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Post by Nudeviking on Feb 26, 2018 19:18:28 GMT -5
I know when to admit defeat. Pitchfork, you win. Obscure Big Star aping British bands that may or may not have somehow influenced R.E.M. were the most important musical contribution of the 80s. Way to ignore the rise of metal and give only token praise to hip-hop (and most of that was directed at the Beastie Boys). Anyway I need a break from that list and all it's lo-fi British jangly pop-rock bands and have decided to take a brief detour to California for some hard rock/metal/whatever. That's right kids, I'm going to listen to the discography of Guns N' Roses! Why Guns N' Roses you ask? Well, for starters I own the bulk of their discography already due to ripping off one of those weird 10 CDs for a penny thing that Columbia House and BMG had in the 90s. Secondly their debut album actually managed to show up on the Pitchfork Most Handsome Albums of the 1980s list, so I figure if I chip away at that list a little while doing other stuff that's like killing two birds with one stone. Also I've never listened to Chinese Democracy and at this point figure I need an excuse to do so. So there you go. Guns N' Roses are coming. It's a pretty short discography, so I figure I'll probably wrap it all up over the month of March, but who knows. DiscographyAppetite for Destruction (1987) G N' R Lies (1988) Use Your Illusion I (1991) Use Your Illusion II (1991) "The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993) Chinese Democracy (2008)
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Post by Nudeviking on Mar 2, 2018 0:42:42 GMT -5
Appetite For Destruction (1987)Time for some Guns N' Roses. I first heard Appetite For Destruction at some point in elementary school. One of my friends had an older brother who played it for us and I ended up with a dubbed cassette of it that I listened to until I replaced that record industry killing home recording with a CD copy I bought as one of the 10 CDs for a penny I selected when scamming Columbia House or BMG or whoever it was that I scammed for random Guns N' Roses and Screaming Trees CDs in the mid-90s. Anyway we've got a collection of solid rock jams here to look at, on the LP they're divided into Side G and Side R, apparently divided into songs about the scumminess and violence of city life and songs about fucking respectively. It's time for Appetite For Destruction baby! Pre-Existing Prejudices
I have heard this album countless times in my life and am of the mind that it remains one of the finest hard rock albums of all times. Songs
"Welcome to the Jungle" The intro of this song is one of the finest song intros, nay, one of the finest album intros of all times. Everything about this song is great. Great riffs. Great lyrics. Great goddamn guitar solos. Great cowbell. The mellow cooldown part in the middle is also fantastic. YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE?! YOU'RE IN THE JUNGLE BAYBAY! YOU'RE GONNA DIE! "It's So Easy" Goddamn is this awesome! The chorus to this song is huge, plus the 13 year old in me still thinks the "fuck off" part still rules. "Nightrain" WOO! Songs about drinking shitty alcohol that I didn't realize were about drinking shitty alcohol until I was much much older. More quality guitar work. Both riffs and licks alike are awesome. "Out Ta Get Me" Kind of generic rock riff here but Slash's guitar heroics make up for it. This song is about how people (probably cops) give Axl Rose a hard time for apparently no real reason since he's "fuckin' innocent." "Mr. Brownstone" Quasi-blues riff with a Bo Diddley beat. The lyrics are about doing smack. I really liked this song a lot before I had any idea what it was actually about and would walk around as a towheaded moppet singing, "We've been dancing with Mr. Brownstone!" which probably isn't the greatest thing for a little kid to be singing. I still think it's a pretty solid song. "Paradise City" What a perfect pop-rock song this is! Normally I can't deal with seven minute songs but this one is rocking enough and has enough stuff going on that it never gets dull. There's a random synth part and a false ending before they rev things up with double time drumming and guitar wailing. "My Michelle" The lyrics to this are sleazy as fuck about porno dads and dead moms and girls doing dope (the titular Michelle). You know, your standard issue Guns N' Roses shit. The riffs on this song are absolutely monstrous which cause this to rise above "generic 80s metal sleaze," into a really good song about porn dads and girls on smack. "Think About You" This is kind of a weird song. There's a jangly guitar part and handclaps and lyrics about love and shit. It's a fine song but it doesn't really feel like a Guns N' Roses song and seems out of place between the juggernauts of "My Michelle," and "Sweet Child O' Mine." "Sweet Child O' Mine" Another perfect rock song. The riffs and verses are great. The chorus is an all-time classic. The solo kicks all kinds of ass and then we get the "Where do we go now," part which is maybe the greatest song chunk ever chunked on to a rock album. "You're Crazy" Frantic blues riffs. Lyrics about about a woman that's "fuckin' crazy." This is one of the few weak songs on this album. It's not really bad or anything it's just nothing special. "Anything Goes" Generic sleazy 80s hard-rock. There's a random talkbox in it. This is easily the worst song on this album. Again, it's not really a bad song, it's just kind of there taking up space on an otherwise stellar album. "Rocket Queen" Random fucking happens during the song. Apparently this was real fucking recorded because Axl Rose was a man with a dream, a dream of ending a record released by a major record label with the sounds of him fucking his drummer's girlfriend unbeknownst to that drummer. It's good to have dreams. So how is the song when removed from the cuckolding? It's pretty good. The back half is especially good with decent riffs and a pretty solid vocal melody. Final Thoughts
