ApPOLLtite for Destruction

man that's tuff

This Poll - 'It's So Easy'

cue underrated aerosmith: "these guys weren't any better than Black 'n' Blue!"

that old man is a real motherfucker

having the hardest time remembering how "Anything Goes" goes

a guy i knew in high school was a huge g'n'f'n'r fan, one night junior year he got busted rolling a house (and not even the house he meant to roll, he had the address wrong) and he got caught by the cops who gave him a stern warning and made him promise to come back the next day and clean it up and also like mow the guy's lawn or something. from then on until after graduation when we lost touch anytime we rode anywhere in his car he would play 'out ta get me' on blast and rant about how he had to be careful cuz the cops were out to get him etc.

voted 'rocket queen'

having the hardest time remembering how "Anything Goes" goes

MYYYYY WAY YOURRRR WAY ANYTHING GOES TO-NIIIIII-YIIIGHT.

In a vacuum, Sweet Child 'o Mine is an unfuckwithable classic and should run away with this poll, but we've all heard it 40 million times now and it's sonic wallpaper. I'm voting It's So Easy.

mr brownstone, but 'my michelle' gets points for the opening lyrics

Your daddy works in porno
Now that mommy's not around
She used to love her heroin
But now she's underground

Here I sit
Broken-hearted
Paid 10p

Great as this album is back to front, and with so many great album tracks, it feels lame to vote for "Welcome to the Jungle", but it really is the best.

Only song on here I actually hate is Paradise City.

ah yes thank you Johnny Fever

i think this is the last rock band i can remember adults i knew personally finding somewhat terrifying/disturbing/somebody think of the children instead of just amused/kids these days amirite. from here out the kind of hysteria was generally reserved for 2 live crew, nwa, geto boys, snoop (and before w/ run dmc, whose press i think young ppl would find hard to believe)(white america was TERRIFIED of run dmc, their tour w/ the beastie boys was covered like it was a mongol invasion).

i still love 'paradise city' but those bud light synths haven't aged well

uh Marilyn Manson

xp

my mom took my GnR pins away from me after she saw Slash wearing a Hard Cock Cafe t shirt :(

o yeah marilyn manson! by that point i was an adult so the adults i knew just generally had the take of 'ugh, stripper metal' but yeah parents were definitely scared of him and for good reason as obv he was responsible for columbine.

white america was TERRIFIED of run dmc, their tour w/ the beastie boys was covered like it was a mongol invasion

real life lol

when I got to college, one of my friends told us about a couple he knew that had "my michelle" as "their song"

voted "rocket queen"

As JF said, everything but "Paradise City" is ace. Always hated that song, and bummed it became a fucking template for all the bullshit on the Illusion records.

Voted "Mr. Brownstone"

Guns N' Roses' lead guitarist, Slash, states that the song was written in the back of a rental van as they were on their way back from playing a gig in San Francisco with the band Rock N Riders. He says that the band was in the back of the van, drinking and playing acoustic guitars, when he came up with the intro. Duff McKagan and Izzy Stradlin started playing along. Slash started humming a melody when Axl Rose sang, "Take me down to the Paradise City." Slash chimed in with "Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty." Axl sang the first line again, where Slash shouted out "Where the girls are fat and they've got big titties." Axl finished with "Take ... me ... home!" Slash preferred his second line but the rest of the band felt differently. He was outvoted and they used the first line. The band then expanded upon the rest of the lyrics in rounds. Finally Slash wrapped up by coming up with the heavy riff that drives the song.[1]

balls:

http://articles.philly.com/1987-08-15/news/26170302_1_run-dmc-rush-productions-rap-show

The rap on the street concerning the "Together Forever" tour has been def (that means "good"). Still, the 37-date tour that features the country's biggest rap acts, Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys, hits the Spectrum tomorrow night having gone through a wringer of controversy at almost every stop.

