Guns n Roses: Critical Rehab

Side note: I shifted a lot of my love for both debut albums (Crue and GnR) to Hanoi Rocks' debut a few years back. I had never even heard the first HR album until I was 30! But holy crap. To me, it's the original link between classic rock, glam, heavy metal, bubblegum and punk. The Crue and GnR were obviously listening to Hanoi Rocks a ton.

yeah i bought some hanoi rocks stuff after GnR kept repping them. but it's a "the students have become the teachers" thing for me....appetite murders every hanoi record i've heard (so like three out of whatever HR records)

and, hey, just so you know, hanoi rocks have put out three pretty good albums in the last five years.

xpost

Yeah, considering Neill killed one of the members of Hanoi Rocks.

I just sent in a hair-metal "Essentials" thing (8 albums) to Spin last week, and started it off with Hanoi's Self Destruction Blues. I like all of that band's albums, but yeah, Appetite is way better. (Didn't include any Crue, Bon Jovi, or Skid Row, though I considered all of the above.)

what other bands were on the list?

this shoulda been. lost classik:

http://www.sleazeroxx.com/bands/vain/respect.jpg

Adler leaving also corresponds, at least in my mind, with Axl's high register losing its edge. He just doesn't sing as gorgeously on the post-Appetite or at least post-Lies records.

I'm glad you added the "in my mind" caveat, because I always chalked that difference up to the stories of Axl sitting backstage smoking like a chimney and drinking scotch on the Illusion tour and then cancelling a show at the last minute because he 'lost his voice.' I never woulda guessed that the guy playing drums behind him was a psychological factor.

Well, timewise, I meant. Didn't mean to imply causality. (His voice had already lost a lot by the time Illusion was recorded, though, so I doubt it happened on the tour supporting the album.)

what other bands

Def Lep, Poison, GnR, Cinderella, Kix, Warrant, Bang Tango. (I won't say which LPs -- that's a surprise.)

"what other bands were on the list?"

kix, cinderella, faster pussycat, um, bang tango, enuff znuff, tesla, and poison.

x-post!

Hanoi Rocks -- there was always something they didn't quite have on every album, getting in the way of listening to them repeatedly other than as an acquired taste. The only thing I still have is a double that was published as an anthology of their finest moments. It could have been boiled down to one long record. When they finally wound up with a producer -- Bob Ezrin -- who you think could have done something with them, the album that resulted wasn't very good. Then the guitarist was killed and they disintegrated.

xpost -- Well you should state what albums, at some point. How many people here d'ya think are going to actually buy a copy of Spin for another magful of lists?

was gonna say warrant. and forgot about def lep. and enuff znuff was just a grasping at straws.

xp I came real close to including the second Faster Pussycat album. (8 albums is hard! Wanted to get D.A.D. in there somewhere too, but no dice.)

>I just sent in a hair-metal "Essentials" thing (8 albums) to Spin last week

Good to see they're paying attention...I ran a "25 Essential Hair Metal Albums" feature in Metal Edge two issues ago.

as far as axl's chain-smoking, whiskey drinking, show cancelling tendencies go...

jason newsted confirmed such a story about axl in the behind the music feature on metallica i believe.

also, i've got those use your illusion live videos from a performance in tokyo around 1992 and axl's voice is horrendous throughout. he massacres 'sweet child of mine' with a screechy cat yowl that would make brian johnson cringe.

def leppard and cinderella would definitely make my cut. poison and warrant i am less fond of, but they're certainly quintessential examples. i pretty much missed the boat on kix and bang tango when i used to dig this hair metal stuff, but both bands certainly have/had their legion of followers.

and scott, your list is pretty balanced too

Cinderella kicked serious ass. I saw them on the club-only tour following Long Cold Winter. Man, the Black Crowes have nothing on them.

"25 Essential Hair Metal Albums"

Did you have to put some in there more than once?

Hanoi Rocks -- there was always something they didn't quite have on every album

I agree, save their debut. I've sampled other Hanoi Rocks albums since discovering that first one, and I've been bummed. All of them lack the quirky vibe of the first record. There are some truly twisted guitar solos and licks all over that thing. Plus, the production uses all kinds of reverb and echo in some extraordinary ways.

that second Cinderella album (long cold winter?) was about as solid as they come IIRC. I'm snagging that the next time I see it.

First Hanoi album is the best, I agree, likewise, they were great live the first 2 times I saw them, astonishingly so the first time. But, they lost whatever they had that made them special pretty quickly, it was quite sad to see at the time.

i guess i'm thinking specifically of inter-song rants like that 'don't forget to call my lawyer...' spurt on 'you could be mine'. i mean, what the hell was all that about?

What the hell was that about?

x-postx2

You'll also dig Cinderella's Heartbreak Station.

okay, this thread has done something strange to me. i'm now playing Quiet Riot III. wow, The Wild & The Young is power metal incarnate.

i was always fond of Oriental Beat by Hanoi Rocks. Might have been the first album I heard by them. It's a weird little record. There's all kinds of stuff going on stylistically.

woah QR III. that was a really dark period for quiet riot.

