An Afternoon with Axl Rose – Live Blogging the Gn’R Catalogue

i’ve never listened to the entire g n’r discography before and i thought that today, the release date of the long-awaited (by some) chinese democracy, would be a fitting time to evaluate their catalogue and take a look back before we see what the future holds. my live-critiquing of their main albums will culminate in my review of the new album. check back often, this is “live!!!”

Appetite for Destruction (1987)

3:36pm – ‘welcome to the jungle’ – well this sounds familiar. it’s a bit strange to hear this song and the other singles in a context outside of the radio or music-television. i’m always reminded of big-hair-axl when i hear this song.

3:45 – ‘aeroplane’ rhymes with ’spacebrain.’ of course!
3:48 – ‘out ta get me’ = early signs of axl paranoia and agoraphobia?
3:52 – ‘mr. brownstone’ well so far this album has been much better than i thought it’d be.
3:54 – ‘paradise city’ – synths! i hadn’t noticed those before for some reason. so far i like how the “grit” and “sleaze” balances out the generous levels of the usual “sex, drugs, etc” of 80s rock.  i also like how i’m already halfway through the album and haven’t even started looking at my watch yet. as far as pacing is concerned, this album is relentless. ‘paradise city’ is the longest cut on the album at 6:46, but because it’s sequenced properly and placed as the second track on the album, it really doesn’t diminish any of the propulsion that the rest of the album has in store.
4:08 – oooooh ’sweet child of mine’ – my inner university student goes crazy!
4:14 – i’m a bit surprised by the punk-infused ‘you’re crazy.’ didn’t see that one coming. this song is really stones-y… if the stones were fronted by a helium-filled-iggy pop.
4:18 – ‘anything goes’ ah, here’s some of that swagger i’ve been hearing so much about. in a way, i think i might be setting myself up for disapointment by listening to the g’n'r catalogue before i listen to chinese democracy… maybe i should’ve been listening to it starting with the most recent…
4:23 – ‘rocket queen’ – ah… the infamous sex noises. well that’s certainly one way to end an album… this song is a bit much for me, especially acting as the final statement of the album. it seems to be a bit of a retraction, given the gutless misogyny, aggression and viceral critiquing of soulless, urban life that i just heard a few minutes before.

between this album and metallica’s black album, you’ve got two strong arguments against 80s pop-metal, as well as two albums that anticipate the grunge explosion.

G N’ R Lies (1989)

4:40 – ‘reckless life’ – the energy is here, but axl turns the focus to himself, so now he’s making assured claims about being reckless than actually sounding that way.
4:45 – ‘nice boys’ – lame song, but i won’t knock their choice in covers just yet (i’ll leave that till we get to the spaghetti incident). especially since the band sounds really solid here.
4:47 – ‘move to the city’ – this would’ve fit right in on appetite… i’m not sure if it was written afterwards or not included for another reason… the way axl stutters and sounds like a harmonica is brilliant.
4:51 – ‘mama kin’ – a nice nod to aerosmith and their clear influence over more than g n’r’s fashion sense.
4:55 – ‘patience’ – *breathy* paaatttiiiennccccce …. ok so not only can they be raucous, but they’re also introspective! sensitive! patient! a call out to the lady fans to join them backstage. they won’t bite.
5:00 – ‘used to love her (so i had to kill her)’ – ironic? maybe? the juxtaposition of this song and the one that precedes it is hilarious if nothing more than unfortunate. reminds me of weird al’s ‘i’m so sick of you’ and other hilarious break-up anthems.
5:07 – ‘you’re crazy’ – this ‘bluesier’ version of the song is perhaps the best song on this record, but is also the only one that was also on appetite for destruction.
5:10 – ‘one in a million’ – being ironic again? i hope. but as a band revered for their ‘honesty’ on their last album, ironic detachment is a bit of a stretch. regardless of the offencive lyrics, the acoustic sound really isn’t working for me here either.

what the heck happened? this release is really scatterbrained and a bizarre follow-up to such a strong debut. i’m really not sure what to think at this point. onward!

