

Kim Deal kinda regrets not just calling the Amps record a Breeders record

I was trying to find some of the Faster Pussycat shittalking in that book. This exchange was amusing/illustrative:

GREG STEELE Guns were ahead of us in popularity because they had been to England two months before. Plus, they had the label over there pushing the shit out of them. And our label was just like, not. But I remember that we had a fucking killer double-decker bus and they had a van. And they were fucking pissed.

ERIC STACY Even though we were friends in L.A. and we hung out at the Cathouse at the same time and stuff like that, the bands weren’t, like, buddy-buddy best friends. We were both new bands on our first record. Everybody was just focused on working hard and trying to make it. But I think the feeling in Guns N’ Roses was that they were like a better band than us. Better musicians. And I don’t think that’s wrong to say. Faster Pussycat were a different kind of band than Guns N’ Roses.

ALAN NIVEN Bottom line is, go and see a Guns N’ Roses/Faster Pussycat show. And you tell me which is the band.

well, a band with lyrics like "I got your number off the bathroom wall/Man I'm lucky that I didn't use the other stall" isn't begging to be taken seriously.

PETER PHILBIN This is about five months after I had passed. I show up at the Roxy to see another band and, gee, guess what? They go on late. How shocking is that? And I’m there, and another A&R guy, a guy named Michael Goldstone, he was at Geffen Records, he’s there to see the same band. I can’t remember what band that was. And Michael says, “Let’s go next door to the Rainbow and have a drink.” And I go, “You know what? I’m gonna stay and see this other band.” And that band was Faster Pussycat. I thought, Why not see how much these kids have grown up over the last five months?

So I watch their show and it’s a lot better. And they have a song that I don’t remember hearing before: “Got Your Number Off the Bathroom Wall.” And the hook line is “Boy I’m lucky I didn’t use the other stall.” Wow. Now that’s deep! Not about my life. Not about what I care about. But it’s a cinematic lyric. I mean, you can visualize a lot. And I’m going, “These guys are actually doing something…” It’s still not “I’ve found the future of rock ’n’ roll.”

If you made a few cosmetic changes to that song though, it would a glam punk song. It already sounds like the NY Dolls, or Aerosmith at their heaviest.

We haven't talked too much about "One In A Million" and it's not hard to see why, it's a big old fuckin bummer to even think about, and I think I just kind of bracketed that song off in my mind, and still do, preferring to just wish it into nonexistence. And I prefer not to think about Axl's non-apologies, and the absurd pre-apology on the album cover, which just affirms the racism and homophobia if anything eg "this is a song about generic, uh, general, ideas about these different sorts of people, not INDIVIDUALS you understand". It's incredibly demoralizing that the rest of the band went along with it. What is really wild, though, is that the song is still on Lies, still on streaming services. I just checked. With all the lyrics intact and everything. Obviously if that was a NEW song that came out today Spotify would eventually bow to pressure and take it down but somehow it just gets grandfathered in? Anyway, I feel much the same as many of you in wearing out the grooves on Appetite, loving the excitement of this band, how they made hard rock funky and punky and everything. It came out at an extremely formative time in my life. But just thinking about One In a Million.. and the grossly sexist video for It's So Easy.. I kinda feel like that mental bracketing off is an exercise made a lot easier by being a white guy and I wouldn't be surprised at all if others, white or black, men or women, just decided to do a little personal cancelling long long ago with this band and I wouldn't blame them.

weird it is on streaming, the band removed it from the vinyl reissue, maybe some of the stuff on streaming he doesn't have control over?

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/may/08/guns-n-roses-remove-song-homophobic-racist-language-one-million-reissue-album

As I understand it that's not a really a reissue that's adding tracks from Lies to AfD as bonus material but yes, totally insane to me that it's still up.

It was also not included in the giant Appetite box, though the rest of Lies was. I went back and looked this weekend, too, and listened to the song for the first time in at least 30 years. Even when I bought that record brand new I thought it was a shitty song on a generally substandard record. And now, yeah, it just sucks, and reading the Wikipedia entry for it and all the different shifting excuses ("I wrote that line just to bait my friend," "I was in character as a stupid redneck"), it's indefensible.

So the question for me is this (and I've already come up with my own answer, of course): If they have a bunch of great songs, and one indefensible one, which counts for more?

There's also the similarly indefensible Robert Williams cover for Appetite for Destruction. In Brian Doherty's recent history of Underground Comix, Dirty Pictures, Williams himself says he told the band: "go through my slides and find a tamer thing than that. That is a rough picture. That ain't gonna fly in public. That was not meant for the general public. That was meant for an arcane person to blow their fucking minds, not for the kids down the street."

