Guns n Roses: Critical Rehab

I agree with you that GnR probably appealed to people's rock-conservative/ traditionalist instincts.

On the other hand, as much as I honestly don't want to prolong this, and I'm sure I'll be pushing my ILM cred into the negative numbers (oaf! rockist!)...

Genre synthesis has nothing to do with it. In no way are the two things mutually exclusive. Bon Jovi, Loverboy or Poison could not possibly rock. Not even in their dreams.

And country or pretty much any other pre- or non-rock genre, if pitched correctly and played by musicians with any sense of rhythmic interplay and proclivity for the hard stuff, can be integrated and made to, um, rock.

Hold on, examples: How about Fugazi's integration of dub and Gang of Four-derived funk? I'll probably get hanged for this (and their shtick certainly got old/repetitive quick), but how about Rage Against the Machine's integration of hip hop into Sab-style classic rock riffing? Dare I mention Soul Coughing smushing jazz, hip hop and avant material into music that definitely rocked? Can we go back and count Buffalo Springfield and its spinoffs as successful and rocking integration of country?

(I know these examples are all over the place.)

However dreadful you find the music any of the above-mentioned (I don't), in the physical/ rhythmic sense they all tear the roof off the mother.

Later I was on the school bus and a metaller recommended a tape to me - it was a bootleg of the Guns and Roses tape not yet released in New Zealand - with a label printed on orange tape from a labelling gun. Everybody thought they were fantastic - fantastic enough to make and distribute bootlegs of their tapes, which was very rare.

I saw the video for 'Sweet Child O' Mine' on TV yesterday. Axl Rose looked cool - it was before he ever wore bike shorts, obviously - and Izzy Stradlin definitely looked Johnny Thunders. I suppose you could say Keith Richards but that would be giving in to him. He was wearing a black jacket with thin lapels, dark aviator glasses, good cheekbones, and had longish black hair cut in the European style.

Numbers:

1) It just pains my Inner Hesher to hear a Loverboy>GnR formulation.

2) Either praise or attack on GnR based on their ability to combine genres seems beside the point to me.

3) "Genre synthesis," as I clumsily put it, does not preclude physically compelling music.

And with that I shut up. Please hold your applause.

didn't they cover it's so easy ?
can't remember.

"My Michelle" and "Mr Brownstone"...good heavens, those are dreadful songs

I think so, too, but not in the way you mean. They actually cause dread in me. I recoil in horror at the blatant misogyny, the filth. But isn't that what they want me to do? I don't mean to excuse it as morally acceptable, but it's emotionally affecting as hell. Appetite may not be a great record, and I'm not especially interested in the technique of the playing on it, but it's an honest record. It's honestly fucked up, and a little disturbing. It's not just a show. Axl comes off as a real person on that record -- not a pleasant one, but a real one all the same. And it's really something.

everything kenan says here = completely OTM. i don't know if GNR are the best metal band ever, but they're certainly the most INTERESTING one i can think of.

yeah!

I find this an odd concept. there was a brief period when everyone thought that GnR sucked, but that was, coincidentally, the period when everyone thought that Nirvana was good. around the time that knee-jerk reactions against rock stars died down-- around the time that critics stopped giving a free pass for celebrity to any musician who feigned modesty, in some sort of Everyman inversion of the "rock god" trope-- most critics went back to acknowledging GNR as one of the best bands left carrying the blues-based riff rock torch through the '80s.

and the idea of "Appetite" as a "filler" album of any sort is just too weird for me to cognitively process in any way that might yield a response.

oh wait, this thread is three years old. nevermind!

Guns n Roses were such a special band..Fuck all Van Halen and Slayer...
They're lookin' like shits with instruments, their music is too similar to other bands..nuthin' really excitin'...

haha

Haven't read the thread, and somebody has probably already pointed this out, but the assumptions behind it are pretty confused. For whatever it's worth, this is better than Sabbath or Slayer (and probably Zeppelin, and maybe Metallica) ever did in P&J:

The 1988 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll

Albums
26. Guns N' Roses: Appetite for Destruction (Geffen) 190 (14) *

Singles
3. Guns N' Roses: "Sweet Child o' Mine" (Geffen) 30
13. Guns N' Roses: "Welcome to the Jungle"/"Mr. Brownstone" (Geffen) 20

[They were written in about as "just another Sunset Strip hair metal band" for maybe six months in 1987, as I recall -- before the songs wound up on MTV and the radio, and the album started to sell. But to pretend "everybody" -- meaning critics -- disliked them back then is the real revisionism here. And right, metal mags kinda loved them from the git-go.)

