The Untouchables 01.26.06: Guns 'n' Roses (Part 1)
Posted by Stephen Mogan on 01.26.2006
Yep, in true "Use Your Illusion" style, this one is a two-parter, as Steve takes a look at GNR.
There are many artists that are universally recognised as being great, some achieve superstar status, but very few reach the point where the acclaim for them is so intense, that it becomes inconceivable to question their genius. They are The Untouchables….
Hey everyone, I'm Steve Mogan and I'm back with another Untouchables. Last week we looked at The Jimi Hendrix Experience and concluded that the band was more than deserving of the acclaim bestowed upon it over the years. I'd like to say thanks to everyone who emailed me about the column; it probably got the biggest response from you guys since I've been doing this, which I really appreciate. There was one particular email I promised I'd put up, however. It concerns this guy…
Yeah, he's back
Now, if you're particularly confused at that image you may want to go back and read last week's column, but I'll give it to you in a nutshell. Last week I featured an email from somebody who didn't give a name; the only clue to their identity was their email prefix, "aleung". A Google search of this term returned the image you see above (which I included in the column for my own bizarre amusement), but no name. Having no luck with this, I just referred to the guy as Andy. Imagine how stupid I felt when I received this email shortly after the column went up…
I completely left out my name in my email last week, but you should have ran a search within 411 cuz this is the Anthony Leung that writes reviews you can trust for CDs and live shows every other week or so. Print this email so I can put a shameless plug for my review on The Strokes' First Impression of Earth .
BTW, I'm SO using that picture for my profile now!
Firstly, apologies to "Anthony" (he'll always be Andy to me). You should all go check out his review (all of his reviews in fact). And if you take a look at the profile page, you'll also find that he stuck to his word about the picture . Not content with this master buffoonery however, I also bemoaned the lack of columns by Brian Berry and Ian Wright last week. However, somewhere between those words leaving my keyboard and appearing on the site, both of their columns duly appeared to give me my weekly indie fix and make me look quite dumb once more. So again, I apologise to everyone for being so stupid in so many ways last time; I'd like to give myself a kick in the ass and the official title of "411 staff member with the least knowledge of his fellow staff members' movements". There was a "bowel" joke waiting to happen there, but my heart just wasn't in it. Enough babble, time for some plugs…
Hidden Highlights is a wrestling column devoted to paying attention to the small details that make a show great each week. It's one of my favourite things to read and if you like pro wrestling you should definitely check it out (although if you like pro wrestling then you're probably already over there reading it so…yeah, I don't really know who this plug was aimed at).
Steve Vicious is back with another Vicious TV News Wrap . I don't know why I haven't plugged this one before; it's where I go every week for all my news on what the hell is going on with Arrested Development (at least people are talking about it in the US, you have to join a freakin' secret society before they even tell you what channel it's on in wee Britain). Hell, I read it and I don't even get American TV stations so it must be good.
Ian's latest Dancing About Architecture has news on the Flaming Lips' new album and plugs for Bell X1 (excellent new album) amongst others.
Dusty looks at Fugazi in his Greatest Albums Ever column. Dusty's a great writer and Fugazi are an awesome band, what more can you ask for?
Brian's back with another Radio Free Berry , featuring not one, but two side projects from members of Rilo Kiley! Are they any good? Who knows? Well, I do mister, because I read the column. Tune in now and you'll know as much as me!
Finally, a quick mention for Rhett's latest Southern Fried Chronicle , which deals with Kurt Cobain's lack of greatness and is sure to land him a couple of death threats.