I do remember that at the time there was significant pushback in the UK music press over One in a Million and the alb cover, although NME and Melody Maker were never metal sympathetic papers so probably not a huge problem for their readership.

"One in a Million" is indefensible and a permanent black mark for the band and Axl in particular, for sure. For me it wasn't enough to stop me loving Appetite, or even from liking "Patience" on the same album. But yeah if someone just said "Nope" about the band after that song, I sure wouldn't argue.

"I Used to Love Her" is uh also a problem — and I admit I thought it was kind of funny when I was 19.

i lost major interest in GNR* when Lies came out, i heard about One in a Million and even as a 13 year old idiot i just couldn't own anything like that, and i don't think i ever listened to it. maybe once, but i don't recall.

*I tried with UYI for sure but the magic was completely gone, i thought. everything else in the hard rock world just sounded so much better, and other rock of the time had the groove they lost after AFD. overall, less disappointing than Adrenalize but not by much.

https://i.ibb.co/HqKsHXH/Screenshot-20230821-122936.jpg

Arguably the worst moment of "One in a Million" is when he says "That's right" after he uses the n-word — it's smug and sneering, he knows exactly what he's doing. Not that you could buy any of his "it's a character" argument anyway, but that right there is unquestionably Axl himself, smirking in your face at his own "audacity".

So, in sum, this is a band that meant a tremendous amount to listeners of a certain age, but if there is a consensus, it is that they are truly awful people.

I don't actually know anything bad about Duff or Izzy personally. (But maybe someone does.)

well, Duff kicked Tommy Stinson out of a job presumably

Tommy left on his own and Axl wasn't happy

https://blabbermouth.net/news/tommy-stinson-axl-rose-didnt-appreciate-me-leaving-guns-n-roses

Can't wait for the GNR Archives series:

Stinson also revealed that much of the material GUNS N' ROSES recorded during his tenure has yet to be released. "There's some stuff with lyrics, some without," he said. "We did a lot of stuff that was supposed to be on 'Chinese Democracy' — the record was meant to be more than one disc, but after spending so much time on it we just had to put an end to it. There's also stuff that was held over from [the original lineup] before they all disbanded, so there's some stuff that should someday see the light of day."

No stupid joke tracks, no ill-advised cover songs (they'd do that three albums later, ha ha)

― read-only (unperson)

i love that gnr literally broke up over the stress of trying to record a cover song for a movie soundtrack

can you imagine sugar ray breaking up over trying to record their cover of "spinning away"

shit, maybe they did, i don't really know much about sugar ray's career

What will the general attitude toward Sugar Ray be in twenty or thirty years?

I'd forgotten that Duff was the punk rocker in the band--member of the Fastbacks and other punk groups, opened for Husker Du, etc.

Yeah, it's funny that two different '80s punk bass players ended up in G'n'R.

Can't question the punk credentials of this vest:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/DuffMcKagan2023.jpg/800px-DuffMcKagan2023.jpg

Yeah, the older kids were all, "KISS sucks, listen to Led Zeppelin."

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux)

funnily enough this was my trajectory when it came to gnr

PETER PHILBIN This is about five months after I had passed.

time for everybody's favorite game "dead or queer"?

We haven't talked too much about "One In A Million" and it's not hard to see why

― Tracer Hand

i think it's absolutely hilarious that axl ABSOLUTELY INSISTED that that song was an IMPORTANT ARTISTIC STATEMENT that GNR HAD TO RELEASE over the objection of, like, everybody else* and then got mad when Kurt Cobain didn't _like_ him

NOBODY COULD HAVE FORESEEN THIS OUTCOME

(* everyone except Duff McKagan, I guess:

In a 2019 interview, Duff McKagan said: "One thing about Axl is if you’re going to try to compete with him intellectually, you’ve lost, because he’s a super smart guy... He’s a super sensitive dude who does his studies. When we did that song, I was still drinking but he was way ahead of us with his vision of, ‘Something’s gotta be said.’ That was the most hardcore way to say it. So flash-forward to now. So many people have misinterpreted that song that we removed it ... Nobody got it.”[19])

re: the artwork:

The band stated the original artwork was "a symbolic social statement, with the robot representing the industrial system that's raping and polluting our environment."[21] Rose stated his initial idea was for the cover art to be the photo of the Space Shuttle Challenger exploding that was on the cover of Time magazine in 1986, but Geffen rejected the idea, saying it was "in bad taste".[22]

honestly just reading what wikipedia has to say about GNR is a fucking gold mine

None more black.

https://content.time.com/time/magazine/archive/covers/1986/1101860210_400.jpg

I don't actually know anything bad about Duff or Izzy personally. (But maybe someone does.)

