Guns n Roses: Critical Rehab

"u blow... whores!"

You really got me good there, wow

ty ty

The first two Crüe albums are pretty damn good. The respect they're afforded twenty-five years past their (artistic, not commercial) peak, though, baffles me. That Red, White & Crue best-of they put out a few years ago was one of the most starkly bifurcated albums I've ever seen - one disc I'd like to listen to all the way through, and one disc I wouldn't listen to a single song from on a dare.

I bought the two Illusions discs and listened to them all the way through for the first time last year, and there are a hell of a lot of good, ambitious hard rock songs on there. If you go in looking for any trace of the band that made Appetite, you're an idiot. But taken on their own merits, they're some of the best mainstream rock of the early '90s (I would take the Illusions albums over Nevermind without blinking).

"Don't Cry" is tremendous

But much of the Illusions material was in the setlist before Appetite was even tracked! it's very much the same band, just with more money.

...which is why I'm recommending the photobook - that's how I learned that some of the big hits from Illusion I & II were as old as the band

That's true. Don't Cry is like the first song they did together. .

(I would take the Illusions albums over Nevermind without blinking).

Yeah, me too. Like I said above, I think they're really spotty, but that doesn't mean they don't have some good songs. And like I also said above, I still love Lies and Spaghetti Incident. But I still don't think much of that stuff touches Appetite, and the point of my Adler comment is that, when he left, the music turned way clunkier and more stiff -- it really lost its dance quotient, which was the first thing that set it apart for me.

Also, I don't hate Crue (I may actually even prefer their late '80s hits to their early '80s albums, matter of fact), and I'm not suggesting critics think they were on the level of GnR. I just think there were scores of better hair-metal bands out there, and I find it kind of depressing that their admittedly well-timed self-promotion efforts have been so successful with journalists who I can't imagine cared about the band in the first place.

Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal (Born September 25, 1969 in Brooklyn New York City, NY), is an American guitarist, songwriter and producer. He is currently a member of Guns N' Roses, playing co-lead guitar with Robin Finck

He got the name "Bumblefoot" from the bacterial infection, which he learned about while helping his wife review for her veterinary exams. Vigier Guitars later made Ron "The Vigier Bumblefoot Guitar", a custom guitar which is shaped like a foot, painted like a bumblebee and has decorative wings that extend from the body when activated by the tremolo bar. This was presented to Ron in January 1998 at the NAMM convention in Los Angeles.

Bumblefoot joined Guns N' Roses in mid-2006, replacing the departed Buckethead. He made his live debut with the band at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City on May 12, 2006. They have since toured Europe, North and Central America,Oceania, and Japan. It has been confirmed that Bumblefoot will also appear on the band's new album, Chinese Democracy, despite the fact that it has been in the process of recording since 1994, long before he joined. The album has no scheduled release date, but it has been confirmed that recording has been completed as of April 03, 2007.

If Use Your Illusion was a 45 minute album it would be great. Don't Damn Me, Civil War, those are some of their best songs.

There's just way too much of it, and some of the most egregious examples of filler ever. Also the fact that Nevermind came out around the same time didn't help.

xp (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. This really affects the ballads for me -- including "Don't Cry," which has never blown me away like the earlier ballads do.) (My favorite '90s GnR track, by far, is their cover of UK Subs' "Down on the Farm," on The Spaghetti Incident, fwiw.)

Since I was a little dude I've loved both debut's from the Crue and GnR, respectively. But for diff reasons. Appetite is a very historical album. It was modern and hip, yes, but the band really understood what made classic rock move. They knew their Johnny Thunders, Aerosmith, Stones, Chuck Berry, Eddie Cochran, etc.

TFRL, in contrast, is raw primitivism. Although it's trashy glam/punk, the album's quirks (that production is so buzz-saw cheap) make it feel like a private press record or heavy metal demo tape (which it kind of was, originally). It's one of those records that fans of fucked up music can appreciate. Appetite, was too good to be appreciated that way.

From Buckethead to Bumblefoot. You could have a game thinking of the next name for the slot. Brokendick? Baglady? (Let's get a woman in here!)

I would take the Illusions albums over Nevermind without blinking

that's a feasible enough parallel to draw since i have memories of listening to these records when they were fairly new in heavy rotation around exactly the same time

but nevermind has totally held up better for mine. the illusions seem to be forever tied to the bombast and self-aware rock posturing that characterised the band's shows around the time of the records' releases. axl's lyrics just seemed too intent on ramming home, to the point of overstating, the exclusiveness of his rockstar lifestyle in strangely pseudo-intellectual ways. we weren't dealing with somebody that people could really make a genuine connection with, but rather somebody whose stardom and public profile became a source of expression for the staging of bizarre and convoluted battles with personal and external demons, that no one else, let alone the listener, could get a grip on. 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?

i guess, nevermind with its un-self conscious ability to tap into the hearts and souls of disenfranchised youth, made more of a tangible connection with the public, and when i listen to it today, i can still hear a lot of what made it so vital and relevant. i really think it's a timeless classic that is presently taking a temporary extended pause due to having been solidy overplayed throughout the entire 90s. but i still play it pretty regularly and find remnants of the spark that really kicked my ass all those years ago.

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