With that said let's get to this week's Untouchable. It's a topical one, since this band has been back in the news recently, and also a first for the column in that the group is still together and still producing music (sorta). It's also our first ever two-parter. Yes, in true "Use Your Illusion" style, this column is being split in half, mainly because the band have five albums for me to cover (two of which are 75 minutes long) and nobody wants to sit their ass down and read 6,000 or so words all in one go. Be sure to check for part 2 at the same time next week. Ladies and gentlemen…
Guns ‘n' Roses
The Band:
Guns ‘n' Roses formed in LA in 1985, consisting of Axl Rose (vocals), Izzy Stradlin, Tracii Guns (guitars), Duff McKagan (bass) and Rob Gardener (drums). The band's original line-up read like a list of rejected super heroes for Saturday morning kids TV shows ("Axl Rose! Tracii Guns! Combine your guitars of power and save that junior high school from the evil re-incarnations of Mozart and Bach!"), but not to worry, as this version of the band only last about four minutes. Soon Guns and Gardener (now that's a name for a band; Guns ‘n' Gardeners all the way) were out, and new guitarist Slash ("Slash! Use your axe of power to defeat Mega-Billy Joel!") and drummer Steven Adler were in. With this line-up, they released their debut album, "Appetite For Destruction". The record was hugely successful; its blend of punk, metal, blues and straight rock ‘n' roll was the perfect antidote to (and yet not exactly a million miles away from) the hair metal that typified the late 80's. The record was an enormous hit, selling 20 millions copies and making GNR one of the biggest bands in the world. The group took the record on the road, but hit problems on the European leg of the "Monsters of Rock" tour. Drug and alcohol problems appeared rife within the band, and after 2 fans were killed in a crowd stampede during a show in England, the notoriously forgiving British press pronounced Guns ‘n' Roses as "the most dangerous band in the world". (An aside for readers unfamiliar with the British press: that was a joke. Before we had GNR, the most dangerous band in the world to us was The Beastie Boys, who the press also tried to ban. And this week, the coach of our national soccer team was forced to announce he was quitting his job (with its $8 million salary), because a newspaper reporter had dressed up in a Sheik (I don't know why a Sheik in particular) disguise and tricked the him into revealing secrets about the team and his players, just months before the biggest tournament in world football. They're a lovely bunch).
Second album "GNR Lies" was released in 1988, but couldn't match the success of their world-swallowing debut. 1989 saw the band collecting a clutch of awards for that hugely successful album, including best pop-rock song at the American Music Awards for "Sweet Child O' Mine". Unfortunately, Slash and Duff were wasted at the ceremony, and they weren't exactly subtle about it either. Under pressure from their label to clean up their act, GNR went back into the studio to record their third (and, as it turned out, fourth) album(s). Adler was too coked up to play, so he was replaced by former Cult drummer Matt Sorum. The group also gained a keyboard player, Dizzy Reed (who many claim was actually Izzy Stradlin with an unimaginative new moniker). The band soon realised they had enough material for two albums and so, hey!, released two albums instead of one. 1991 saw the release of "Use Your Illusion" parts one and two, which shot straight into the top two positions of the album chart. They set about promoting the albums with an enormously long world tour, which was marred by incidents of controversy and stupidity, mainly involving Axl (there's a reason why all the other former members hate him, y'know). Accusations of inciting riots, late shows, cancelled shows, unhappy fans, fans who received a smack in the mouth; the tour had it all. Izzy Stradlin left at some point (thus putting an end to the "Izzy ‘n' Dizzy family fun-time hour" that had been opening up the latest GNR shows), then came back for a bit, they replaced him with some guy, yadda yadda yadda (sorry, they change members so many times, it's hard to get excited about all these names).
After the tour, the band released a covers album entitled "The Spaghetti Incident" in 1993, which (like "GNR Lies" after "Appetite For Destruction") didn't do half as well as its predecessors. Following arguments over the band's direction and "who's that 15th band member Axl just asked to join and play the bongos?"-type disagreements, Slash finally left the band in 1996. McKagan followed in 1998 (God knows what they were doing in this time, that's 5 years with no recorded output). Axl was now the only remaining original member, and used this to his full advantage; hiring whoever he wanted to create the new Guns ‘n' Roses lineup. The band started work on their new album "Chinese Democracy" in 1998 (hah!). Soon after (well "soon after" in G ‘n R time, in normal person's time "4 years later"), Axl hired a guitarist with a KFC bucket for a head then took the band to England to headline the Reading festival in 2002. I was there; it was ok, not horrible, but the band still managed to come on 2 hours late and clearly weren't exactly ready for a return to the big time. And so more dicking around followed and, to cut a long story short, the band still haven't released the friggin' album. Axl did speak on the matter earlier in the month, however, claiming that they had "nearly finished" recording on 87 songs or something, which they were going to whittle down to 13 for the album. Um…not that I'm doubting the sincerity of that statement at this point in time, but Axl says this sort of shit every year and it doesn't happen. You also have to remember that it's over 10 years since Axl has been in the public eye, and he didn't exactly look too great back then. The band is over 20 years old, the members are god knows how old and one of them has a bucket for a head; children will have nightmares about them if they make a comeback. Look at Bono; can that guy even form facial expressions anymore? He looks like a puppet made out of leather. Is that what they want? Please guys, just hang it up.
Well that was a weird way to end a band biography. On with the show!