Spageddy Incident is the best GNR album because those pesky songwriting/personality problems don't get as much in the way and they've got less shaggy-dog-ish showcases for their tightness. Appetite has a fair amount of music (little of it boogie-oriented in the Stones sense, so what Izzy's influences have to do with it, IDK) that's exciting for adolescent boys (Paradise City still holds up, ok) and appropriately asbo lyrics to match, but Slash was kinda otm when he said he thought they made a pretty good motorhead record at best, and I'd rather get the musical fireworks from Poison, White Lion (speaking of Scandinavians), LA Guns, Warrant, Living Colour, maybe some Crue, all of whom attach them to actually fun rock 'n roll songs (often best in greatest hits form). Most of them are better-looking too. While I like Cinderella and Tesla a bunch, they're basically Beatles-influenced, hard-hitting southern rock bands.

I hear Sami Yaffa plays in some other band these days.

Meanwhile, Duff's book is about out and here's an excerpt about the early days.

That book is going to be so awesome.

i'd feel kind of ridiculous reading ANOTHER gnr book after the slash memoir and the uyi 33 1/3 but duff is a capable writer and most likely the most sane/trustworthy guy out of the band so i am down for that

I still have no interest in hearing UYI but is the 33.3 well-written and juicy enough about the band dynamics, rather than the songs, to shell out for?

it is a great and very entertaining book but it's very much about the album and that period in the band's history, so i'm not sure why you'd even ask whether you should read a book about an album you don't want to ever listen to (although the author himself amusingly doesn't go back and re-listen to UYI until the last chapter)

i mean there are now memoirs by 3 different ex-members of the band if you're into juicy inside scoops

the UYI book is excellent, especially for (a) context (explaining how it works alongside the before-the-revolution moment of fall '91) (b) debunking the Izzy Stradlin worship.

haha the anti-izzy bent of the book pissed me off so much

btw this thread has one of the worst premises in the history of ILM, fucking shameful

so i'm not sure why you'd even ask whether you should read a book about an album you don't want to ever listen to

'cos a bunch of the ones that I do have are more about the artist in general, or that period of their career, rather than a documentary of the recording, or a critical analysis of the songs. so I was asking if this happened to be one of the former. because I know they exist. based on having bought and read them. (at least two of the series are actually novellas that don't require even knowing that the album exists before reading. and the one of those I've bought [by the shameful OP btw lol] is the second-best 33.3 that I've read.)

I also have the Celine Dion one, and though it's been on the shelf waiting for 18 months, I don't plan to buy and listen to the album before I get around to it.

man I <3 Eric W. to bits but I had major problems with the UYI 33.3

such as? (i'm curious -- like i said i enjoyed it but there were definitely parts that pissed me off too)

a bunch of the ones that I do have are more about the artist in general, or that period of their career, rather than a documentary of the recording, or a critical analysis of the songs. so I was asking if this happened to be one of the former.

it's more the former than the latter. but much more about the band's place in the music industry/pop culture at the time and the axl cult of personality than band dynamics juice.

Is the Slash book any good? Because frankly, between him, Adler and Duff, Duff is the only one that seems to possess a modicum of modesty, a firm grasp of history and a penchant for introspection. He's totally the John Taylor of the group.

you're probably right about duff (which is why i will prob read it) but the Slash one is a pretty good read -- i'm sure the co-writer smoothed it over a lot but he kind of has a good dry sense of humor about some of the crazier stories and of course there are some pretty crazy stories. also slash has a pretty interesting life story beyond just the gnr stuff.

such as? (i'm curious -- like i said i enjoyed it but there were definitely parts that pissed me off too)

I would just have strongly preferred to have been reading about it from the perspective of somebody who loves GnR & will rep for their music. I like Carl's book on Celine even though he's not nuts about her music, but with GnR, the whole "I wouldn't normally listen to this" schtick just rankled me a lot. like, even though GnR were massive, they still to a certain extent represent a subculture, for better or worse. I don't want to hear the take of somebody who has no investment in that culture; the story doesn't have to be told by a fan, but I think for it to be told by a person who doesn't even like that kind of music is invariably going to leave out one of the most important parts of the story.

It's weird I mean I'm kinda defensive of this band even though I think their music is vastly overrated by the exact same people whose voices I'd prefer to hear if we're talking about it

aero, do you think "Appetite" is vastly overrated? Because I'm with you on "UYI" (obv.), but that first album is zeitgeist in the a bottle. Or something.

he's definitely irreverent about GNR in the book but to me it didn't come across as dismissive or superior -- UYI is more fun to talk about if you acknowledge its flaws and ridiculousness from the start, and if you're not constantly saying Appetite was the greatest thing ever and comparing it to that. also i didn't get a "i wouldn't normally listen to this" sense, if anything it was that he'd listened to it so much in the '90s that he could actually write the majority of the book from memory w/o relistening to it.

btw i apologize if my platform itt has become 'i will read any and all books about guns n roses and so should you'

i'll pass on adler's, though, it was depressing enough seeing him on celebrity rehab

wait doesn't he explicitly say he's never listened to the albums before writing the book?

no, he was definitely very familiar w/ the albums beforehand but only listened to them again while writing the last chapter.

if it WAS a total intellectual exercise of "let's see how much i can write 'about' an album without engaging with the album on any level" like the Celine book that would be total bullshit but don't even get me started on that