Don't mind me, I've just got Guns N' Roses on the mind today. Must be because I went to the store today and discovered they were on the cover of the latest issue of Rolling Stone. Why didn't I discover that much earlier, you ask? Because the U.S. Postal Service is full of cocksucking thieves who keep raping my subscription to the point where I'm MAYBE getting 1 out of every 3 issues after the final trickle down concludes.
What does it say about the state of music today that Rolling Stone magazine has Guns N' Roses on the cover - not because they're releasing Chinese Democracy or did anything otherwise newsworthy - but because July marked the 20th anniversary of the release of their debut album, Appetite For Destruction?
Ahh, Ape Tit ... Appetite ... I get it now kinda sorta not really.
I've always held the opinion that their dual-release Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II (in stores as separate albums on the exact same day, both debuting at number 2 and number 1 respectively; to go on to sell over 7 million albums apiece) is by far superior to Appetite. I've also held the opinion that Appetite isn't even the best metal/rock album of the 1980s - that would go to Metallica for their Master of Puppets release in 1986, a full year earlier and without any of the singles or radio play.
So, what's so great about Ape Tit?
To the untrained eye, it's just three singles and a lot of filler: Welcome To The Jungle, Paradise City, Sweet Child O' Mine. Granted, those singles - particularly the rollicking Paradise City - comprise Guns N' Roses at their finest. But, in between those Everestesque peaks reside some Kilimanjaro-like summits as well.
Mr. Brownstone is probably the greatest track never to become an official single (unless it was, then I apologize); it's just too bad that psycho fuck who shot up the Virgina Tech campus decided to utilize it in one of his GAWD-awful mini-plays that they plastered all over the Internet after he died. I really hate it when writers use songs I like in their crappy stories.
Out Ta Get Me is a screaming thrill ride that shows up right after Nightrain which itself is like a powerpunch to the thorax. Completing the A-side of the album, in reverse order, is It's So Easy, a single in Britain that should've gotten more credit than it did over here.
The B-Side of the album isn't nearly so epic. Here, we get - somewhat - the Softer Side of GN'R. Songs made for women, sung like women, at half the tempo and ferocity as the A-Side crew. Lyrics are kind of derivative, nevertheless, there's a rocking, quick-paced version of You're Crazy towards the end that's a markedly different animal than the slower, acoustic version on their follow-up EP, Lies.
The album closes with - as I mentioned in the last article - Axl fucking Steven Adler's girlfriend in the middle of Rocket Queen. Here, we get a taste of things to come. There are two songs that eclipse 6 minutes on this album, Paradise City being the other one. While nothing they would ever make would match the intensity - not to mention the mindfuck of a guitar solo at the end - of Paradise, Rocket Queen sort of became the formula by which all future Epic Songs would be crafted.
Those Epic Songs being on the Use Your Illusion albums. Songs of length 7 minutes or more; there were about 4 to come. These are songs of high-fallutin' falsetto, lots of shifting musical progressions, a long bridge in the middle with a guitar solo coming out of it, and the closing couple minutes being the climactic unleashing of the final sets of lyrics, having been built up to throughout the duration of the song.
More than its individual parts, though, Appetite For Destruction was a monumental achievement for one simple reason: it wasn't Hair Metal. I took a Popular Music class in college and, during the last week of the quarter, the TAs each had one class to cover what the professer didn't have time for. One guy did an hour on metal music in the 80s and he tried to liken Guns N' Roses to bands like Bon Jovi and Twisted Sister. I wanted to run to the front of the auditorium and strike him blind with both thumbs.
Guns N' Roses is NOT Hair Metal! By the time Appetite came out - 1987 - the backlash to the years of hair metal was almost fully constructed; metal fans wanted more than looks. They wanted substance. They wanted their asses rocked off! They wanted a top 5 lead guitarist (Slash) and a top 5 rock singer (Axl) and they wanted rid of all the pussy shit they were getting from the likes of Warrent and Winger. Guns N' Roses, with the opening salvo to Welcome To The Jungle, gave the music fans what they wanted and then some.
And, with the B-side to the album, they even appealed to the ladies. Everyone was happy. And Guns N' Roses - with that album alone - wrote their entry ticket into the Rock N' Roll Hall of Fame. THAT'S why Appetite For Destruction is so great; that's why it's gone down as one of the most important albums of the last 30 years; that's why it deserves the cover of Rolling Stone today.
Now, if only I had my issue here, I could tell you more about it