The Albums:
Appetite For Destruction (1987)
Well, you'll get no complaints from me about the way this album starts off. "Welcome to the Jungle" is undoubtedly my favourite GNR song and probably the best song they ever did. The band knew how good it was; on a sleeve where all the song titles were written in white, "Welcome to the Jungle" was written in bold red. It was the band's mission statement, if you will, and is one of the greatest hard rock songs ever recorded. So far, so good. "It's So Easy" follows and…well, it hasn't aged as well as the first track. I mean, it's OK, but it sounds so 80's. A cookie-cutter riff, with an added spooky "Master Of Puppets"-esque break in the middle, doesn't make a great song. "Nightrain" follows, and the bands blues influences come to the fore here. A good old-fashioned rock stomper; this one is a lot more fun than the previous track. "Out Ta Get Me" is again OK, but…*sigh* I dunno what to say, this sounds very dated. I can't really see the difference between this and a Bon Jovi song to be honest. Ah, next is "Mr. Brownstone", and this is more like it. An intro stolen from The Rolling Stone's "Not Fade Away" leads into a funky strut of a riff. Axl's voice is more restrained here, he's actually singing rather than wailing, and I think the track is so much better for it. It sounds like he's kinda rapping at points, but in a good way. How the hell that can even be possible I have no idea, but listen to it; it works. A great song, and an album standout. Next up we have "Paradise City", a song I don't have to say much about. It's anthemic, it's powerful, it's just awesome really. You know it, I know it, every person in the world probably knows this song. Enough said.
"Think About You" is pretty standard stuff, but the band carry it off very well. Nice guitars on the chorus make this one a thumbs up. The song leads us into "Sweet Child O' Mine". Again, what do you say? This song is so engrained into our society it's insane. I can't review it, I literally can't. What do you say? It's "Sweet Child O' Mine", and it's impossible to approach this song with no pre-conceptions from a musical point of view. It's a classic. "You're Crazy" showcases the bands punk side and it's a side the band should have concentrated on more. Whereas the bluesy rock ‘n' roll songs on this disc sound horribly dated when listening to them now, this one still sounds great. We finish off this mixed bag with "Rocket Queen", a song which straddles both sides of the punk/blues dynamic we have on the record. It starts off strongly with a great riff, but after about three minutes breaks down in a desperate attempt for stadium clap-a-longs. We then progress to a "Sweet Child"-style lighters-in-the-air section to bring the song home. Hmmm…thumbs up for the first part, thumbs down for the second. A nice idea though. This album just goes to show, in my opinion, that the band was very talented and could turn it on when they wanted to, but spent way too much time thinking about creating big stadium anthems, sometimes to the point of desperation. Of course, they came up with a couple of enormous anthems, but when you try out the trick out so much you're gonna hit a couple of home runs. Another thing to note is that some of this stuff just sounds horrible today; so, so dated. It's almost embarrassing. I loved GNR as a young ‘un, but listening to this album is making me cringe. Next!
GNR Lies (1988)
This was actually a combination of two earlier EPs and thus is not a proper album (most of this stuff actually pre-dates "Appetite") so I'll be brief. The first half is rock that is meant to sound like it was recorded live but isn't, the second half is acoustic. "Reckless Life" and "Nice Boys" are standard GNR with extra punk thrown in for good measure. "Move To The City" pulls off the blues-inspired rock track far better than anything on "Appetite", even including what appear to be horns. "Mama Kin" is filler, whilst "Patience" is a slow, acoustic ballad with the same ambition as "Sweet Child" but a completely different sound. The last three tracks on the album (all acoustic) are just awesome. Unlike anything they had released before, or since, they show the band in a much more multi-dimensional light than their debut release did. "Used To Love Her" is jangle-pop at its finest, you can almost picture the band in a hippy commune dancing around whilst recording it (well, alright, maybe you can't but it's a damn near as they ever got to a happy-clappy hippy track. And Axl already had the headband, he was halfway there). It's incredibly upbeat and just a great song. "You're Crazy" is an acoustic-funk (?!) workout that also comes across surprisingly well. The band actually sound better acoustic than they do with the amps plugged in; the songs here sound so much fresher and just plain better than those on "Appetite". "One In A Million" finishes, and it's an anthemic ballad that can stand up there with the likes of "Paradise City" and "November Rain" in terms of quality. A massively-overlooked album, this sounds better today than their debut does. And believe me, nobody was more surprised than I was to find this out.
Well, that's it for part one. I'll be back next week with part two, starting with a look at the "Use Your Illusion" albums. Be sure to tune in to find out what I really think about GNR. As always, feedback is appreciated and I'll catch you all next time. Take it easy,
