Guns N' Roses - Best Studio Album

Agent Provocateur: Seems, that's well deserved!

 

Awesome! The only change I'd make to your tracklist is to include "Bad Obsession". It just must be there.

 

Civil War has to be there. I think keep Live and Let Die to stay a bit truer as they clearly wanted a cover in the mix.

 

Oh, yes, didn't notice "Civil War" was missing. My absolute favourite from GNR. Of course it must be on the tracklist.

 

I'll admit it. I voted for Chinese Democracy. And I'll tell you why....

First off, I'll tell you that while I love "Sweet Child O' Mine", "Welcome To The Jungle", "Don't Cry", "November Rain"*, "Civil War" and on and on, I think Chinese is the most consistently great album. When I listen to Appetite I hear a lot of great songs, surely. "Jungle" through "Paradise City" is an insane sequence of songs. But the second side is rougher. I love "Sweet Child", "Think About You" and "Rocket Queen", but the other tracks are kind of clunkers in my opinion. I think "My Michelle" is kinda corny and "Anything Goes" is lame, while "You're Crazy" is in its least convincing form. I much prefer either the Lies version or the acoustic b-side version. And I won't even go over the issues with both volumes of the Illusions, beyond just saying that many have pointed out that they aren't chock full of great stuff. While I'm glad we got both Illusions albums and "The Spaghetti Incident?" just because we don't have a lot of recorded material from the Axl/Slash/Duff version of the band, I think Appetite and Chinese are more focused.

And this isn't to say I think Chinese is a perfect album by any standard. Some of it sounded kinda dated even by its release in 2008. For instance, I think stuff like "Shackler's Revenge" woulda made a lot more sense if released in 1998 or 1999 than 2008. But I still dig it. The only real true clunker for me on the album however, is "Scraped" which in my opinion just misses the mark, though I can kinda see what Axl was going for there.

So am I kinda being a contrarian by picking Chinese? Perhaps. But at very worst, I rank it right up with Appetite and that's why I picked it.

EDIT: I just put on Appetite and I gotta be honest, even with it's flaws, it is THE Guns N' Roses album. I change my vote.


*As far as I know, it's not hard to hold a candle in the cold November rain. Hard to light a candle perhaps? Yes.

 

Great points sir.

 

Locomotive is such a great song. Totally underrated.

 

Agreed. I think it is among the five best recordings the band ever laid down on tape.

 

Such a well thought out and written post defending the minority opinion, only to have the vote change at the end!

 

Easiest poll ever

 

Bad Obsession is a good song, but compared to the others its b-side material. I left off Civil War because it had already been released on a compilation.

 

You know, I voted for Chinese and then a day or so later I decided to answer for why I did so. And I think I acquitted myself decently. Songs like "Better", "Madagascar", "Riad", "This I Love", and "Prostitute" are still amazing in my book. And of course I think the fact that I feel close to the album because of the way the wait for it played out. I remember Slash leaving the band in '96 and Axl soon after announcing a new album in the next year with 12 tracks with 3 original b-sides. And then the shows in the early 2000s. Then the live boots, hearing stuff like "Madagascar" and "Chinese Democracy" and "Riad" via Napster or Kazaa or whatever. Reading and listening to every Axl interview to hopefully gain a bit more info about the album. I think all that plays into the way I listen to the album and why I think it's a special record. I also think people dismiss it out of hand because it's Axl and because it's that album. And while I think the highs on both of the Illusions records are probably higher than the highest high on Chinese, I don't think it's a crazy statement to say that Chinese is arguably their first or second best record, depending on your taste.

As far as changing my vote, I think I just needed to be a bit more honest with myself. That while I love Chinese Democracy, the strengths of Appetite are just too much to ignore.

 

Tom Zutaut tried to encourage Axl to release Chinese Democracy as a solo album under W. Axl Rose because he thought it would have been commercially more successful as a solo project. That is of course when he was involved as an A&R representative in the early 2000's when the album was allegedly close to being finished and released, before Axl fired him (and continued to re-record and remix the material). By the time the album was released several years later in 2008, due to the declining retail climate of physical retail and the decimation of major record stores, one suspects the album's potential was severely handicapped, so it likely would not have made much of a difference.

 

The interesting thing to me about Zutaut's suggestion is that I think the name "W. Axl Rose" woulda been good for a bunch of records sold anytime from like 1994 to 2004ish. Maybe even a blockbuster album with a couple of videos and a couple of tunes everybody knew from the radio. And it probably would've gotten the album a fairer hearing from a lot of the public (and a lot of critics).

However, even though I don't consider myself an Axl apologist at all, I have to say it's not like he just up and rebooted Guns one day. The band was a continually changing entity nearly from the time it started. It wasn't like Steven, Izzy, Slash and Duff all peaced out one day. Though Steven was fired, all the rest left on their own accord and all for different reasons. Axl never quit. And who was to say he should retire the name cuz these guys left the group?

 

The albums potential was severely handicapped by the following facts :

1. No singles.
2. No videos.
3. No interviews.
4. No tours.
5. No TV appearances.

There was an overwhelming sense that Axl's view was "The Albums Finally Done NOW, Stop Moaning!" that killed the album.

In fact, it was about 15 months after the album came out that GNR played the first live show on the "Chinese Democracy Has Finally Come Out Now" tour.

 

I don’t think Zutaut was suggesting that it was GNR without Slash, Duff and Izzy and therefore the Guns name shouldn’t be used. I think in 2000, Zutaut sincerely believed the music was Axl’s and could make for a viable, successful solo project. IIRC, Axl wasn’t entirely opposed to the idea in principle, but felt a true solo venture would stylistically have a different approach, including more instrumental pieces.

 

Not for me. In my opinion it's easily one of their best songs as well as one of my personal favourites. Really love this one in any way.

 

From the moment I saw this thread title I knew it would be Appetite For Destruction. That’s why I decided to go with The Spaghetti Incident. I figured that one would get the least amount of votes. I hate that album by the way.

Judging by the poll, I should have gone with Lies.

 

The CD tour was ongoing for about about 9 years! lol. I saw it in 2006.

Better was released as a single in the U.K. but no promotion or video. Had minor airplay.

 

To me CD is a natural progression from the Illusions album. Quite a great album.

 

Not quite. Chinese Democracy shows were in 2001-2002, 2006-2007, and 2009-2014. The only band activity between summer 2007 and Christmas 2009 was the CD being available to buy. Better wasn't a single - you couldn't buy it as a single. The only promotion CD had was the fact was the fact it was released.

 

There isnt much to choose, right?

 

For me it's like this:

Appetite
UYI II
UYI I
Lies
CD
Spaghetti

 

The title song was serviced to and played on modern rock radio, at least up here

 

Yes, except from "My World". That crappy ******** should never be included anywhere at all. Even though I absolutely love most of the GNR songs, I really have to say that it would have been much better if Axl had never done this one in the first place. In fact, I never even understood why the hell he did it.