Use Your Illusion I (1991)

5:20 – ‘right next door to hell’ strong opening… really in-your-face production-wise. i guess “in-your-ears” would be a more appropriate term, but i think you know what i mean.
5:23 – ‘dust n bones’ – izzy stradlin on vocals, everybody! i like this, it’s a kindof refreshing change for the band to make. not really a fan of the “growling” that axl does in the background though.

5:27 – ‘live and let die’ – there’s no better way of demonstrating to your listener that your aspirations on this album are far-reaching than to cover a bond-theme… this song seems apt for the grand-statement that this album seems to be wanting to make, but it’s a really by-the-numbers cover. blaring horns, thunderous choruses. the guitar parts at the 1:00 mark are really weak. ack this is a terrible cover.
5:32 – ‘don’t cry ‘ – a true sign of regression. appetite was far from pushing boundaries, but at least it challenged the status quo and threw a little bit of punk into the pop-metal mix. these sorts of sweeping, grand ballads are exactly the kind of thing that g n’r were the antithesis of in 1987. ironic, given that this album was released in september 1991, the same time nirvana’s nevermind was hitting shelves.
5:35 – ‘perfect crime’ – this had potential until that abysmal lyric:

“You wanna fuck with me, don’t fuck with me
‘Cause I’m what you’ll be so don’t fuck with me
If you had better sense
You’d step aside from the bad side of me
Don’t fuck wit’da bad side o’ me
Stay away from the bad side o’ me
Don’t fuck wit’da bad side”

5:37 – ‘you ain’t the first’ – another izzy song. this one isn’t as good as the first, but it’s refreshingly imperfect compared to the last three numbers.
5:39 – ‘bad obsession’ – someone should really use the opening harmonica riff as a sample if they haven’t already. kid rock, this means you.
5:46 – ‘back off bitch’ – somewhere between 1989 and 1991, axl rose’s singing became comepletely unintelligible: “BACKAW BACKAW BEEETCH NAW NAW NAW NAW NAW TROW YOU IN DA DITCH.”
5:50 – ‘double talkin’ jive’ – oh no! no more patience? but.. but.. you just said… that chorus(?) vocal effect is really off-putting. as if he didn’t sound like he had enough marbles in his mouth already. let’s just skip right to ‘november rain.’
5:54 – ‘november rain’ the intro reminds me a bit of the beginning of bowie’s ‘word on a wing’ … mainly the drums.

[dinner break]

7:18 – for a song that was supposedly written around the time of appetite, it bears little to no resemblance to that album’s material for numerous reasons. but that solo! slash’s awesome solo saves this song from being 9 minutes of self-indulgent balladry. sure, it pushes it over-the-top, but that’s clearly where they want to be, and they do it well here (surprisingly).
7:22 – ‘the garden’ – neat little bass riff… alice cooper’s bit is a nice touch. i mean, if you’re going to go over-the-top, who else makes better company than alice? well, david bowie. but in the world of “hard-rock,” the alice cooper pick is a wise one.
7:26 – ‘garden of eden’ – axl doing his best, deep-voiced, gutteral alice cooper impression. weird. then the song suddenly changes to a faster version of ‘mr. brownstone.’
7:31 – ‘don’t damn me’ – this song carries the self-indulgent/straight rock’n'roll balance nicely. lyrically it’s a glimpse of the kind of honesty and earnestness that brought g n’r to their visceral peak on appetite.
7:35 – ‘bad apples’ – and i thought they’d lost their sense of humour.
7:37 – ‘dead horse’ – i hate to be dismissive, but this one’s just awful. honky tonk yadda yadda.
7:40 – ‘coma’ – confusion! disorientation! oh, axl, you poor guy! i’ve come to the conclusion that i don’t much fancy axl’s “whisperring=scary” decision on this album. nor do i understand where it came from. he went from using his voice and its range creatively (i.e. that harmonica thing earlier) to utter camp inexplicably. arg i can’t listen to this for ten minutes. you could call it “ambitious” or you could call it “meandering.”

had g n’r played a little more with the stradlin/rose dichotomy, i think this album would’ve been far more successful and a lot easier to digest. instead, the grandiose nature of use your illusion I really weighs it down, and axl’s over-the-top numbers can’t even be rescued by the more humbled, ramshackle izzy ones, partly because the stradlin songs are outnumbered, but also because of the sheer scope of the rose songs in general. rose wants to channel queen and the stones at the same time, but never takes the time to reconcile the two. with this album, they really lose their ‘piss and vinegar’ image and become these glossy, calculated and well-fed versions of their former selves. there’s no sense of urgency. there’s no desire, here. it’s gluttonous and unforgiving.

