On Saturday, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Beastie Boys, and Guns N’ Roses, among many others (Donovan!). If you think that sounds like one concert not to miss, it will air on HBO May 5. The show, however, was missing a bit from each band: John Frusciante, the former Chili Peppers’ guitarist who left the band a few years ago and opted to not attend; Adam Yauch, a founding member of the Beastie Boys who is fighting cancer (the other two Boys did not perform without him, but showed up to accept the honor — the Roots, Kid Rock and Travie McCoy of Gym Class Heroes performed a tribute medley); Izzy Stradlin, original GNR guitarist who was thankful for the award but generally stays out of the limelight and opted not to attend; and Axl Rose, who was off whining and pouting like Axl always has (“no offense meant to anyone but the Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony doesn’t appear to be somewhere I’m actually wanted or respected,” he wrote in a letter declining the induction). Alter Bridge singer Myles Kennedy filled in for Rose during GNR’s three-song set and fans screamed “f*@k Axl” through much of the night, according to Rolling Stone.
But does the sheer mention of Guns N’ Roses bring some great rock memories or what? I read the autobiography of Slash, the guy to work a top hat like no one since Abe Lincoln, while recovering from wisdom teeth surgery years back — and GNR put the roil into the rock n’ roll lifestyle. In the short time that unbridled talent tore up the rock scene (yes, I’m talking pre-pre-pre “Chinese Democracy”), we were left with some incredible classics.
So sit back and rock out a bit on a Tuesday…
1. “Welcome to the Jungle” – I consider this the best hard rock song of modern times. (The best of all time — and no one ever fully agrees with me on this — is the Rolling Stones’ — no! not “Satisfaction” — “Paint it Black.”) And many GNR lists will put ballad above the power rock. But I consider this THE Guns N’ Roses song that showcases every big, bad, rip-roaring thing we loved about them. The “Jungle” was L.A. — where they got their start on the club scene.
2. “Sweet Child O’ Mine” – Yep, we’ve all heard the stories about how the guys were just goofing around with opening notes that sounded almost like a circus, and now those are some of the most famous opening notes in music. But this song has withstood the test of time for conveying a sense of innocence one wouldn’t expect from the hard-living, hard-partying GNR crew in their early years — and yet, not being too sappy like many of the hair-band ballads. It rocks. Another track from “Appetite for Destruction” that proves the album was one of the best debuts in history.
Great topic! Appetite for Destruction is still one of my favorite albums to listen to beginning to end…I was a teenager when it came out and I still listen to it frequently.
Agreed. Among American hard rock/heavy metal albums, it is up there with Aerosmith’s “Toys in the Attic”.
Hard one, they were very good too bad the band falled appart. My take (in no particular order).
1. Sweet child of mine
2. Patience
3. Locomotive
4. Estranged
5. Don’t cry
6. Knock on heaven’s door
Special mentions for Chinese democracy, You could be mine and November rain.
Horrible band, horrible music, not even original. What about Communication Breakdown – it has the distinction of at least not being a copy. Guns ‘n’ Roses is a harder, edgier version of Nickelodeon or some Disney Channel creation combined with Li’l Abner characters. If they’d have Earthquake McGoon on drums, and Cousin It on bass I wouldn’t have been surprised. I am surprised they never made a post-atomic war science fiction movie where they stride through the landscape like a colossus. They wouldn’t have even needed to change their silly top hat and bandana costumes.
Obvious troll is obvious.
You mean I actually like them?
Haters gunna hate.
1. Welcome To The Jungle
2. Rocket Queen
3. Estranged
4. Paradise City
5. Used To Love Her
I’m not sure what pill Fail Burton took after waking up this morning but I think it was the wrong one. G-N-R is to kids’ channel bands what Slayer is to the Morman Tabernacle Choir. You have no taste in music; G-N-R is EASILY one of the top 5 bands OF ALL TIME. They’ve lasted, you’ll be forgotten. Now, go back to sleep.
Here’s the pill I took: it enables me to parse words like ‘harder’ and ‘edgier’ to suggest they are the Banana Splits if those dogs had shot heroin.
