19. Guns N' Roses
So there I am. Made it through high school. Kind of. Got grandfathered into the bar scene at 18. Just turned 20 and out of nowhere here comes Guns N' f*cking Roses. Wow. As far as rock and roll goes, it was probably the most impactful debut and influence that I had ever seen. They completely took over the airwaves.
Sweet Child o' Mine was pretty much the greatest song I had ever heard. Same with
Welcome to the Jungle. And then you got Axl Rose who TOTALLY looks like a kick ass rocker, and man that voice.
And flippin Slash. Let me tell you about Slash for a good minute. I worked at Best Buy North Av as an assistant manager (And if anybody knows who Tom Casey is, my GM at the time, WHAT A DICK!!) but anyways, somehow they got Slash to show up at the store for a little meet and greet deal. I'm not sure when this was. Had to be mid to late 90's I spose. I am not shitting you when I say that every 3rd person in line had a bottle of Jack they were trying to give to him. The line wrapped around the store and went down the fucking street, Please excuse the f bombs. It's a GNR thing. "We" or whoever - also apparently agreed to let Slash smoke wherever he damn well wanted to. All of this was going on at like 10 in the morning. Noon'ish tops. Slash was tumbling out of there around 2'ish. To this day I'm not sure he ever said a word the entire time.
Anyways, and needless to say,
Appetite for Destruction is one of the greatest albums of all time. Even if that's all they had done (and some say it was) they would still be ranked right around here. I don't need to list the songs, everybody knows them. Every single one of them.
G N' R Lies was pretty cool and also feature one of my very favorite G N'R songs
One in a Million.
Patience,
Used to Love Her and
You're Crazy are pretty awesome too.
Something happened after that though. Probably drugs. I mean for them, not me. Plus I was busy working and making scorejr so maybe I wasn't paying the attention I should've been I guess. But I just have to say that neither of the
Illusions did a whole lot for me and the final 2 albums after that did even less. They just seemed like they got to the point where each song was supposed to be some amazing social statement or whatever they were trying to do, instead of just rocking out like the first two albums. And if they weren't making a statement, they were making a cover. So like I said: drugs. They couldn't come up with anything original after a while. And some of their original songs weren't too bad during that period but they went on longer than a Raw opening promo!! Holy fuck Axl, I'll have a little
Patience but you're not getting my damn soul!
The only reason I sound harsh on some their history is because I expected a lot more after that unparalleled beginning. But don't get me wrong. They still gave us more than most any band could ever dream of.
