Listening Post: Guns N Roses

I think everyone had three albums in their collection in 1991. Nirvana's Nevermind. Pearl Jam's 10. And Appetite for Destruction. If you were like me, you also bought the Illusion twins but if you were reallllly like me, you never listened to any of those albums all the way through. Buying music as a 25 year old was almost a habit. And one that I was shedding and wouldn't return to until a decade later.
But I have them, dammit. So....what to think?




Guns n Roses - Appetite for Destruction - 1987

The tail end of hair metal. One year earlier and GnR are a hair band. Albeit one of the best. Look at Axl's hair in that video. Nirvana would sweep all of GnR's brethren away in one stroke, leaving them at the top of the mainstream maximum rock pile. But in 87, this was the answer to all that Joshua Tree posing.
Does it hold up? Sure. Is it great? Yeah. Could it be trimmed? Couldn't anything from the 80's be?
The surprise to me isn't how great the whole album is, it is, but just how it's an obvious grafting of punk and sleaze to Aerosmith. In fact, if you mixed ____ punk band, with Motley Crue and Aerosmith you get Guns N Roses's first album.
it's great.

Grade: A+
A Side: Welcome to the Jungle, Sweet Child O' Mine, Mr. Brownstone, Paradise City
BlindSide: Nighttrain, Rocket Queen, It's So easy.




Guns N Roses - G n' R Lies - 1988

The one with Patience on it. And, if there is any doubt about the slavish adoration for the Toxic Twins, there's a rousing cover of Aerosmith's "Mama Kin". You can get those tracks elsewhere, this is unnecessary now.

Grade: C
A Side: Patience, Used to Love Her
BlindSide: Mama Kin
DownSide: Nice Boys



Guns N Roses - Use Your Illusion 1 - 1991

For my money, Illusion 1 is a more rewarding spinner than the debut record. But it's also a different record. The band has, for the most part, shed it's punk roots (Right Next Door to Hell notwithstanding) and embraced all sorts of rock themes. It's an aggressive record but, sonically, spectacular. "Perfect Crimes" could be a Motorhead track, then followed by the Stones-esque "You Ain't The First".
Sure, the singles are what we all remember, but there are muscular tracks like "Bad Apples" and "Dead Horse" that keep the record pounding long into it's 60th minute of play. I think Matt Sorum really fits the sound the band was going for and "Back Off Bitch" would never have gotten the same treatment by Steven Adler. The same goes for the energy of Double Talkin Jive, a real centerpiece on an album filled with them.
You get your money's worth with UYI1, it's relentless and devastating. In 1973, Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die" came out. By 1991 it was schmaltz. Not only does GNR update it for the times, it STILL, 19 years later, packs a whallop. It's a testament that the rest of the album lives up to that track. I feel like this is the real GnR classic.

Grade: A+
ASide: Don't Cry, November Rain, Right Next Door to Hell, Live and Let Die, Back Off Bitch
BlindSide: Dead Horse, Bad Apples, Dust n Bones, Bad Obsession, Double Talkin' Jive, Don't Damn Me



Guns N Roses - Use Your Illusion 2 - 1991

Opening with an excerpt from Cool Hand Luke, "Civil War" opens the second set of 1991's GnR offerings like the second act of a big rock show. Bigger, if that's even possible, than the first set, this is the more methodical, anthemic GnR. The one that bridges the connective tissue between Aerosmith and Queen, the band's semi-disparate influences. I say that because while Queen's Brian May could shred with the best of them (Check out Dead on Time from Jazz) it's not May that excites Axl. It's Freddie Mercury. And he's brought the pomp in spades, brilliantly offset by Slash's guitar heroics and the best rhythm section of 80's stadium rock. Evidenced by the jaunty 70s rock of "14 Years", the band hasn't lost it's way, but the bloat of pablum like "Yesterdays" might indicate that they were a little tired and should have waited to put out a B-Side, rarities, thing, thought I do have a soft spot for their version of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", so much so that my own band's "1000 Years" could be considered a direct rip. Influence. i meant influence. The song serves as Rose's answer to Bon Jovi's "Blaze of Glory". But is there anything as awful in the band's collection as "Get in the Ring"? The fact that the music is wasted on terrible lyrics and poorly over processed spoken word/rap is a testament to just how good the band is. But the bloat that follows feels more like filler than joyous rock n roll carnage. Except for the occasional bright spots like the trip-metal of "Locomotive" and the excess but exciting, "Breakdown", the albums lags more than one would hope, considering it's brother. And at least that record didn't have a "So Fine" to drag it to the maws of crap. A song that even latter day Crue would have rejected. The bloated "Estranged" is no real worthy successor to "Don't Cry" and "November Rain", of which it is supposed to be the closer of a trilogy. And the theme to Terminator 2, "You Could Be Mine" felt like rock-by-numbers in 91 and still does today. And it goes without saying that "My World" lays the groundwork for what Chinese Democracy was going to be all about. All you had to do was listen to that.
But don't. It's awful.

Grade: C-
ASide: Civil War, Knockin' On Heaven's Door
BlindSide: Breakdown, Locomotive
DownSide: Yesterdays, Get in the Ring, So Fine, My World

It should go without saying that The Spaghetti Incident? is a covers album and I am loathe to give it any of my time and Chinese Democracy is GnR is brand name only.