This is still a goddamn fantastic hard rock album. Sure some of the lyrics are probably "problematic" in 2018 and Axl Rose has spent the majority of his career being either a primadonna or a complete asshole, but a lot of these songs are all time classics that hold up and sound as fresh today as they did 30 years ago. There's a reason people eagerly awaited the release of Chinese Democracy and this album is a big part of the reason why. Go listen to this album now! Best Song: "It's So Easy" Worst Song: "Anything Goes"
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Post by Powerthirteen on Mar 2, 2018 0:50:06 GMT -5
I know when to admit defeat. Pitchfork, you win. Obscure Big Star aping British bands that may or may not have somehow influenced R.E.M. were the most important musical contribute of the 80s. Way to ignore the rise of metal and give only token praise to hip-hop (and most of that was directed at the Beastie Boys). Anyway I need a break from that list and all it's lo-fi British jangly pop-rock bands and have decided to take a brief detour to California for some hard rock/metal/whatever. That's right kids, I'm going to listen to the discography of Guns N' Roses! Why Guns N' Roses you ask? Well, for starters I own the bulk of their discography already due to ripping off one of those weird 10 CDs for a penny thing that Columbia House and BMG had in the 90s. Secondly their debut album actually managed to show up on the Pitchfork Most Handsome Albums of the 1980s list, so I figure if I chip away at that list a little while doing other stuff that's like killing two birds with one stone. Also I've never listened to Chinese Democracy and at this point figure I need an excuse to do so. So there you go. Guns N' Roses are coming. It's a pretty short discography, so I figure I'll probably wrap it all up over the month of March, but who knows. DiscographyAppetite for Destruction (1987) G N' R Lies (1988) Use Your Illusion I (1991) Use Your Illusion II (1991) "The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993) Chinese Democracy (2008) I knew the Pitchfork list sucked butts when the only Springsteen album on it was Nebraska. This is a way better list.
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Post by Nudeviking on Mar 2, 2018 0:56:41 GMT -5
I know when to admit defeat. Pitchfork, you win. Obscure Big Star aping British bands that may or may not have somehow influenced R.E.M. were the most important musical contribute of the 80s. Way to ignore the rise of metal and give only token praise to hip-hop (and most of that was directed at the Beastie Boys). Anyway I need a break from that list and all it's lo-fi British jangly pop-rock bands and have decided to take a brief detour to California for some hard rock/metal/whatever. That's right kids, I'm going to listen to the discography of Guns N' Roses! Why Guns N' Roses you ask? Well, for starters I own the bulk of their discography already due to ripping off one of those weird 10 CDs for a penny thing that Columbia House and BMG had in the 90s. Secondly their debut album actually managed to show up on the Pitchfork Most Handsome Albums of the 1980s list, so I figure if I chip away at that list a little while doing other stuff that's like killing two birds with one stone. Also I've never listened to Chinese Democracy and at this point figure I need an excuse to do so. So there you go. Guns N' Roses are coming. It's a pretty short discography, so I figure I'll probably wrap it all up over the month of March, but who knows. DiscographyAppetite for Destruction (1987) G N' R Lies (1988) Use Your Illusion I (1991) Use Your Illusion II (1991) "The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993) Chinese Democracy (2008) I knew the Pitchfork list sucked butts when the only Springsteen album on it was Nebraska. This is a way better list. The deeper I got into that list the more glaring certain omissions became. Even though some of the deeper cut albums that showed up were okay, the fact that there were a half dozen albums of 80s jangle pop that wasn't R.E.M. while Born in the USA, Madonna, and the entire genre of heavy metal got left of the list is pretty egregious. One album in and I'm already happier that I decided to just listen to G N' R instead. Up through at least the Use Your Illusions are pretty great.
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Post by Powerthirteen on Mar 2, 2018 11:43:04 GMT -5
I knew the Pitchfork list sucked butts when the only Springsteen album on it was Nebraska. This is a way better list. The deeper I got into that list the more glaring certain omissions became. Even though some of the deeper cut albums that showed up were okay, the fact that there were a half dozen albums of 80s jangle pop that wasn't R.E.M. while Born in the USA, Madonna, and the entire genre of heavy metal got left of the list is pretty egregious. One album in and I'm already happier that I decided to just listen to G N' R instead. Up through at least the Use Your Illusions are pretty great. "We made a list of the best 80's albums and the only Springsteen album is Nebraska" is a very obvious sign of "We only care about a particular kind of album and everything else is dumb." Also, I'm really looking forward to maybe ten years from now, when the world's arenas finally stop playing the same old "jock jamz" and lifting the curse of over-exposure will lead to a whole wave of people going back to, like, "Welcome To The Jungle" and "Highway To Hell" with fresh ears and hearing, again, how fucking excellent some of those songs were before we learned not to hear them.
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Post by ganews on Mar 3, 2018 9:16:26 GMT -5
Also, I'm really looking forward to maybe ten years from now, when the world's arenas finally stop playing the same old "jock jamz" and lifting the curse of over-exposure will lead to a whole wave of people going back to, like, "Welcome To The Jungle" and "Highway To Hell" with fresh ears and hearing, again, how fucking excellent some of those songs were before we learned not to hear them. I will still listen to "Welcome To The Jungle" or the rest of this album with pleasure, but "Paradise City" is probably #3 in my pantheon of songs I wish to never hear again (behind "Back in Black" and "Sweet Home Alabama"). It's got a damn gym coach whistle in it.