Someone posted a link upthread (I looked but can't find it atm) with various anecdotes about their early years. Maybe I'm being unfair, but they all sounded like absolute assholes.

Kurt never said anything publicly about "One in a Million" afaik. Maybe it played into his dislike of the band, but it's not a reason he gave when asked.

Using the Challenger photo would have been a very US Hardcore/Big Black move.

The Challenger represents society

How did they know the Challenger astronauts were into music?

They found their Guts'n'Noses washed up on the beach

https://i.discogs.com/PjXBL-2h6N0JbV3dfpJIB0G1e2vOSMVoiUkfGPLyZOQ/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:453/w:454/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTExMzEy/NDMtMTE5NDU4MDU4/Mi5naWY.jpeg

Cobain hating Axl at that time was understandable, so many people did. I don't think OIAM was necessarily the stated reason for a lot of that, but it was a defining moment for him that couldn't be waved away dismissively, and certainly stained his rep for a long time. UYI sort of gave him some cover as more of a serious artist but not completely.

i don't think Cobain being a dick to him is as much of a thing as it's sometimes made out to be. the context of culture and the shifts within it at the time comes into play here. moving out of the terrible politics of the '80s and into the purportedly better times of the '90s, etc.

What will the general attitude toward Sugar Ray be in twenty or thirty years?

― hardcore technician gimmicks are also another popular choice f (President Keyes),

"How long did Tommy Stinson last in the lineup?"

I don't actually know anything bad about Duff or Izzy personally. (But maybe someone does.)

Duff carries a knife walking from his car to a restaurant door bcz homeless ppl, but didn’t campaign for the head tax

Oh sorry I was wrong - I just found a quote from an interview Kurt gave to The Advocate, where he specifically calls Axl “a fucking sexist and a racist and a homophobe".

(What bugs me is that even there, he couldn't resist adding – "And besides they can’t write good music.” LOL)

this was the era when Axl drove around LA in his limo listening to Pet Shop Boys' Behaviour over and over, particularly "Being Boring."

btw, still no idea about sales, or territories other than the US, but Dead & Company grossed $120 million to Springsteen's $140 million touring this year - given Bruce's $5000 fancy seats, seems plausible that John Mayer and some old guys moved more tickets.

i don't know the Dead have never been much of a live draw

Remember too that Nirvana and GnR were both on Geffen, so Kurt had probably heard a lot of inside stories about them for label people etc.

Kurt never said anything publicly about "One in a Million" afaik. Maybe it played into his dislike of the band, but it's not a reason he gave when asked.

― Cone of uncertainty (morrisp)

the wiki page for the song sez:

Nirvana's Kurt Cobain also took offense, according to then-manager Danny Goldberg: "Kurt's whole thing about being a feminist, this was at a time when Guns N’ Roses had a song ['One in a Million'] that was on one of their big albums that referred to (REDACTED- Kate). And we couldn't have had something more offensive to somebody like Kurt than that."[9]

I didn't take that as Kurt "saying something publicly," but corrected myself when I found he actually did.

As a side note, I think there's a 50% chance that "Chris" (sic) just made this story up:

You know, you were probably taking money from people who were voting yes on 9 (an antigay ballot measure) -- but they really wanted to see Nirvana.
(Laughs) Right! Chris went to a Guns N' Roses concert when they played here with Metallica a couple of months ago, and he went backstage, and there were these two bimbo girls who looked like they walked out of a Warrant video. They were sitting on the couch in hopes of sucking Axl's dick or something, and one of them said, "Chris, we saw you at that No on 9 benefit! We're voting yes on 9! You kissed Kurt on the lips! That was disgusting!" (Laughs) To know that we affect people like that -- it's kind of funny. The sad thing is that there's no penetrating them. After all that, after all the things those girls had seen us do, that was the one thing that sticks in their minds.

The sad thing is that there's no penetrating them.

oh dear

Later, after we played our show and were walking back to our trailer, the Guns N' Roses entourage came walking toward us. They have at least 50 bodyguards apiece: huge, gigantic, brain-dead oafs ready to kill for Axl at all times. They didn't see me, but they surrounded Chris, and Duff wanted to beat Chris up, and the bodyguards started pushing Chris around. He finally escaped, but throughout the rest of the evening, there was a big threat of either Guns N' Roses themselves or their goons beating us up. We had to hide out.

