Twenty years ago, on September 17, the fucking coolest band in rock n’ roll released the most hotly anticipated follow up album ever, which would also be their last. Of course, I speak of this (double) album.
Okay, I’m prone to hyperbole but I used to be a metal head and I fucking played the Hell out of “Appetite for Destruction” which might be the best hard rock album ever. Seriously, I challenge you to listen to this album and not want to drink, do drugs and fuck like an animal.
(Yeah, normally I don’t curse this much in posts but it’s rock n’ roll, so deal)
And so I waited and waited and waited and waited for the sophomore Guns N’ Roses release. Then drummer Steven Adler left the band. Okay, yeah he was a good drummer but Matt Sorum was a beast. Then the Axl-Rose-as-hard-rock-Howard-Hughes rumors started but I was still confident Gn’R would drop an epic album. When I learned it would be a double album, I was super stoked. Maybe the years and effort would really pay off.
I was not disappointed. Sure, I never was, nor am I still, a fan of the guitar sound on “Illusion“. To me it’s much more cold, steelier then “Appetite” , which felt raw and alive. And while the band expanded their sound to include more elements of blues, country and even prog rock (fuck, there were six songs longer than 7 minutes!), they still sounded like the Gn’R I loved… except for that last song.
At the end of the second album there’s a song called My World. It’s 90 seconds long, Axl wrote and recorded it without the rest of the band and if the rumors were true, he snuck it in at the last minute without any of the rest of Gn’R knowing.
Yeah, okay, that’s fine, every epic album can have one head-scratcher, but then rumors surfaced of Axl saying “this song [My World] is the future of Gn’R.” Apparently he also told some people that Trent Reznor stole his sound. In his mind, the next Guns N’ Roses album was gonna be some sort of industrial hard rock that used a ton of samples and beats. Apparently this sound was stuck in his head and Axl would do anything to get it out.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the sound of a crazy man intent on breaking up a band just so he can get what he wants. This was the sign that there would never be another Gn’R album.
Of course at the time I didn’t know this. I just had a feeling that I had to see Gn’R live as many times as possible because I might not get many more chances (I still rank their prerelease show at the Pantages as one of the best rock shows I’ve ever seen).
And yes, I did see Gn’R after the band had left and it was really “The Axl Rose Experience”. And I also bought Chinese Democracy and after one listen I chucked it into a corner.
But still, twenty years ago I had one last hurrah for hard rock and it was fucking awesome.
Next week: the album that would define a generation and change the sound of rock n’ roll.
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