Appetite was 26 out of 40. Led Zeppelin IV was 30 out of 30.

yeah my assumptions here were wrong

I have grown to really kinda love them as icons...still think Appetite has maybe three good songs

I'm just the opposite - Appetite (which I thought had three good songs the week it came out -- and "Mr. Brownstone" was one of them! -- though I grew to like most of the rest pretty quickly, and loved all of it within a few years) is my favorite rock album of the past quarter century, and I care about them less and less as human beings as time goes on. Haven't played either Use Your Illusion (which I always thought were pretty spotty) for years, and can't imagine when I will again, though I doubt I'll ever sell my copies. Have exactly ZERO interest in Chinese Democracy -- In fact, I kind of hope it doesn't come out in my lifetime, sincee if it does, somebody will probably want me to write about it, which means I'll have to have an opinion about it. (Still like both Lies and Spaghetti Incident a whole lot, though.)

This cassette didn't leave my walkman for years. I delivered a lot of papers while Axl was screeching about smack and porn.

wait, me and Chuck are looking at things from different angles? Unimaginable! :)

Did you get that new-ish book by their photographer, Chuck? It's fascinating stuff for a whole lot of reasons - the dude saved the setlists from pretty much all their gigs: it seems to be the case that they wrote pretty much all their stuff in one fast blur of activity before the Geffen signing, and, having exhausted that stuff by the end of Use Your Illusion, collapsed/threw in the towel (nb this is my reading, not what the book explicitly contends)

Nah, didn't get that one -- or if I did, it went right into the donation pile (which maybe it shouldn't have, judging from what you're saying, but that's the way I roll with 90% of rock books, and 99% of rock photo books, that the mailman brings.)

appetite is a fantastic record and eclipses by a long margin anything they coughed out afterwards. i don't think the argument that it has only three good songs can really stand up; every track is focused with good old fashioned guitar based hook. arguably one of the most iconic opening riffs in history, and the musical influences behind the record are extremely vital and channeled in ambitious and exciting ways.

I've always believed GnR stop writing top notch material when Izzy left the band, which was during the making of Use Your Illusion, I think.

I don't know if they promo'd out the book or not, I ordered a copy - it's called "Reckless Road" and the url for it is http://www.recklessroad.com/ - worth looking into, not beautifully written or anything but as a documentation of that before-it-went-completely-worldwide moment it's pretty great

but, important caveat probably, I'm not on anybody's book promo list so I don't see a lot of rock books photo or otherwise, and I may be easily impressed

I really, really like the Chinese Democracy tracks (whatever iteration of the "final" versions they may be) I have in my iPod. As I've said before, they sound exactly nothing like any previous Guns N' Roses work and a whole fuckin' lot like particularly hard-rockin' J-pop. If you stripped out Axl's vocals and replaced him with Ayumi Hamasaki, the songs would be just as awesome. I really hope the album comes out someday, and I hope it sounds like these six songs.

http://i27.tinypic.com/160zvuv.jpg

As I've said before, they sound exactly nothing like any previous Guns N' Roses work and a whole fuckin' lot like particularly hard-rockin' J-pop.

yeah this is a great call - they have that by-committee feel. (My friend Tom on Japanese pop in the eighties: "It's like a position paper about what popular music is like.") I happen to kind of like that - I thought "Better" was a wonderful song.

"For whatever it's worth, this is better than Sabbath or Slayer (and probably Zeppelin, and maybe Metallica) ever did in P&J"

Who gives a flying fuck? GnR areen't fit to do those band's laundry. The post above is correct, when Stradlin left the band, they were toast. I got that straight from Slash's autobiog, which I picked up in LAX. Pretty entertaining read.

i certainly wouldnt let slash do my laundry - maybe axl

Er, my post had nothing to do with how "good" those bands were (though I'd personally take GnR over Slayer or Metallica); it had to do with how much critics liked them, which was what the subject of this thread was to begin with. (And to my ears, they started going downhill as soon as Adler left.)

Phil's post makes those Chinese Democracy tracks sound interesting, maybe, though I've never really connected with J-Pop. And I just can't see going out of my way to actually track down the songs and hear them. If they somehow land in lap someday, maybe I'll listen to them and wind up liking them, who knows. (I've "heard" a couple of the supposed CD tracks, usually when somebody was all "you really really really need to listen to this," which just added a no-fun air of "important to have an opinion" obligation to an already dire situation.)

So when is somebody going to start a thread about Motley Crue revisionism? To me, they're the real dime-a-dozen hair-hack band who were widely acknowledged as such at the time, but over the decades have somehow turned "important", thanks to tabloid stuff I'll never have any interest in.

Sorry chuck, your're right, the thread's about their rep. with critics.

Crue did one good album, then really lost it. The same could definitely be said about GnR.

According to Slash, Adler made the rest of the band seem like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They had no choice but to let him go.

fuck that lies is great and the use yr illusions are pretty awzom in their own way

Izzy was GnR's tether to vintage Stone boogie.

The illusions blow

xpost