Strike against Duff

Chris R's origin story

Duff says (for real) that he was one of the last ppl to see Kurt alive... getting off a plane from L.A. in Seattle, I think

Duff killed Kurt, well taht's enough for me to trade GNR off of my Madden team stop listening

Duff killed Cobain wearing a Courtney wig.

so that's what inspired the Psycho remake in 1998

Duff said “How ya doin Kurt?”

He replied, “I’m on a plane. I can’t complain.”

"Cool, I'm loaded like a freight train."

Novoselic is maybe one of the most annoying dudes in the history of rock and is now a libertarian dummy so I kinda wish he woulda gotten beaten up

I'll bet his current politics are worse than anyone in GnR

per the guardian:

Former Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic has praised Donald Trump for the “law and order” speech he gave on 1 June in response to protests sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.

Speaking in the White House rose garden, Trump said he was dispatching “thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel, and law enforcement officers to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism, assaults, and the wanton destruction of property”.

In a post on Facebook, Novoselic wrote: “Wow!!! I know many of you can’t stand him, however, Trump knocked it out of the park with this speech.”

He continued: “I agree, the president should not be sending troops into states – and he legally might not be able to anyway – nevertheless, the tone in this speech is strong and direct.”

meanwhile

Unfortunately the Trump campaign is using loopholes in the various venues’ blanket performance licenses which were not intended for such craven political purposes, without the songwriters’ consent.

Can u say “shitbags?!”💩

— Axl Rose (@axlrose) November 4, 2018

“Kushner loses access to top-secret intelligence.” Ah, that’s a relief. Now deliver him to Klytus 4 post clearance “conditioning” n’ a Level 6 precautionary Mind Wipe.🚀🤷🏼‍♂️

— Axl Rose (@axlrose) February 27, 2018

i'm surprised Kurt didn't beat him with his guitar daily, he's such a douche

Ugh I'd missed that Novoselic news. Sad!

i always knew by his bass playing that he'd become a libertarian

he was always so fucking insufferable and annoying in interviews, the biggest try-hard unfunny motherfucker that ever lived

Novoselic describes himself as an “anarcho-capitalist socialist moderate I-don’t know”. He has campaigned for political reform. In the 2016 election, he supported Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.

skull full of mashed potatoes

Gary Johnson was basically a Republican who liked to toke

wonder how many times Krist has said "hey I'm no fan of the Republicans, BUT" in the last 3 years

Trump/Novoselic '24

I would like to see them perform Aneurysm

He's the anti-Grohl.

what an imgrohlio

saw novaselic speak at this college thing once, he stared complaining about graffiti and got booed mercilessly by the audience it was pretty funny

No Adler, no GnR

ancaps literally the worst

was wondering earlier if trump would literally play "one in a million" at one of his rallies. probably!

in the meantime, terrible song but probably not racist. i mean roger waters has done plenty of racist shit but this song probably isn't one of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aN_lqWUwk4Y

xpost He played Sweet Child o Mine and Axl got pissed

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/nov/05/rihanna-axl-rose-hit-out-donald-trump-using-their-music-rallies

that axl tweet about kushner made me smile, respect

saw novaselic speak at this college thing once, he stared complaining about graffiti and got booed mercilessly by the audience it was pretty funny

― brimstead

kurt cobain's best act of queer allyship was making out with novoselic. anybody can make out with a guy, but to make out with a guy and only later realize how truly and completely fucked up the guy you made out with is? that's not just talking the talk, that's walking the walk.

lol

kurt cobain's best act of queer allyship was making out with novoselic. anybody can make out with a guy, but to make out with a guy and only later realize how truly and completely fucked up the guy you made out with is? that's not just talking the talk, that's walking the walk.

― Kate (rushomancy)

welcome to my twenties

cosign lol

A coworker texted me bc Duff was standing next to him at Whole Foods… he said Duff was debating which lactose-free milk to buy.

not the same, but i did dairy-free milk for a while. i recommend almond milk. unsweetened. so if duff asks him, tell him that this lady on a message board his friend posts to recommends unsweetened almond milk.

Vanilla almond milk is good on cereal.

Appetite For Destruction Almond Milk

LOL

The most remarkable part of this story is that Duff does his own grocery shopping.