Use Your Illusion II (1991)

8:00 – ‘civil war’ – ok, so we’re off to a good start so far… some of the lyrics are a bit juvenile, especially the “what’s so civil about war” line at the end. ok, we get it, you don’t like war. now ask some more probing questions or move on.
8:12 – ‘14 years’ and ‘yesterdays’ seem like strange songs to be beside one-another. in a sense, they do have something in common in that they seem like songs that a well-weathered band would’ve come up with after years on the road and 10-or-so albums in the can. at this point in their career, g n’r are three albums in, so it’s strange for them to be so nostalgic about the past. it’s also weird that ‘14 years’ is a nostalgic song, and ‘yesterdays’ has the narrator proclaiming that he is forward-looking and has no need to reminice about the past.
8:20 – ‘knockin on heaven’s door’ – the second cover on the use your illusion double album, and one that is equally by-the-numbers. i think i’ve figurred out the key to doing a proper guns n roses cover: regardless of the song, subject, or style, g n’r take the song in question, turn it up to 11, milk the earnestness and dramatics to unbearable levels, and proceed to rock the fuck out. but not in a good way. at least with ‘live and let die,’ paul mccartney’s original was already considerred ‘big’ so the fact that they made it ‘bigger’ wasn’t much of a problem outside of the fact that it just sounded absurd. here, taking a solemn critique of war and soloing the shit out of it seems to be missing the point a bit. telephone calls, gospel choirs, and theatrics try to bring this song to levels that bob dylan could never have brought it to himself, and they all fail miserably. is it bad that i prefer the avril lavigne version?
8:27 – ‘get in the ring’ – oh good. when is calling critics out by name ever a good idea? when is calling critics out by name in a song ever a good idea? rather than taking it as a part of their job, or taking it with a sense of humour, they write a fucking song about it and embarrass themselves. complete with real boxing sound effects!!! albums are what will be remembered. no one’s going to remember a shitty review 10 years from now (unless it was a particularly awesome one), but your album is going to be sold in stores worldwide for who-knows-how-long, and therefore it’s more likely that people will remember your whiny, lame response than they will an article written in a throwaway-rag.
8:29 – oh good, more vocal effects.
8:34 – ’shotgun blues’ axl’s getting kindof violent here, guys. i’m getting worried. at this point in their discography, i’m having a hard time figuring out why people think it’s so weird of him to have been locked away for 14 years trying to make an album. not that i should be looking at all of his lyrics biographically, but there is still a discernible point at which axl becomes audibly apeshit.

[ i need a break from this. be back in an hour]

10:30 – i know i said an hour. it’s just too. much. guns n’ roses. how a band could go from being so simple and without any pretence to such an overblown, self-important disappointment? it’s like they’re trying their hardest to show that they’re not a bar band, when that used to be something that they wore proudly on their sleeves.
10:40 – ‘pretty tied up’:

“She’s pretty tied up
Hangin’ upside down
She’s pretty tied up
An you can ride her
She’s pretty tied up
Hangin’ upside down
I can’t tell you she’s the right one
Oh no,oh no,oh no
Once there was this rock n’ roll band rollin’ on the streets
Time went by and it became a joke
We just needed more and more fulfilling- Uh-huh
Time went by and it all went up in smoke
But check it out”

i don’t know how much more of this i can take to be honest. especially when there’s six more tracks to go. the chorus to this song is catchy, but i’m really not sure what to think about those lyrics again. musically, this song is well-written, and it’s no big surprise that izzy stradlin is credited as the songwriter.