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Post by Nudeviking on Mar 5, 2018 2:37:35 GMT -5
G N' R Lies (1988)Released in 1988, G N' R lies was something of a stopgap. The first half of the album was their debut EP, Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide, in full while and the second half was a handful of acoustic tracks including one that appeared in a more rockin' form on Appetite for Destruction. This album had "Patience," on it though so it sold like a bajillion copies. I, never cared much for it though and if I hadn't paid 1/10 of a cent for it I probably would have felt ripped off. Pre-Existing Prejudices
I have not yet listened to Chinese Democracy so what I am about to write could very well change before this project comes to a close, but this was always my least favorite Guns N' Roses album. The first half (the material that originated on their pre-Appetite for Destruction EP, Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide) is mediocre hair metal with crowd noise dubbed over it. The second half of the album is a lot of acoustic guitar strum fuckery, which I need very little of in my life. Songs
"Reckless Life" We get some canned crowd noise and someone yelling, "Hey fuckers! Suck on Guns N' Fuckin' Roses!" before we get some generic 80s hard rock riffage. The overdubbed crowd noise continues throughout the song but it's low enough in the mix that it doesn't distract from the face melting guitar solos or make the singing hard to hear. "Nice Boys" The previous track segues directly into this. There's more overdubbed cheering. The lyrics are about how nice boys don't play rock and/or roll. This is super generic hard rock with lyrics about rock. "Move To The City" Oh fuck a horn section. Other than that this is yet another generic 80s hard rock with overdubbed crowd noise. "Mama Kin" "This is a song about your fucking mother." It's also a cover of an Aerosmith song. It's a fine cover of an okay Aerosmith song I guess, about on par with the sort of thing you could probably hear an Aerosmith tribute band in Your Town, USA do on any given night of the week. "Patience" This was the sole single on this album so it's probably the reason people bought this album in such vast quantities when it came out. I never really thought this song was all that great. The whistling in the beginning was kind of stupid and the bulk of the song is just boring acoustic guitar strum fuckery but the last minute and a half or so where the rest of the band sings the chorus and Axl goes off on that "I'VE BEEN WALKIN' THE STREETS AT NIGHT!" tangent is pretty decent I guess. "Used To Love Her" "I used to love her but I had to kill her," sings Axl Rose repeatedly in this little ditty. Before you get all up in arms this song was about a dog, not a woman, which I guess makes it less horrific than it would it otherwise be. "You're Crazy" There was a faster, more generic rocking version of this song on Appetite for Destruction. I didn't think it was a particularly good song there and here it's even less good. It kind of reminds me of a Jane's Addiction song with the way Axl sings and all the maracas or shakers and bongos and shit they've got going on here. "One In a Million" More whistling and bongos. This is a boring, boring song with ugly lyrics that are homophobic, racist, and anti-immigrant. I kind of wonder what Slash, who's half-black, thought about a song that randomly dropped the n-word. Anyway it's a shit song with horrible lyrics and then there's a piano outro and the album is over. Final Thoughts
This is a pretty mediocre album. "Patience" is good enough strum fuckery if you're into that kind of thing but other than that this is a pretty mediocre album. The songs from Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide are kind of interesting to listen to once or twice to hear what G N' R sounded like before breaking big, but none of those songs can hold a candle to even the worst song off Appetite for Destruction. As for the remaining acoustic tracks they're just okay at best and outright awful at worst. Best Song: "Patience" Worst Song: "One In a Million"
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Post by Il sole sotto la terra on Mar 5, 2018 13:18:07 GMT -5
"It's So Easy" Goddamn is this awesome! The chorus to this song is huge, plus the 13 year old in me still thinks the "fuck off" part still rules. So you respect youtube=96?
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Post by Nudeviking on Mar 5, 2018 19:20:12 GMT -5
"It's So Easy" Goddamn is this awesome! The chorus to this song is huge, plus the 13 year old in me still thinks the "fuck off" part still rules. So you respect youtube=96? I'd be a fool not to.
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Post by Powerthirteen on Mar 5, 2018 23:02:08 GMT -5
"Patience" is such a frigging dumb song. Far and away the most disappointing thing likely to come next when a DJ says "Up next, Guns N Roses."
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Mar 8, 2018 0:49:45 GMT -5
I'd never listened to G N' R Lies before, and I guess I really wasn't missing much. I think "Patience" is a perfectly decent song, but honestly, it's not something I need to hear any more often than I hear it on the radio. The front half definitely shows early Guns N' Roses as being just a thoroughly less interesting band, making even "Mama Kin", which I think is probably Aerosmith's best song, pretty dull, and holy shit, Axl Roses vocal affectations while singing are obnoxious as fuck here. And "One In A Million", the only other song I'd heard before because I was curious to learn just how fashy it was (the answer being extremely fashy), is generic garbage musically, and doesn't even make fucking sense (also, his very specific complaints about black people in general remind me of Andy Daly's character trying to be more racist on Review, only Axl Rose is a real person). This is overall a pretty garbage album.
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Post by Dellarigg on Mar 9, 2018 11:43:29 GMT -5
I'll go to bat for Nice Boys. Cover of a song by that Australian band who aren't AC/DC, though I prefer the Guns n' Roses version.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Mar 10, 2018 4:34:28 GMT -5
I realized that I'd never listened to "Lies" before, so I just listened to the whole thing. Nah. It's shockingly dull. I also hated "Patience" when it came out, and listening to it again now did not change that opinion. And then I fund out it's maybe the best song on the album? Yeesh. Yeah, boring and generic about sum it up.
I do quite like "Appetite for Destruction" though. I think that one is fun. Though, count me as another who can't stand "Paradise City".