Rush Productions, which manages both trios, knew that the summer tour would be something of a hot potato. The pairing of the black Run-DMC and the white Beastie Boys, all of whose members are in their early 20s, brought to an emotional head the fear of crowd violence. This fear, rather than any actual

violent incidents, has plagued rap shows since an August 1986 Run-DMC concert in Long Beach, Calif., was disrupted by gang violence that left 41 injured.

Consequently, at a spring news conference held in New York City to announce the tour, much time was spent detailing $500,000 worth of precautionary measures, including a five-man team to coordinate security at local venues and full-body metal detectors through which concertgoers would pass.

Not lost at the conference, however, was the fact that a tour featuring equally popular black and white rap groups was itself news. But the presumption of an equally integrated audience seems to have fueled the concern about violence.

Thus far, everything has been cool, but that hasn't stopped people from expecting the worst.

"Time and again," says Bill Adler, publicity director for Rush, "we'll

announce a date, the police and city council will get up in arms, and then we'll come to town and nothing will happen."

Early in the tour, a Seattle show was canceled amid controversy, then rescheduled after local police assigned 20 extra men to secure the event. The headline above the subsequent review in the Seattle Times: "Concert Wasn't Too Lively, But Boy, Was It Safe."

Rich Rabena, director of security at the Spectrum, consults promoters and managers to determine the needs for each show before it reaches Philadelphia. Similarly, Philadelphia police are notified of all major events in order to plan for crowd logistics outside of the arena. Rabena says he has no qualms about the "Together Forever" tour.

"For certain shows we beef up security," explains Rabena, who says the measures for a rap show are equivalent to those for a heavy-metal concert. ''Both types of music draw a different crowd, but they're both generally young, and with any show where there's that much energy, you want to be prepared."

Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys have achieved multi-platinum record sales by welding the big beat of rap to the electric crunch of heavy metal. Run-DMC's remake of the '70s Aerosmith hit "Walk This Way" was a smash on the rap group's Raising Hell album last year and introduced inner-city rap to the heavy-metal suburbs; the Beasties' "Fight for Your Right" party anthem and Licensed to Ill LP gave white teenagers rappers molded in their own image.

But the surprising mass success of these two bands and LL Cool J, with his grittier style and sexual allusions, has put rap under the scrutiny of groups such as Tipper Gore's Parents Music Resource Committee. "If rap had been confined completely to the ghetto," says Adler, "nobody would care."

In true generation-gap fashion, the images that endear the groups to their fans - Run-DMC's cocky assurance and the Beasties' determinedly obnoxious Animal House behavior - are precisely what makes parents and city fathers uptight.

"It boils down to sex and violence," says Adler. "Violence is linked to Run-DMC, because they are from the most despised minority in America - young black males. What's terrifying to people about Run-DMC is that they look an awful lot like the black underclass you see anywhere in America.

"The Beastie Boys like sex, they like rock-and-roll, they like beer - those are their big subjects. In that respect, they're absolutely mainstream. It just so happens that they're a little more explicit about their passions . . . so here in the era of safe sex, their most notable prop is a 21-foot phallic penis." (Rock scholars might remember that the Rolling Stones once made themselves look foolish with a similar stage prop.)

Although the Beasties left the prop at home for the summer, the tour has been dogged by the uproar from their "Licensed to Ill" concert swing, which concluded in the spring.

Following the trio's February performance in Jacksonville, Fla., for instance, a civil ordinance was enacted that would require "for mature audiences only" warnings on tickets and advertisements for concerts containing questionable material. The first show chosen by Jacksonville to require such a warning: Sunday's "Together Forever" concert.

(It's appropriate to note during "Elvis Week" that in 1956, after a Jacksonville juvenile court judge saw him perform in an afternoon concert, Presley was ordered to do the evening show without making any provocative gyrations. Presley complied, performed with but one twitching finger, and the fans went wild.)

Dan Macdonald, 29, pop critic for the Florida Times-Union and the Jacksonville Journal, took a couple of young teens to the February Beastie Boys concert in the name of research.

"I'm no prude," he said this week, "but I felt a little funny with these kids when the giant phallus came up. But the kids told me they liked rap

because of the rhymes and because it was funny. They weren't taking it seriously at all."

