Septenary: Listening Post: Guns N Roses

I suppose everyone had three albums in their accumulation 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 near a habit. And one that I was shedding and wouldn't return to until a decade later.But I bear them, dammit.

So.what to think?Guns n Roses - Appetite for Destruction - 1987The tail end of hair metal. One year before 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 response to all that Joshua Tree posing.Does it take 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 big the whole album is, it is, but only how it's an obvious grafting of cheap and cheapness 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 CityBlindSide: Nighttrain, Rocket Queen, It's So easy.Guns N Roses - G n' R Lies - 1988The one with Patience on it. And, if there is any question around 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: CA Side: Patience,Used to Love HerBlindSide: Mama KinDownSide: Nice BoysGuns N Roses - Use Your Illusion 1 - 1991For my money, Illusion 1 is a more rewarding spinner than the debut record. But it's also a different record. The ring has, for the about 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 Knight" that hold the record pounding long into it's 60th minute of play. I think Matt Sorum really fits the voice the ring was leaving for and "Back Off Bitch" would never have gotten the like treatment by Steven Adler. The same goes for the vitality of Double Talkin Jive, a real centerpiece on an album filled with them.You get your money's worth with UYI1, it's unforgiving 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 will that the relief of the album lives up to that track. I look 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 BitchBlindSide: Dead Horse, Bad Apples, Dust n Bones, Bad Obsession, Double Talkin' Jive, Don't Blame MeGuns N Roses - Use Your Illusion 2 - 1991Opening with an extract from Cool Hand Luke, "Civil War" opens the bit 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 better of them (Check out Suddenly 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 part 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 argue that they were a little stock and should have waited to put out a B-Side, rarities, thing, thought I do get a soft spot for their interpretation of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", so often 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 dreaded in the band's collection as "Get in the Telephone"? The fact that the medicine is wasted on terrible lyrics and poorly over processed spoken word/rap is a will to exactly 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 "Engine" and the excess but exciting, "Breakdown", the albums lags more than one would hope, considering it's brother. And at least that show didn't get a "So Fine" to draw it to the maws of crap. A call that even latter day Crue would have rejected. The bloated "Estranged" is no real worthy heir to "Don't Cry" and "November Rain", of which it is alleged to be the finisher of a trilogy. And the report to Terminator 2, "You Could Be Mine" felt like rock-by-numbers in 91 and yet does today. And it goes without saying that "My World" lays the base for what Chinese Republic was leaving to be all about. All you had to do was hear to that. But don't. It's awful.Grade: C-ASide: Civil War, Knockin' On Heaven's DoorBlindSide: Breakdown, LocomotiveDownSide: Yesterdays, Get in the Ring, So Fine, My WorldIt should go without saying that The Spaghetti Incident? is a covers album and I am loathe to make it any of my sentence and Chinese Democracy is GnR is brand name only.