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Post by Nudeviking on Mar 12, 2018 7:25:50 GMT -5
Guns N' Roses - Use Your Illusion I (1991) In 1991 Guns N' Roses, or perhaps their record company, decided that they loved money very much and so released not one, but two albums: Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II instead of going the more traditionally overindulgent route and releasing a slightly less expensive double album. Axl & Co. would claim that this was to save fans the burden of purchasing a double album but there is no one in the world who only owns one of the Use Your Illusion albums. If you bought one you were also buying the other. Because they elected to release these albums as "stand alone albums" I'm reviewing them as such. This is the first one aka Use Your Illusion I. Pre-Existing PrejudicesThis and/or its companion album were in my boombox for a decent amount of time circa 1992 or 1993, whenever I scammed a BMG record club thing. I am of the mind that between this and Use Your Illusion II there was probably a lot of chaff that should have been separated from the wheat so to speak, but think GnR did a solid job of splitting up the albums so fans would be forced to buy both because they each had a handful of great songs. In a world where the glass is half-empty both albums also had a lot of lesser tracks. Songs"Right Next Door to Hell" Dickfucking awesome bass lick in the intro. This is punk as fuck. The guitar solo's a bit formulaic but works with what this song is. All things considered this is a great opening track and one I kind of forgot about. "Dust N' Bones" Honky tonk piano. Saloon blues sleaze guitar. Very of its time. It not awful or anything, but I'm not all about it. "Live and Let Die" I always preferred this cover to the original. Maybe it's because my disdain for Paul McCartney due to his involvement with the single worst song ever recorded in the history of man. Maybe it's because this one sounds way more menacing. I don't know. "Don't Cry (Original)" This was all over the radio and MTV circa this album being new. Generally when that's the case I find myself hating the song due to over exposure, but I still think this song's pretty great. "Perfect Crime" On an album with so many legitimate monster hits, this song's kind of an also ran. The guitar solo's not bad but other than that it's just kind of here. "You Ain't The First" Requisite boring acoustic number. "Bad Obsession" Blues harmonica and cowbell and shit. This sounds like Georgia Satellites. The lyrics are about being on dope I suppose. I assume that most Guns N' Roses songs are either about being on dope, being wronged by women, wanting to fist fight someone, or are merely one of Axl's weird, racist screeds set to music. "Back Off Bitch" Generic hard rock with vile lyrics about being wronged by a woman. This is kind of shitty. "Double Talkin' Jive" Axl Rose sounds like a snakeman here. That's a fine thing to sounds like on a sleazy rock n' roll song I guess. Very fine guitar solo. There's random flamenco guitar at the end for some reason. Oh right because this is a double album with like 35 songs or something. Of course there's randomly flamenco guitar on one of the tracks. "November Rain" Having now listened to the entire discography of Queen I kind of see what they were going for here. It's overlong and kind of pretentious but oddly enough doesn't bother me the way a lot of other rock suites don't. I guess it's the numerous meedly meedly guitar solos and how much ass the "Don't you think that you need somebody? Don't you think that you need someone," part of the song kicks. It's not a song that I'm going to listen to on repeat, but if it shows up on an iPod or the radio or something I'll give it a listen. "The Garden" Alice Cooper and the dude from Blind Melon show up here. Musically it's half acoustic guitar strumfuckery half riff rock and Slash playing face-melting guitar solos. Alice Cooper sings about fucking a blonde haired gypsy in a garden at one point. I don't really hate this but think it probably goes on a bit longer than it needs to. "Garden of Eden" Oh fuck I total forgot this song existed. There's weird Pop-Up Video noises in the background and Axl and Duff bellowing about being "lost in the Garden of Eden," and how no one is going to believe it. I love this song. It sounds like being 13 years old and skateboarding in the suburbs. "Don't Damn Me" Just a random rock song until we get to the part in the middle where things slow down and random rock organ shows up. This slow part is pretty solid as is the face melting guitar solo that shows up and the tasty bass licks towards the end. The random riff rock stuff surrounding these bright spots is less great. "Smoke 'em if ya got 'em." "Bad Apples" Reminds me of NRBQ. This is not what I want to hear Guns N' Roses do. "Dead Horse" More acoustic guitar strumfuckery starts things off but after some random spoken word nonsense we get hard and heavy riff rock about Axl Rose meeting "an old cowboy." We go back to the acoustic strumfuckery at the end of the song and then get some fast forwarding noise. "Coma" This is a weird ass song. It's like 11 minutes long and there isn't a chorus. We do get random heartbeats and hospital equipment noise though. Random pitch shifted monster vocals and people bantering about medical jargon. Random women show up towards at the end and yell at Axl about "sex" and other stuff. This is a weird ass song. Final ThoughtsSixteen songs is too damn long for an album if it's not an 80s hardcore punk album where every song's like a minute forty seconds, especially when there are a couple songs that crack the nine minute range. There are a couple songs that could easily be pruned from this album without any negative impact on the overall flow of the album. That being said, the highs here are really fucking high and this album is pretty goddamn essential listening for people who like rock and or roll. Best Song: "Right Next Door to Hell" Worst Song: Back Off Bitch"
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Post by [Citrus] on Mar 12, 2018 18:56:20 GMT -5
My brother owned only Use Your Illusion II for some reason. I think that his friend owned Use Your Illusion I and they made each other copies of the one they didn't have?