10:47 – ‘locomotive’ – the rhythm section really holds this one together. axl delivers drunken, slurred couplets and leans on the rest of the band to take him where he needs to go. this song is really a testament to how the band can function when they work together.
10:52 – ’so fine’ – sing it, duff.
11:05 – ‘don’t cry’ – another version? is that really necessary? this album seems like it got the short-end-of-the-stick compared to its companion.
11:10 – ‘my world’ – LOLZ. this song proves the above statement. h’oh boy, what an album closer. way to incorporate those leftover sex-sounds you recorded, axl. god i hope they perform this live when they tour chinese democracy. better than a rickroll, IMO.

“The Spaghetti Incident?” (1993)

as a bit of a preface, i should mention that this is the first album i ever owned. my parents were members of colombia house, and this was the very first CD that the catalogue sent to them through the mail, hoping that they’d open it. my parents took the bait, and were consequently stuck with a guns n’ roses CD. i managed to “liberate” it from their collection and played it constantly for about a week until my parents discovered the use of the word “fuck” on one of the songs. i was never allowed to listen to it again, but over the years it somehow found its way back into my CD collection, relegated to the role of punchline. i haven’t listened to it since.

also, i always thought the title was a reference to the calvin and hobbes comic strip, and the infamous “noodle incident.” apparently it’s not. oh well, here’s some calvin and hobbes for your enjoyment anyway:

11:27 – ’since i don’t have you’ – a slice of doo-wop to start things off. already i’m liking this album better than the last, even though it’s a covers album. g n’r feel compelled (for whatever reason) to do covers that are very close to the originals, if not damn identical, so it’s entertaining to listen to them contort themselves in ways that they’re not used to, and in ways that contradict the big, bold, overbearing production of use your illusion I & II.
11:32 – ‘new rose’ – it would’ve probably been pretty exciting to see them tear this one up live.
11:35 – ‘down on the farm’ – the faux-british accent is not becoming of you, axl. i think this made the 8 year old me think that they were a british band.
11:38 – ‘human being’ – not a bar-band my-ass. these covers are so faithful its scary… but they’re also good. so far…
11:44 – ‘raw power’ – this one’s a bit blasphemous. where the other covers sounded faithful, they also sounded like they had heart and passion behind them. this is the first one that sounds like g n’r are going through the motions… “oh, so-and-so said our music sounds stooges-inspired…. let’s do a stooges cover!” the song is fast, but neither axl or duff can really channel iggy’s snarl, nor what’s behind it. this version sounds soulless and empty.
11:52 – looks like that vacuousness is a bit of a trend… see: ‘ain’t it fun’ and ‘buick mackane/big dumb sex.’ i think the inclusion of ‘big dumb sex’ is for shock-value and nothing else.
12:10 – i do not condone cover albums, but in the context of guns n roses, i appreciate that it represents a modest side of the band. the instrumentation here is sparse and nearly as raw as it once was on appetite. it’s nice to see them rediscover themselves through their influences… it makes you wonder what might have happened had slash, duff, izzy and matt stuck around a bit longer.

at the same time, there are still some clear issues that come to the fore, even on this covers album. the “shocking” covers of ‘big dumb sex’ and ‘look at your game, girl;’ the soulless interpretations of stooges and misfits songs. still, i think this kind of music is in line with what guns n’ roses should have been striving to be, rather than the way they assumed their importance and projected that in their music.

well, i made it. i wouldn’t recommend doing it in a day, but i survived. i’ll have my chinese democracy review posted later this week, hopefully sooner rather than later.

be sure to check out the chinese democracy timeline that maura @ idolator has taken the time to plot out, starting in 1994 and ending today! also, idolator seem to be the only people wonderring why chinese democracy is being released now. what’s so special about november 2008? check out their theory on the subject, here.

Filed under: Album Review , 1987, 1989, 1991, 1993, appetite for destruction, axl rose, chinese democracy, g n'r lies, guns n roses, idolator, izzy stradlin, the spaghetti incident?, use your illusion I, use your illusion II