The Beasties, however, took the Jacksonville ordinance very seriously. On Aug. 6, days before their Jacksonville show, lawyers for the group filed suit against the city, claiming a violation of the group's right to free speech, and asking for a temporary restraining order, a permanent injunction, a declaratory judgment that makes the ordinance unconstitutional, damages and recovery of legal fees. A preliminary injunction against the warning requirement was granted the following day.

"The purest form of freedom of expression is getting up on a stage and saying something," says the Beastie Boys' lawyer, Ken Anderson of New York's Berger & Steingut. "Trying to restrain the content of something before it happens blatantly ignores First Amendment rights."

Adds Anderson, "We trust that people can discern the difference between bad boys and vile pornographers."

In Jacksonville, fewer than 5,000 chose to make that distinction first- hand, although the hall had room for almost 12,000. "I think (the controversy) deterred people from attending," says Cathy Pasullo, promotion director of Fantasma Productions, which presented the show. "The city made such a fuss about it, and made it out to be such an awful thing, that I

suspect parents stopped a lot of kids from coming."

Other factors could have affected attendance, however. Run-DMC sold out the same arena last summer when their album was hot, but their new record is not due until fall, when it will be released in conjunction with their movie, Tougher Than Leather. And when the Beasties came through town with a number- one album, they only drew about 4,000 fans.

As the "Together Forever" tour prepares to wrap up Monday evening at New York's Madison Square Garden, the Beasties' lawsuit lingers in Florida, reporters still ask about concert security and Adler laments that such issues have clouded the fact that "the whole concept of the tour was to combat racism by consciously seeking to draw an integrated audience."

As it turned out, the tour found Run-DMC and the Beastie Boys fighting a rock-and-roll battle at least as old as Elvis.

By the way, Appetite > Black 'n Blue's Without Love >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> the rest of GNR's career

yeah, if you're not counting stuff on UYI that was already written prior to Appetite.

I was thinking more of production than songwriting, but how much of Illusion predates Appetite? "Don't Cry", "November Rain" and ...?

If Don't Cry had been on Appetite instead of Paradise City, it would've been perfect.

I agree.

xxp: I thought You Could Be Mine was earlier, but apparently not. The Garden was an early song, but I don't care for it much.

Panties 'round you knees
with your ass in debris

Add my hate vote to Paradise City for worst song on this record.

Always thought it was "your ass in the breeze".

• "Hkhuh!"
• "Yeah!"
• "Take that one to heart!"
• "Yowza!"
• "Yeah! Baby!"

voted Nightrain but could have easily been 4 or 5 others.

Requisite disclaimer about Axl being a wifebeating shitstain wankrag, but how on earth is this anything but Mr Brownstone?

Rocket Queen for funky bass in your face, actual fucking, and a coda that shines like sunlight.

Nightrain bothers me, but mostly because I think it should be spelled Nighttrain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ke-_nKHpDs

(Jungle but Brownstone is a close second)

nighttrain (haha that bugs me too) is probably my favorite, it's got that vaguely scary vibe that GnR never really recaptured after this album, and it hasn't been played to death like welcome or sweet child.

cue underrated aerosmith: "these guys weren't any better than Black 'n' Blue!"

Badlands wipes the floor with these dudes

sorry I'm late

aero, not Dangerous Toys?

My dad told me that Guns and Roses was a fad and that in 20 years no one would remember them. He was partly right. This record, however, has long outlived the band.