Moo Could Be Mine

i would not recognize duff mckagan if he was standing next to me at a whole foods

especially since i go to tj's instead

omg

i would be escorted out of the whole foods for climbing him like a tree

Appetite for Pasteurization

Welcome to the Jungle Whole Foods Dairy Section

Pasteurized City

You’re Crazy (for oat milk)

Sweet Oat Milk Of Mine

Pretty Soy'd Up (The Perils of Lactose Free Decadence)

Bloated like a freight train
Cryin’ with the gas pains
Peelin’ off the cellophane
Of more TP tonight

Wake up late, honey put on your clothes
And take your credit card to Whole Foods
Well that's one for you and two for me by tonight

I’m on the Lactaid, bottoms up
I’m on the Lactaid, fill my cup
I’m on the Lactaid, love that stuff
I’m on the Lactaid, and I can never get enough
I'm on the Lactaid, never to return, no

I hear the last time he drank whole milk there was quite a spaghetti incident in the bathroom

Dancing with Mr. Brown Rice

omg yall got me drinkin mah Lactaid Egg Nog right now, with mah cold-brewed cawfee---barely restraining self from finishing carton, so far---Bottoms UP

Speaking of cawfee, I used to find GNR a good substitute on road trips: the abrasion of the music kept me awake, with no need for bathroom brakes.

omg

i would be escorted out of the whole foods for climbing him like a tree

― werewolves of laudanum (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, December 23, 2023 5

love this

Year irl lol.

*yeah

lol VG thank you

:D

lol laffed again opening this thread

Is Sweet Child of Mine the only hit song with 3(!) different guitar solos? Over 3 different sets of chord changes? If not, it’s certainly the only one that ALSO opens with an indelible riff.

I thought I never needed to hear this song again, but apparently I was wrong.

november rain has 3 doesnt it?

"Bohemian Rhapsody", depending what you call separate guitar solos?

Ok, November Rain has 3, but 2 of them are over the same verse changes.

I’ll give Bohemian Rhapsody the nod — but none of them are full-on solos, really — May doesn’t get bars to stretch out in, just “hey, dude, make this transition here.”

Anyhow, I’m not here to gatekeep, just to marvel a bit.

I listened to G’n’R’s entire career tonight and it was a fuckin trip. I’d never heard any full album beyond G’n’R Lies, just the Illusion singles.

My one personal keeper is Mr Brownstone — Izzy & Slash’s guitars together are a goddamn symphony — and they’ve got a half-dozen or more certified classics, the most indelible I think of which are Sweet Child and Don’t Cry. It’s an intriguing catalogue. From the very beginning it feels like they’re channeling the vibe that later became Trumpism, somehow. Incel vibes, left-behind-by-the-American-dream vibes. This isn’t an endorsement. But they’re like a full quarter century ahead of the curve. You can see why they hit a nerve.

The production on Brownstone is so good, so crisp

"somehow" well I mean there's one in a million obv which we have covered on this thread extensively, but even if they'd never recorded that it's true, there's a curdled fucked upness to everything, a contradictory mix of self-loathing and overweening entitlement and an irresistible urge to fuck everything up

omg the soy milk jokes above, i'm dying

somehow. Incel vibes

I feel like we start to call any misogyny incel vibes now and from everything i've read including their first manager's book, they were basically having sex with groupies like all the time even when they just started out and were broke were basically living off their many girlfriends

Also I don't think you can truly tell the tale of Axl without viewing it through the lens of him being a victim of child abuse, both physical and sexual. That's likely the root of all of it.

oh yeah, the stuff "incels" liked in the late 80s was less blatantly misogynistic and more bands that mostly avoided sex and romance songs-- Maiden, extreme metal, some hardcore.

xp bingo

you want real incel vibes try the whiny tears of the Descendents

look no further than the Oath Keeper guy who wore a Descendents shirt when testifying at the January 6 hearings

_somehow. Incel vibes_

I feel like we start to call any misogyny incel vibes now and from everything i've read including their first manager's book, they were basically having sex with groupies like all the time even when they just started out and were broke were basically living off their many girlfriends

But: good callout.

I didn't think I'd run across a reference to the best and most representative GNR song ever in a write-up about the Pavement musical but...

He was directing a workshop of “Slanted! Enchanted!: A Pavement Musical,” about the Stockton slacker-rock quintet. Perry created the piece to feature in a screwball movie about the band which he is also directing, and which he has described variously as “a semiotic experiment” and “like throwing spaghetti at the wall.” The scene at hand was the show’s climactic finale, inspired by the medley that concludes “The Phantom of the Opera.” He was unhappy with the a-cappella coda. “I need it to be like ‘My World,’ ” he explained. (He was referring to the final song on the Guns N’ Roses album “Use Your Illusion II,” in which Axl Rose pivoted the band to a more industrial sound.) The cast looked at him blankly.