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Mar 12, 2018 19:21:14 GMT -5
Guns N' Roses - Use Your Illusion I (1991) In 1991 Guns N' Roses, or perhaps their record company, decided that they loved money very much and so released not one, but two albums: Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II instead of going the more traditionally overindulgent route and releasing a slightly less expensive double album. Axl & Co. would claim that this was to save fans the burden of purchasing a double album but there is no one in the world who only owns one of the Use Your Illusion albums. If you bought one you were also buying the other. Because they elected to release these albums as "stand alone albums" I'm reviewing them as such. This is the first one aka Use Your Illusion I. It's just like Pokemon. Nintendo just wanted to help out consumers by not making gamers buy one Pokemon game with all the Pocket Monsters, and instead creating two games which were exactly the same except each had a different like 80% of the Pocket Monsters instead of an unwieldy 100%. Likewise, Guns N' Roses surely just wanted to help their fans out by releasing two average albums with like five good songs and eight shitty ones each instead of one album with like ten good songs on it, so they wouldn't be overwhelmed by the burden an album with ten good songs and three shitty ones and not having to ever listen to like thirteen other shitty songs..
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Post by Nudeviking on Mar 12, 2018 19:29:09 GMT -5
My brother owned only Use Your Illusion II for some reason. I think that his friend owned Use Your Illusion I and they made each other copies of the one they didn't have?
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Post by Lurky McLurk on Mar 17, 2018 11:55:05 GMT -5
I realized that I'd never listened to "Lies" before, so I just listened to the whole thing. Nah. It's shockingly dull. I also hated "Patience" when it came out, and listening to it again now did not change that opinion. And then I fund out it's maybe the best song on the album? Yeesh. Yeah, boring and generic about sum it up. I do quite like "Appetite for Destruction" though. I think that one is fun. Though, count me as another who can't stand "Paradise City". I've never listened to "Lies" before either. I don't think I'm going to bother now.
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Post by Nudeviking on Mar 19, 2018 2:06:01 GMT -5
Use Your Illusion II (1991) The second half of the Use Your Illusion duology, Use Your Illusion II was also released in 1991 by Axl and the Boys, as mentioned in my review of Use Your Illusion I, this split was allegedly done with the fans in mind. In an article from Rolling Stone, Slash is quoted as saying, "There's a ton of material we want to get out, and the problem is, how does one release all of it? You don't make some kid go out and buy a record for $70 if it's your second record," showing us two things: 1. Slash either forgot about or is of the mind that G N' R Lies is completely unessential (I'm of the mind it's probably the later). 2. Slash had absolutely no idea how much records cost in 1991, because while it's true record companies loved price gouging no double album or triple album was going to cost $70 when these albums came out. Regardless, the albums were released as two separate but equal entities with Use Your Illusion II proving to, at least initially, be the more popular of the two albums, entering the Billboard Charts at number one while Use Your Illusion I took the number two spot. This was probably due to the fact that II contained the duology's lead single, "You Could Be Mine." Ultimately both albums would go on to sell some 5.5 million copies a piece. Pre-Existing Prejudices
Like Use Your Illusion I, I listened to this album a lot in the early to mid-90s. Outside of the hits, however, I do not recall a lot of the material featured on this record. There was a lot of filler between these two records if I'm going to be completely honest. Songs
"Civil War" The song starts with a sample from Cool Hand Luke and Axl whistling the melody to "When Johnny Comes Marching Home." There's some mellow acoustic guitar stuff before we get heavy riff rock and face melting guitar solos. This is an anti-war song. Axl sings about how war "feeds the rich while it buries the poor," and about MLK getting assassinated. These are surprisingly woke lyrics from a guy who dropped the n-word on the last album. "14 Years" Izzy Stradlin's on lead vocals here with Axl showing up on the chorus. This is one of the songs I don't really recall being on this album. It's kind of bluesy, with a rollicking piano part, but it's kind of unessential and should have been confined to being a b-side tops. "Yesterdays" This got played a decent amount on the radio, but I never really cared for it. It's a pretty dull power ballad with peak Axl Rose whine vocals. "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" Pretty solid cover of a Bob Dylan song. Automatically an improvement over the original because it doesn't have Bob Dylan singing. It further improves on Dylan's version with some face melting guitar solos. "Get In The Ring" Axl Rose hates a bunch of magazine writers and editors and has a desire to do grievous bodily harm to them. He swears a lot and talk-sings in a robot voice. There's some random audience noise, which if internet lore is to be believed was recorded at a Guns N' Roses show at an outdoor amphitheater near My Town, USA. I liked this song a lot when I was 13 years old because it said "fuck." Now? Not so much. I guess the outro's alright but the song goes on way too long and isn't that great overall. "Shotgun Blues" Straight forward rock and/or roll. It's fine but nothing special. The riffs are fine and the solo's fine. Nothing about it really stands out though. "Breakdown" Whistling and what sounds like a goddamn banjo start things off before we get random piano plinking and power ballad riffs. It's another song that goes on way too long. I checked out mentally for awhile in the middle until the guitar solo and stupid spoken word part show up. "Pretty Tied Up" Sitar all up in