Badlands, good grief, a bandanna just appeared wrapped around my right thigh when you said that.

haha

Wait, was that Jake E. Lee's post-Ozzy band? And why do I remember that?

yeah - you probably remember because one time you heard their album and you were like "fuck, this is considerably better than Appetite for Destruction"

Could vote for any of these, I love them all. Voting for Anything Goes tonight though.

i think this is the last rock band i can remember adults i knew personally finding somewhat terrifying/disturbing/somebody think of the children instead of just amused/kids these days amirite.

listening to this as an adult i'm surprised my parents didn't take me to a priest to try to convert me from a pleasureless life of abject misery, guess they couldn't understand most of the lyrics either

I saw a nu-GNR concert a couple of years ago in a small club, mostly contest winners in the crowd. A lot of standing around waiting, obviously, but it got the crowd commiserating. Then one bored dude started quizzing these two girls there, and he discovered that between the two of them they could name a whopping one - one - GNR songs, Sweet Child O Mine. He shook his head sadly, because those two girls were taking the place of superfans. I should have challenged him to name a song from Chinese Democracy.

I might be wrong, but I don't even think Guitar Hero means much to the 12-year-olds I'm teaching now. They'd know about it, but more as something played by their older siblings. Their sense of the past stretches back to whatever Imagine Dragons single came before the one that's out now. (I'm exaggerating, but not by much. And again, I'm fine with that. An interest in the past comes along later, in high school and university.)

yeah. as a 12yo, I guess I didn't care for much more than the contemporary hits and a band from 20 years ago didn't mean much to me...

It's all about the moment, ie now, ie the total narcissism of youth.

Like, I've heard my daughter sing that lame Frozen song a million times. When she saw the movie itself, months ago, it made no impression. And she barely remembers when she and her friends were singing some lame song from Twilight again and again last year. She did hear that Dynamite song the other day, and recognized it as something people were singing two or three years ago.

a band from 20 years ago didn't mean much to me...

27 years ago!

weird al won the culture war. suck it, axl. welcome to the bagel, baby, you're gonna schmeaaar!

yeah my gf's 29 and gnr doesn't really mean much to her. she knows november rain from karaoke, like wanted dead or alive, and she recognizes the sweet child riff if I play it. for a 12yo these guys might as well be buddy holly.

I remember me and another high school class of 1992 guy arguing with a couple guys who we knew through college radio and were maybe 8 years younger than us. They saw GNR as exactly the same as Poison, Warrant, Cinderella, and the other 80s hair bands and we were all DON'T YOU SEE THEY WERE DIFFERENT and they weren't having it.

they probably think nirvana killed hair metal

for a 12yo these guys might as well be buddy holly.

ahah, exactly !
I still think "welcome to the jungle" was used heavily in a GTA add so it MUST be familiar to the kids !

that gta was ten years ago

ahah, really ? oh well...

"chinese democracy" was still a myth then !

GnR *were* part of the whole Bon Jovi/Cinderella/Warrant/Poison/Motley Crue scene, why do you think they're different?

because because uh goddamnit siegbran

GnR *were* part of the whole Bon Jovi/Cinderella/Warrant/Poison/Motley Crue scene, why do you think they're different?

Axl's charisma - none of those bands have a frontman on his level though several of them wrote much better songs

The simple answer to that question is that they might have had a similar visual appeal, but their music was much harder and came more from blues and hard rock traditions than glam.

Cinderella was more bluesy than GnR really

for starters bon jovi wasn't even part of that scene

Also, Guns was a much BETTER band, with more intricate and interesting music. I wouldn't lump the Beatles together with Herman's Hermits.

No one asked, but what if it's 1988 and you can't choose between ersatz Slash and ersatz MCA?

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u120/kingkonggodzilla/metalmcbackcover_zpsaafade35.jpg

Also, Guns was a much BETTER band, with more intricate and interesting music. I wouldn't lump the Beatles together with Herman's Hermits.

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130707032321/amnesia/images/5/52/This-icon.jpg

I think the main difference is in having the propriety to not play drums upside-down (which to me is not a point in their favor)

Also, Guns was a much BETTER band, with more intricate and interesting music.

I don't believe quality of a band should delineate genre because that is what led to elitists insisting late era Emperor "wasn't black metal" because they thought it "sucked".

I don't think GNR had much in common at all with Poison, Warrant et al because their music was much more raw. At least on Appetite, there were no bubble-gummy chorus, overprocessed vocal harmonies, and also on that album, no overblown ballads. Not all hair bands are made the same of course; later-Cinderella isn't that far removed from GNR circa 1987. But I also think GNR had a little bit of a punk influence that was missing in many of the hair bands of the day.