Top 5 of all time? You mean from the year zero, which must be 1987. Why not include Boston and Kansas – didn’t they shoot enough heroin to have street cred cuz it sure isn’t the music.
I can name 50 bands that are better, more important, more influential and which don’t have the collective avatar of the worst stereotype of a kid’s view of motorcycle gangs, bandanas, Cousin It, tattoos and leather. They’re the Cartoon Channel who are too cool for the Cartoon Channel.
Speaking of drugs, you may need to take sedative. If they were so unimportant, so clichéd, so unhip, why do you bother spitting all over your screen, gnashing your teeth at how anyone can dare like them? I’d ask for you to tell us all about the important bands that changed the face of music, blah, blah, blah, but I’d find your just a music snob that hates anything more than 10 other people like. There’s always someone that wants to come to somebody else’s fan club and wag their self righteous finger in everyone’s face. Return to your music snob websites and discuss the latest mega-hipster drivel amongst your douchebag selves, and leave us proles to our populist music.
I was still in my mid-20′s when Guns ‘n’ Roses made their big splash. Not too old to be out of the popular music scene, but old enough to know s*** when I heard it. I’m afraid GNR was crap from the word go. They were about as musically significant as Poison, Whitesnake, or Rick Astley.
Populist? Are you suggesting that people enamored of music that’s little more than the sound of an air conditioner amplified lack discriminatory powers? It’s like you just said you don’t want to know what those lights in the sky at night are, or that placing Pearl Harbor is its proper historic context is for snobs compared to the jolly smugness of the film.
Ok, I get it. You’re too cool for this school but you enrolled in it and now you’re complaining about its mascot. Whatever, dude. Your username says a lot. I was a teacher for 7 years. Who did the kids (middle school/high school) like more: Boston, Kansas, or G-N-R? (Here’s a hint: Leave your geography book shut.)
I love Boston and Kansas but they aren’t as good as G-N-R. And neither are you. So there, whiny pants.
I kinda wonder about the school teacher’s math. He says he was a teacher for seven years and goes on to compare the reaction of middle school students to the bands Boston, Kansas, and Guns ‘n’ Roses. Boston’s glory years were 1976 to 1978, and Kansas’ were 1975 to 1977. GNR wasn’t even on the scene until 1987. So how were you making this head to head comparison when it was at least ten years between the high points of the two geographic bands and Guns ‘n’ Roses and you only had seven years to do it?
If you’re comparing each band’s appeal in one particular year, say 1988 or 1989, then you’re comparing apples and oranges, because GNR was was at the height of their pop iconism and both Kansas and Boston were at least ten years past their prime, considered has-beens by the pop scene.
I compared them because Fail Burton brought them up! Otherwise, I would have compared G-N-R to a similar band from that era (LA Guns, Skid Row, etc.). My math skills may not be Einstein-esque but at least my reading comprehension skills aren’t lacking.
Who can forget Jim Carrey lip-syncing “Welcome to the Jungle” at the opening of the last Dirty Harry film, “Dead Pool”?
GnR is one of the few bands from my teen years that I’ve still got on the play list.
That was Jim Carrey?
I really like these picks … there are others I’d want to hear as well, but I’m a long-time fan. Starting with these six would give newcomers a good glimpse at what the band had to offer.
The challenge here is that any song from Appetite can be put on the list, but very few from their other albums can.
I’ll never forget the first time I heard “Welcome to the Jungle” on the radio. I said to myself, “Wow, Motley Crue finally came out with something that’s worth a damn.”
True story.
Some may say this is off topic.
But the first time I heard “Don’t Fear The Reaper,” by Blue Oyster Cult, I thought, is this a Monkees song I have never heard before? I swear. I just could not place who it might be. The more I listened to it, the more I was convinced it was the Monkees. Especially the harmonies. And I still hear a lot of Micky Dolenz in Buck Dharma’s voice.
And I would never mistake Guns N’ Roses for Motley Crue. (or mistake Motley Crue for music) As far as I am concerned, “Appetite For Destruction,” is the closest rock music has come to capturing the sense of musical anarchy the New York Dolls created.
