Scots Taffer on 23/11/2008 at 23:49

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After my second full listen through, I'm left mostly just shaking my head in complete confusion. It should've been called (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers) Chinese Whispers as it clearly shows that Axl has mistranslated everything that worked about Guns 'n' Roses into a complete catatonia of rock.

It sounds like he fell in love with the nu-metal wave for its incorporation of hip-hop break-beats and then melded it with this melodic rock ballad machine to produce ridiculously bland music that's in part ineffectual 90s rock and I don't know what the fuck else. And I say machine and produced because it is most certainly an obviously studio-manipulated album: multiple Axl's layering over each other give rise to an obvious analogy about his state of mind surrounding the album, the guitars are distorted and apart from the meedleymeedleymeedley solos sound more at place in a Metallica album, and the horrible synthy washes that flow over some of the songs are just ugh.

Incidentally, the title track is the only one worth its salt and is actually reminiscent of the old G'n'R but updated slightly, which is probably why as a first track it led to even further disappointment as the inanity wore on. And someone needs to tell Axl that you don't need extended intros or outros to be taken seriously as an artist.

(http://www.avclub.com/content/feature/chuck_klosterman_reviews) Here's a review worth reading, especially for this part -



and

fett on 24/11/2008 at 02:46

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The thing about Axl Rose is that he's essentially a hack. Great voice (in doses), but he's the ultimate example of someone who surrounded himself with people who were much more talented than himself and got famous because of it. No, shutup--

Evidence 1: Early L.A. Guns albums. The 'guns' in GnR was originally Traci Guns. As a band, L.A. Guns is just as forgettable as most other 80's glam metal groups, but he's a fucking brilliant guitar player (though lacking Slash's soul) and it's obvious from even a casual listen to his first album that much of what you hear on Appetite was probably honed with Traci Guns sitting next to Axl, wiping his ass every four bars, at least in terms of arrangement and melody.

Evidence 2: Both Velvet Revolver albums. Solid songs, and great playing from the band that gave us the Illusions albums, with a meh performance by Scott Weiland thrown in. It's GnR minus Axl's preening, and it's good stuff.

The other thing is timing. GnR were the anti-hair metal group that wasn't as dark as Metallica (read: female demographic friendly). IMO, appetite was a happy accident because aside from Slash, the other players were ass. GnR was a hair metal band in disguise anyway, which is nothing necessarily to be ashamed of (the same could be said for STP, Alice in Chains, and even Pantera). They snapped out of it because they saw the writing on the wall. The pivotal equation is Slash. He's what kept GnR out of the generic hair metal pile. And don't give me that shit about how they fused punk with metal and sounded different from anybody else. Faster Pussycat, Bang Tango, and Extreme were hair metal bands that had radically different sounds at that exact time. What they didn't have was timing, and the good sense to lose the hairspray before it became silly. Hell, GnR were being played back to back with Metallica (albeit the Black Album wasn't really Metallica but that's another argument entirely) - the 'hair metal' genre had already been infiltrated by more unique groups by the time GnR showed up (Living Color anyone?).

fett on 24/11/2008 at 03:28

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I can see that. It's kind of like the situation with Ozzy Osbourne. His early albums were great...then, what happened? Everyone blames it on the death of Randy Rhodes or the drugs, when in fact, it was the departure of the little known bassist/songwriter Bob Daisley who wrote most of the material on the first three albums (and incidentally also worked with Rainbow, James Brown, and the Commodores during their most successful periods). I love the early stuff and most of the Zakk Wylde stuff, but with Ozzy, you've gotta realize that he's not all that great - it's the songwriters and musicians that his wife is smart enough to put together in the same room with him. I think most of Axl's 'talent' is residual of Slash, possible Duff, and definitely Traci Guns.

Scots Taffer on 24/11/2008 at 06:31

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wake up late 'n' honey put on your clothes 'n' take your credit card to the liquor store

fett on 24/11/2008 at 15:18

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That's 13 million dollars worth of Axl's ego you're hearing. ;)