No one asked, but what if it's 1988 and you can't choose between ersatz Slash and ersatz MCA?

ersatz JD Samson pls

I don't think GNR had much in common at all with Poison,

But I also think GNR had a little bit of a punk influence that was missing in many of the hair bands of the day.

― Neanderthal, Thursday, February 20, 2014 1:55 PM (Yesterday)

yeah, g'n'r painted themselves as more street, butch & working class/rocker "ordinary" than their peers in the sunset strip hair metal crue. the music was a bit rawer & tougher, too, with roots in punk-tinged, dolls-style glam & 70s stones swagger. looking back, those distinctions seem a matter of fine degrees though...

I'm sure sheep don't look alike to the shepherd, either.

They weren't that different

But they sure felt different when you were 13

Well enough in common for Slash to audition for Poison early on (granted, he didn't like the make-up).

― Siegbran, Friday, February 21, 2014 7:51 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Buckethead auditioned for GNR and RHCP but those two aren't exactly the same

But they sure felt different when you were 13

ehh, i had gnr, poison, and def leppard tapes (alongside my vanilla ice and mc hammer tapes!). i don't know how much fine stylistic discrimination young j. was doing.

I was more discerning

with your elbow patch jacket and your cocaine tongue

W. Axl F. Buckley

But what I really wonder is whether anyone would be comparing GNR with Poison if they wore their hair short, had polo shirts, and came from Canada.

You're acting like we're comparing Sweet and Mahavishnu Orchestra or something

idk i'm pretty sure i prefer too fast for love to appetite

The argument is getting convoluted here. Despite the fact that I do think that GNR was coming from a fairly different place than Poison in terms of influences, I'm not necessarily disputing genre so much as I'm disputing the rote and lazy comparison to Poison/Kix/Trixter/whoever. It's a move that doesn't seek to illuminate so much as to quickly categorize in order to negate differences.

Again, we can say The Beatles and Herman's Hermits were both 60's rock (or whatever you want to call that genre), but it is inherently unfair to the Beatles to write them off as "just another 60's rock band." Their influence, scope, and vision was much bigger and more important than Herman's Hermits-- and their songwriting was much better too-- so to say that they're basically just like Herman's Hermit is dismissive and paves over how they truly stood out from the crowd.

henry viii is classic and catchier than any beatles song. why you gotta hate on hermitts?

The difference in popularity between the Beatles and Herman's Hermits is a lot bigger than between, Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi and GnR, plus that the Beatles covered a lot of stylistic ground while Guns N Roses (like their peers) were very comfortable staying within the established template of punky hard rock, acoustic ballads and later, Meatloafesque epics.

GNR didn't wear makeup or spray their hair up big, did they? At least not for long. They were never "glam," and always owed more to classic rock raunch than the likes of BJ, Poison, et al., who definitely focused more on image. I remember when they opened for Aerosmith, who seemed like a good fit. For all I know Bon Jovi, Poison, the Crue and those sorts opened for Aerosmith, too, but it seems less apropo. Like, when Skid Row popped up, they also seemed to have, by design, more in common with the likes of GNR than those other sorts of acts, too.

they would've fit right in in Decline of Western Civilization Pt 2, let's be real

slash and slash's mom in a pool would have been a less downer scene i bet.

Guns N Roses (like their peers) were very comfortable staying within the established template of punky hard rock, acoustic ballads and later, Meatloafesque epics.

― Siegbran, Friday, February 21, 2014 10:51 PM (49 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that wasn't an established template at all

10 minute long epics weren't exactly hot at the time.

nightrain deeply undersung here

also out ta get me damn yall

I'M FUCKIN INNOCEENNT

MAH WAY YER WAY ANYTHING GOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWES TONITE

27 years ago!

― (D1CK$) (sic), Wednesday, February 19, 2014 3:47 PM (1 year ago)

sob