this because this is a song on a dual album. The riffs are alright I guess. "Cool ranch dressing." "Locomotive" This is the closest thing to a title track on this album since Axl sings, "You can use your illusion, let it take you where it may. We live and learn and then sometimes it's best to walk away." Anyway this song's pretty boss. There are great guitar and bass riffs and top shelf guitar solos. Like a lot of songs on this album though I'd probably like it more if it was a bit shorter. "So Fine" Piano borecore early on and lyrics about love or heartbreak. It kind of turns into a Johnny Thunders song. I don't think Axl singing lead on a lot of this. Duff or whoever is singing randomly begging, "Guitar come on," before the solo makes me laugh. "Estranged" The beginning piano stuff balladry is kind of boring, but they quickly do away with that and we get some some riff rockin' and primo Axl whining. The piano ballad stuff comes back for the verses but at least we get guitar feedback and shit while that's going on. There's not really any actual chorus to speak of just a lot of verses and then random guitar wailing. There's a jazz piano break in the middle because this a nine minute song on a double album. For a song that's nine minutes long this is pretty good, mostly because of Slash guitaring the fuck out of it. "You Could Be Mine" Terminator Fuckin' Two Bay Bay! This song owns just as hard as it did when I was 12 years old. "Don't Cry (Alternate Lyrics)" The verses here are different and song with a different melody than the version appearing on Use Your Illusion I and MTV circa 1991~1992. Other than that the song is the same. The music is exactly the same as is the singing during the chorus. This is the sort of thing that should have been on the b-side of a single or on some deluxe 10th anniversary edition or something. It's not as good as the real version. "My World" Quasi industrial drum and synth noise and Axl yell raps stuff and someone makes fuck noises in the background. Completely disposable but it's only like a minute long so at least it finishes quickly. Final Thoughts
Like Use Your Illusion I there are some really good songs here, but there's also a lot of filler. Cutting half the songs from these two albums probably would have resulted in a really good LP on par with Appetite for Destruction, but significantly less money for Axl and the boys and isn't that what really matters? I probably prefer Use Your Illusion I to Use Your Illusion II since I think that overall I has a greater number of good songs than II. That being said "You Could Be Mine," is quite possibly my favorite Guns N' Roses song of all so I've got to give props to this album. Best Song: "You Could Be Mine" Worst Song: "My World"
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Post by ganews on Mar 19, 2018 15:36:26 GMT -5
The version of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" belongs in the hall of fame for worst covers. It has the worst Axl Rose slurring/whining (heaven's DOOAAH-WOOOOAHH, HAY HAY, HAY-HAY-hyeah), superfluous gospel choir, pointless mid-song slowdown, and the most annoying sound effect sample in recorded music with that touch-tone phone. It fails the most important criterion for a cover, which is to be able to stand on its own merits apart from the notability of its authorship.
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ArchieLeach
AV Clubber
I talk too much, I worry me to death
Posts: 289
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Post by ArchieLeach on Mar 19, 2018 16:24:16 GMT -5
The version of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" belongs in the hall of fame for worst covers... I will argue the "anything's better than Dylan's singing" trope. Dylan sounds like a freakin' cowboy with dust in his throat on that song. Ain't nobody sings it better.
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Post by [Citrus] on Mar 19, 2018 19:39:56 GMT -5
I remember that Get In the Ring was a song that my brother never listened to when I was around because it had swearing in it and my mom wouldn't approve so it kind of got this mythical quality. I just had to hear this song, entirely because I couldn't.
Then I finally heard it on a day when my mom wasn't at home and it was treated like I was being invited into a special club. And I had to pretend that the song didn't kinda suck.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Mar 21, 2018 1:48:08 GMT -5
The version of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" belongs in the hall of fame for worst covers. It has the worst Axl Rose slurring/whining (heaven's DOOAAH-WOOOOAHH, HAY HAY, HAY-HAY-hyeah), superfluous gospel choir, pointless mid-song slowdown, and the most annoying sound effect sample in recorded music with that touch-tone phone. It fails the most important criterion for a cover, which is to be able to stand on its own merits apart from the notability of its authorship. I don't like the song in any version, but I prefer Dylan's even though I don't like his voice too much. Don't like the G&R cover at all. However, I do like their cover of "Live and Let Die". I have nothing against Paul McCartney, whom I LOVE. But, this cover is really fun. I love how loud and aggressive it is.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Mar 24, 2018 5:57:24 GMT -5
I forgot how unintentionally hilarious Axl Rose's profanity-laced rant is at the very end where he rather anticlimactically says "PUNK!".
Furthermore, I'd forgotten how fucking interminable this album seems. I also don't care a whole lot for Guns N' Roses cover of "Knockin' On Heaven's Door," but compared with most of what comes after ("You Could Be Mine" excepted of course), it seems like a very good song. There are way too many very, very dull, and very, very long songs on this album. "Breakdown" is the worst. At the end when they started up that one piano riff, I was worried that I must have lost all ability to keep track of time, because, surely, I thought, there couldn't be another insufferable section to this song, because it felt like it had been going on for at least 15 minutes, but thankfully, it was only like 20 seconds of bad piano riffs.
