I was at my Mother In Law’s house last weekend, rifling through some of my wife’s old records which still reside there and there were some gems which I had to take home; Listen Without Prejudice Vol 1 by George Michael, Actually by the Pet Shop Boys, The Innocents by Erasure. And also GnR Lies by Guns and Roses.
Man. I have not played that thing since I was at school in the 80s. What did a man in his late 40s think of something he hadn’t played since his late teens? This extremely misogynistic, homophobic, extremely snotty thing? With racist undertones? My brain was yelling “this is all shite” but my heart really liked it, if I am honest.
I couldn’t play it in front of people I work with. I could play it with my wife, it is her’s after all, but lordy, I genuinely feel guilt about how much I like a thing which every critical faculty I own tells me is genuinely worthless.
Pop music? Bloody hell. Anyway the worst song is One In A Million by far. And I still got a terrible profane thrill.
One in a Million was left off the Super Deluxe Edition of Appetite for Destruction as it was a bit much even for the former “most dangerous band in the world”.
Which makes me think who are the “most dangerous band in the world” nowadays?
Dunno, but I bet @dai took his daughter to see ’em.
Rolling Stones of course. Unfortunately we didn’t get to Hyde Park or Anfield this year, bloody Covid!
I’d say The Who, given the way Rog swings his mic around. Could have someone’s eye out. Nearly did in fact.
BTS, once they’ve had basic training.
Most dangerous band in the world? That’s easy, The Bachelors.
Appetite For Destruction was 35 years old last month. Still a great album, although it tails off a bit at the end.
Don’t think they’ve ever topped (or actually got close) to that debut.
Lies was a stop gap – they didn’t really have enough new material to warrant anything else.
Then came money, fame, drugs, and self indulgence.
Did Use Your Illusion really need to be a double?
Then another lack of new material led to another stop gap with the Spaghetti Incident
(I quite like that album)
Was Chinese Democracy worth the wait? Nah
Illusion would have been an excellent single CD. November Rain has to be one of the most toe curling songs ever.
The answer to the question “Did Insert-Name-of-Album really need to be a double?” is almost always no.
Use Your Illusion was two doubles. I played all of it last month. Sheer rampaging ego put to music.
I thought Paradise City was great at the time, Axl’s voice is generally unbearable for me though
Ain’t that the truth. The noise of fingernails being dragged down a blackboard is more bearable than Mr Rose’s high-pitched, intensely whiney singing voice.
It’s that bit in the middle
of November Rain where he starts wailing like a cat. Almost a slowed down and higher pitch Charlie Says after something nasty happened to him
In a competitive field, he most sings like a bloke with his knackers in a vice. The vocals (and the tool producing them) are the worst thing about GnR.
Someone suggested to me back in the nineties that Axl Rose’s vocals sound like a grown up Eric Cartman. It has stuck with me to this day. Especially on…
“Knock knock knockin’ on heaven’s dooowaohh!”
Oh my God, they killed Dylan
Racist “undertones”?
Worst tribute band ever!
My Perfect Cousin becomes much more sinister when they change the lyrics to make it about racial purity..
The Sin of White Pride?
I was thinking the other day that when a band has a massive career defining album, everything that follows often falls into its shadow, and the high expectations are often not lived up to – Hysteria, Appetite, the Black album (not the Prince one!) – no doubt there are many more examples.
Difficulty with Buns and Toasties is their career defining album was their debut.
Most bands will go through a rise, peak, and fall.
They did it in 40 minutes
Good point – I can’t off hand think of a more successful debut album that really encapsulated a band’s whole career.
The Darkness – Permission To Land. A belter from start to finish and something they haven’t got close to since.
Spot on. Like the Scissor Sisters debut, pretty much a greatest hits out of the gate.
Dare was better than Hysteria.
Pop Kid joke, there.
It’s a late 80s and 90s thing. By then, a very successful album would mean you were on tour for at least 3 years promoting it and milking it for singles. You lost all momentum.
I think the band that managed it best was U2. They seemed to realise that the 90s were going to be different than the 80s and reinvented themselves with Achtung Baby, which is a very different record than The Joshua Tree or Rattle & Hum.
That’s an interesting comment. I’d never really thought about it but I think you are right about the release/tour pattern in 80s/90s rock. I’m not sure if this is still the same today, I’m not really up to speed with today’s acts.
U2 I think did an interesting thing though, with both Rattle and Hum and Zooropa – both kind of quick projects, slightly experimental, not meant to be flagpole releases, put out while still in the middle of the big tours for Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby respectively. It was a good way of keeping the material flowing and continuing to sell product.
😃 you are certainly correct there!
I don’t feel guilty about anything, even things I probably should feel guilty about.
You devil.
You devil!
Isn’t that what Norman Bates would say?
November Rain is a masterpiece. Especially the video, Slash soloing outside a desert church is iconic, fag never leaving his lips
That song was inspired by the Pet Shop Boys My October Symphony. Axl was a very unexpected PSB fan
Yep. He was nutty for late 80s/early 90s electro pop. His all-time favourite single is Adamski’s chart topper Killer.
Not many people know that “Axl Rose” is, in fact, an anagram of “Seal Rox!”
The best version of November Rain …