It is everything Kiss is suppose to be, but is not. Listenable in a way Metallica wishes deaf people could hear. Exciting in a way Megadeath could never manage if their lives depended on it. And just plain insane blistering intense only lovers of rock n’ roll could ever understand.
Holy crap. G&R were a short-lived, unimaginative band; a rock & roll cliche in every aspect. From their music to their stage presence to their drug use to their break-up, every move they made had been done before. They’re like a band invented by a bad screenwriter for a cheesy movie about a band.
Donovan was inducted and we’re talking about G&R?
Sad.
While it was a remake, I think their cover of “Hair of the Dog” was a lot more kick-ass than Nazareth’s original.
My vivid memory of “Welcome to the Jungle” was seeing on the news that US Marines were blasting it outside the Vatican Embassy – at night – in Panama in 1989 when Noriega ran into that embassy to avoid arrest.
I’m watched the “Mr. Brownstone” video and I’m still trying to get the hideous vision of Axl prancing around in his “Ah Men” posing shorts out of my head.
As a young man who saw them at the Concord Pavilion in 1988 I’ve had a long history of having GnR’s music on some form audio recording device, be it Cassette, CD, or digital. Appetite for Destruction was indeed a great album, though not all of it is solid gold to me. I don’t know if its just overplay, but I’m completely over Sweet Child O Mine and have been for a long time. I would say my favorites go like this:
You Could Be Mine
Welcome to the Jungle
Estranged (Some of Slash’s best guitar right there)
Rocket Queen
Paradise City
There are some others I like, but those are my top 5. I like November Rain for Slash’s guitar solo, but the rest of it is meh and way overplayed.
Yeah, Concord – that night the music was a museum, and the people that came to see ‘em, they really were a screa-um.
Slash – altogether ooky.
I am afraid what we have here is failure to communicate.
Coma rules!
why so many picking the lightest songs?
Rocket Queen
Its So Easy
Dead Horse
One in a Million
Used to Love Her
You’re Crazy
Anything Goes
Ditto One in a Million; song couldn’t be made today; barely made then.
Great tread.
What about the best 9 songs including:
Patience
Used to love her
Civil war
Ciao
After spending my teen years in the 80s hearing crappy hair metal bands like Poison, Motley Crue, and White Lion, “Welcome to the Jungle” was a revelation. Hard rock finally had its balls back for the first time since AC/DC’s “Back in Black.” GnR deserves its spot in the RRHOF. And let’s face it, the RRHOF is such a joke of an institution, isn’t it a surprise they were inducted at all?
I have to say, I’m not disappointed the reunion didn’t happen…like the Van Halen reunion with David Lee Roth, it’s destined to disappoint. Some things exist at a moment in time, and it’s impossible to recreate them. Let’s leave classic GnR in the past. If Axl being a jerk is what keeps them all from cashing in and making a medicre reunion album, so be it.
That’s a good list of their best 6 songs, and I’m glad you included a couple of tunes from the hit-or-miss Use Your Illusion albums. Those records have a bad rep, but there are several songs that are true jewels in the rough – so I’d also like to nominate “You Could be Mine.”
This one can’t really be included, but they did an awesome cover of “Mama Kin” on GnR Lies. I also concur with others who have mentioned “It’s So Easy,” another great track.
To quote Riki Rackman on Estranged… “When I saw Axl swimming with those f’ing dolphins, I knew Guns N Roses was done forever.” The pretty, epic songs are not what GnR should be remembered for. They brought the dirt back to rock after a decade of prancing nancys.
Good.. but not a legend.
I also wonder how on earth people think Red Hot Chilli Peppers are a rock band? Seriously, you call that Rock? (same for U2, but that would be another thing/topic).
Meh. G&R was never anything more than a glorified Aerosmith cover band. Most overrated act since The Doors.
Great list.
I agree with you about putting “Paint It Black” ahead (WAY ahead) of “Satisfaction” too, but it isn’t the best hard rock song. That would be the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter”.
And still, RUSH is not in the Hall of Fqame. . . . . I defy anyone to name a better band. . . .