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Post by Nudeviking on Apr 10, 2018 2:48:50 GMT -5
"The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993)Ah "The Spaghetti Incident?" Were it not for R.E.M.'s Monster I'd probably declare this album to be the undisputed king of the used record bin. Every used CD bin in the late 90s/early aughts had at least 3 or 4 copies of this album at all times. It makes sense that this is the case because it's not a particularly good album. A collection of cover songs with an album title that came from a food fight that became critical to a lawsuit brought against Guns N' Roses by their former drummer, the album is perhaps best known for the controversy that arose when it was discovered there was a cover of a Charles Manson song contained among the various punk and hard rock covers. The band never toured in support of the album which ended up being the last "real" Guns N' Roses. Pre-Existing Prejudices
I barely remember anything off this album but like all the other non-Chinese Democracy Guns N' Roses albums, purchased this for a penny at some point in the 90s. Looking at the tracklisting in 2018 I am far more familiar with the original versions of most of these songs than I was in 1994 or whenever it was that I purchased this album originally. Songs
"Since I Don’t Have You" G N’ R doing a dead teenager song. "Yup. We’re fucked." This is surprisingly straightforward until we get the weird industrial noise outro. It's not really bad, but kind of an odd choice for a band like Guns N' Roses to cover. "New Rose" This is a cover of The Damned. It's a pretty straight ahead riff rock. Duff is on lead vocals here. He's honestly pretty good. Maybe I should randomly listen to his solo stuff and/or side projects. "Down on the Farm" Some bass tastiness before we get some punk riffs and Axl Rose doing a bad British accent. In spite of all this ridiculousness this song is pretty great. I should probably check out the original version some time. "Human Being" Rock n’ roll piano up in this mug. Holy fuck is that a kazoo?! More hard rock bands need to feature kazoo in their songs. It kind of goes on too long but there's an extended fuckin' around with kazoos part after the song proper ends. "Raw Power" A solid introduction to the Stooges for teenage dirtbags growing up in the early 90s. I had a cassingle of the duet Iggy Pop did with Kate Pierson from The B-52s in maybe 1990 but after I heard this song I actually sought out Raw Power. The Stooges version is a bajillion times better than this but this is not a bad cover or anything. "Ain't It Fun" See the above but replace all references to Iggy Pop/The Stooges with The Dead Boys. This has some other dude on vocals who has not appeared on any other Guns N' Roses song I've listened to to date. So it's not Axl or Duff or Izzy or the dude from Blind Melon. He's not that good. His vocals are pretty barf baggy. "Buick Mackane" Glam sleaze. This is not particularly great but it later caused me some confusion because at the end of this T-Rex cover they do part of Soundgarden's "Big Dumb Sex," so later when I got Louder Than Love I was confused and thought that Soundgarden was borrowing lyrics from "Buick Mackane." Shrug. "Hair of the Dog" This is a mediocre cover of a mediocre song. There's a talkbox solo though so that's pretty good. More songs should have talkbox solos. "Attitude" Metallica did a better job of picking Misfits songs to cover than Guns N' Roses. This is an okay cover of a pretty bad Misfits song. At least it's short. "Black Leather" Slow, sludgy sleaze rock. It sounds like cigarette smoke and Jack Daniel's. It's not a particular interesting song. Just generic hard rock riffs and drum beats with Slash half-assing some guitar heroics. "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" Duff's back on lead vocals. This isn't that bad but there's nothing memorable about it either. I will forget everything about this song immediately after I finish listening to it. "I Don't Care About You" Fuck yeah Fear! I have no idea who is even singing here. It's just a bajillion dudes and ladies yelling "FUCK YOU!" a bunch and someone who doesn't sound like Axl barfbag vocaling about someone sleeping in puke and guys with no legs crawling down the street trying to get something to eat. This is not good but it's punk as fuck which I think was what they were going for so, job well done lads. "Girl Look at Your Game" It's hilarious that such a stupid song caused so much controversy. It's acoustic guitar strumfuckery with laidback bongos and woodblock percussion and stuff while Axl croons about feelings and love and shit. So many early 90s thinkpieces all because this stupid song was written by Charles Manson. Anyway it's not a particularly good song, but not worth any of the ink that was spilled over it, especially since it's not even listed on the album sleeve. That's right kids, we got ourselves a standard issue early 90s secret track! Final Thoughts
This is a pretty unessential Guns N' Roses album unless you're a Guns N' Roses superfan or something. I am not. It's better than G N' R Lies but that's not really saying much. For suburban kids in the 90s it was an okay primer to bands they might not have otherwise known about but this came out at the tail end of 1993 so we were just a couple months off from Green Day bringing punk to the kids anyway so we all probably would have heard The Damned and The Misfits because of them anyway. Anyway it's kind of a bummer that this is more or the end of Guns N' Roses Classic since it's so disposable. Unlike R.E.M.'s Monster, this one actually belongs in the cutout bin at the record store...or better yet the dumpster out back. Best Song: "Down on the Farm" Worst Song: "Girl Look at Your Game"
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Post by Some Kind of Munster on Apr 10, 2018 8:06:47 GMT -5
"The Spaghetti Incident?" (1993)Ah "The Spaghetti Incident?" Were it not for R.E.M.'s Monster I'd probably declare this album to be the undisputed king of the used record bin. Every used CD bin in the late 90s/early aughts had at least 3 or 4 copies of this album at all times. It makes sense that this is the case because it's not a particularly good album. A collection of cover songs with an album title that came from a food fight that became critical to a lawsuit brought against Guns N' Roses by their former drummer, the album is perhaps best known for the controversy that arose when it was discovered there was a cover of a Charles Manson song contained among the various punk and hard rock covers. The band never toured in support of the album which ended up being the last "real" Guns N' Roses. Pre-Existing Prejudices