There are a lot of bands who should be in the HOF but aren’t, Rush among them. Yet Madonna and ABBA get in. That’s why the HOF is a joke. I thought what Axl did to them was funny. That institution deserves to be insulted, not respected or fawned over.
Totally agree about “Mr. Brownstone”, but I never really cared for “Jungle” or “Paradise City”. However, “It’s So Easy” (just a pure rock song) and “Rocket Queen” (subject matter aside) are personal favorites
Guns N’ Roses – Live at the Ritz – 1988 – Full concert
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoSFhHAh-vw&feature=related
Looking at the four G n’ R CDs I own (Appetite, Illusion 1 and 2, Spaghetti Incident) I would have to say my top 5 aren’t necessarily the commercial ones:
Mr. Brownstone
Paradise City
The Garden
Coma
Civil War
I never did care much for the acoustic stuff although I agree One In A Million couldn’t be made now.
Essentially once they made their magnum opus (almost 2 1/2 hours of Illusion 1 and 2) they were shot as a band. It’s also worth noting that the release of Illusion 1 and 2 very nearly coincided with the rise of grunge so their era was pretty much over anyway.
And if you don’t have some of Slash’s solo stuff you’re missing out, too.
When I first heard them back in the late 80′s, I had a hunch that they wouldn’t last long. Look at all the concerts they had to cancel over the years.
It’s a crying shame GnR is in the Hall (along with other crapfests – ABBA, Bee Gees, KISS etc.,) when considering FAR SUPERIOR bands such as RUSH, Boston, Budgie, Deep Purple, Rainbow, Judas Priest, Steppenwolf, Iron Maiden, Heart, Thin Lizzy, The Guess Who, SRV, Motörhead, Pantera, Slayer, Dave Byron-led Uriah Heep, the-late Ronnie James Dio etc., continually get snubbed.
The saving grace of recent is the-late Steve Marriott (and his ‘The Small Faces’ this year. Though for the Hall to mash together ‘The Small Faces’ and, ‘The Faces’ for getting in is ridiculous. TOTALLY different sound, style. ) being inducted.
GnR had ONE, 1 decent album. The reason their Freshman effort was so big, successful is solely due to atrocious hair metal dominating the scene.
Ozzy/ Lita Ford duets, Winger, Firehouse etc., total crap.
I saw Metallica in ’92 whereas GnR was SUPPOSED to open though were booed offstage almost immediately for their being TERRIBLE. Less than 5 years form their debut.
What a waste of a vote.
Saw them back in 1992 in Bogota, Colombia.
I hate to admit it, but I enjoyed the show. The music was great, but the image of the hard rock, long hair, wannabe badass always rubbed me the wrong way.
I bet they did a freaking mountain of coke that night and God knows how man hookers.
I’m not interested in offending anyone here but I grew up in LA. I lived in West Hollywood while going to UCLA. Guns N’ Roses were the up and comers in the early 80′s and they obviously loved the attention and eventually made it big. I saw them once somewhere on Sunset Blvd (either the Whiskey or the place up the street a few doors (the Roxy?), whatever – it was along time ago). That said, I honestly believe that over the years I have heard “Welcome to the Jungle” and “Sweet Child of Mine” in between one and two billion times. If God has mercy on my soul I will never hear those songs again. Nothing personal though. Glad to know those guys are still alive.
LOVED your next to last line..!
You’re kidding right? My two cats make more interesting noise when they start wrestling in the middle of the night. These clowns were so overrated & overplayed & I still don’t understand what was so special about them. I can understand the hype Led Zeppelin received in the ’70s, but nothing this band did comes close to what they accomplished as a band. Guns ‘N’ Roses was all hype & no substance. I was unlucky enough to see them as an opening act before they hit it big. They didn’t make it through the first song because they were so stoned. There was a lot of bad hard rock music made in the late ’80s on into the ’90s. If this band had one redeeming quality it is they lacked the “oh woe is me, I think I’ll o.d. on heroin” depression of the awful ’90s Seattle grunge scene. I tuned out hard rock for good at that point. This is much better:
http://youtu.be/RtmW2ek7WkQ