I barely remember anything off this album but like all the other non-Chinese Democracy Guns N' Roses albums, purchased this for a penny at some point in the 90s. Looking at the tracklisting in 2018 I am far more familiar with the original versions of most of these songs than I was in 1994 or whenever it was that I purchased this album originally. Songs
"Since I Don’t Have You" G N’ R doing a dead teenager song. "Yup. We’re fucked." This is surprisingly straightforward until we get the weird industrial noise outro. It's not really bad, but kind of an odd choice for a band like Guns N' Roses to cover. "New Rose" This is a cover of The Damned. It's a pretty straight ahead riff rock. Duff is on lead vocals here. He's honestly pretty good. Maybe I should randomly listen to his solo stuff and/or side projects. "Down on the Farm" Some bass tastiness before we get some punk riffs and Axl Rose doing a bad British accent. In spite of all this ridiculousness this song is pretty great. I should probably check out the original version some time. "Human Being" Rock n’ roll piano up in this mug. Holy fuck is that a kazoo?! More hard rock bands need to feature kazoo in their songs. It kind of goes on too long but there's an extended fuckin' around with kazoos part after the song proper ends. "Raw Power" A solid introduction to the Stooges for teenage dirtbags growing up in the early 90s. I had a cassingle of the duet Iggy Pop did with Kate Pierson from The B-52s in maybe 1990 but after I heard this song I actually sought out Raw Power. The Stooges version is a bajillion times better than this but this is not a bad cover or anything. "Ain't It Fun" See the above but replace all references to Iggy Pop/The Stooges with The Dead Boys. This has some other dude on vocals who has not appeared on any other Guns N' Roses song I've listened to to date. So it's not Axl or Duff or Izzy or the dude from Blind Melon. He's not that good. His vocals are pretty barf baggy. "Buick Mackane" Glam sleaze. This is not particularly great but it later caused me some confusion because at the end of this T-Rex cover they do part of Soundgarden's "Big Dumb Sex," so later when I got Louder Than Love I was confused and thought that Soundgarden was borrowing lyrics from "Buick Mackane." Shrug. "Hair of the Dog" This is a mediocre cover of a mediocre song. There's a talkbox solo though so that's pretty good. More songs should have talkbox solos. "Attitude" Metallica did a better job of picking Misfits songs to cover than Guns N' Roses. This is an okay cover of a pretty bad Misfits song. At least it's short. "Black Leather" Slow, sludgy sleaze rock. It sounds like cigarette smoke and Jack Daniel's. It's not a particular interesting song. Just generic hard rock riffs and drum beats with Slash half-assing some guitar heroics. "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" Duff's back on lead vocals. This isn't that bad but there's nothing memorable about it either. I will forget everything about this song immediately after I finish listening to it. "I Don't Care About You" Fuck yeah Fear! I have no idea who is even singing here. It's just a bajillion dudes and ladies yelling "FUCK YOU!" a bunch and someone who doesn't sound like Axl barfbag vocaling about someone sleeping in puke and guys with no legs crawling down the street trying to get something to eat. This is not good but it's punk as fuck which I think was what they were going for so, job well done lads. "Girl Look at Your Game" It's hilarious that such a stupid song caused so much controversy. It's acoustic guitar strumfuckery with laidback bongos and woodblock percussion and stuff while Axl croons about feelings and love and shit. So many early 90s thinkpieces all because this stupid song was written by Charles Manson. Anyway it's not a particularly good song, but not worth any of the ink that was spilled over it, especially since it's not even listed on the album sleeve. That's right kids, we got ourselves a standard issue early 90s secret track! Final Thoughts
This is a pretty unessential Guns N' Roses album unless you're a Guns N' Roses superfan or something. I am not. It's better than G N' R Lies but that's not really saying much. For suburban kids in the 90s it was an okay primer to bands they might not have otherwise known about but this came out at the tail end of 1993 so we were just a couple months off from Green Day bringing punk to the kids anyway so we all probably would have heard The Damned and The Misfits because of them anyway. Anyway it's kind of a bummer that this is more or the end of Guns N' Roses Classic since it's so disposable. Unlike R.E.M.'s Monster, this one actually belongs in the cutout bin at the record store...or better yet the dumpster out back. Best Song: "Down on the Farm" Worst Song: "Girl Look at Your Game" I don't think I've ever heard this whole album so I can't comment on the quality of their version of "Attitude" but I have to take exception to you calling it a "pretty bad Misfits song". "Attitude is, in point of fact, a fucking rad Misfits song, and I actually prefer it to any of the songs Metallica covered. (OK, "Die, Die My Darling" is pretty fucking cool too)
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Post by Nudeviking on Apr 10, 2018 8:41:00 GMT -5
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Post by MyNameIsNoneOfYourGoddamnBusin on Apr 10, 2018 18:33:56 GMT -5
I actually more or less liked "Spaghetti Incident," even though I could have done with less Axl and more Duff influence. Loses points for including the worst song in the "dumb classic rock song sub-genre" in "Hair of the Dog" ("Feel Like Makin' Love being a close second for that title), but gains them back for stuff like "Down on the Farm" and "You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory" (I'm a big Johnny Thunders fan if such a thing exists). It's a rare covers record where the song choices don't feel lazy or forced and are instead inspired with deeper cut selections from stuff most music fans hadn't heard of before (bypassing yet another tied version of "Anarchy in the UK" or "God Save the Queen" and replacing it by something from the Professionals---although they used do "Holidays in the Sun" live as of 2014). It's not essential listening or anything even for a punk or GNR fan, but it's a decent covers album.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Apr 10, 2018 21:02:01 GMT -5
Why does the spaghetti on the cover look so disgusting and unappetizing? They were a rich rock band by this point. Surely they could have afforded some nice spaghetti to photograph?
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Post by Nudeviking on Apr 10, 2018 21:39:05 GMT -5
Why does the spaghetti on the cover look so disgusting and unappetizing? They were a rich rock band by this point. Surely they could have afforded some nice spaghetti to photograph? Because this was an album of mostly punk covers. That's punk spaghetti.
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