What were the releases of the UYI albums by GNR like? Also, their rep in 1993-1994?

It's easy to forget now but "Civil War" was all over the radio during the summer/fall of 1990 thanks to being on the Nobody's Child comp.

 

I recall a Geffen A&R guy boasting that they would be releasing singles from these albums for 2-1/2 years. “Estranged” was the final single released, in Jan. 1994.

 

GnR’s rep in my area around 93-94 was that they were ridiculously popular from late 88 up until the release of ‘The Spaghetti Incident’. (essentially my entire time attending high school)
I mentioned something similar to this in the Nirvana thread but it seemed that everyone spent their $$ on ‘Vs’ or ‘Zooropa’ instead of ‘Spaghetti’ or ‘In Utero’ - GnR burn-out had set in by then.

 

I recall when "Estranged" came out they seemed to be fading. The premier of that video was super hyped but it seemed like the excess had finally become too much. Were there kind of cutting edge special effects in that video? Am I remembering flying dolphins or something? Then the video for "Since I Don't Have You" came out, and as a 7th or 8th grader, I didn't know how to feel about it. I think my friends and I all said we liked it because we felt like we were supposed to.
Weren't there a bunch of cancelled shows around that time too? Didn't Axl jump in the crowd and go after someone? When was the Canada show with Metallica they bailed on; which caused a riot?

 

I was 25 at the time, had been a huge fan of Appetite and I was excited about the UYI albums. Not enough though to buy them the first day, as I recall I got them finally right after Christmas. The second half of 1991 was an insane time for new albums: Metallica, Ozzy, Genesis, Prince, U2, Michael Jackson, Nirvana… But GnR was still definitely big news all around. The two double albums released simultaneously appealed to me and I found much to like on both. MTV played the videos especially “November Rain” to death.

 

Genesis? Was that the talkin Jesus album? To me and my early teenage cohorts that was Mom music.

Sorry, I don't mean to be judgemental.

 

I remember thinking for maybe 30 seconds after hearing November Rain that GnR were truly the next big thing, maybe on par with some of their influences, but after picking up the original LPs of UYI both 1 and 2, I just found myself bored with them. The loss of Steven Adler was really felt. Even though Matt Sorum is a great drummer, the songs felt different and a certain amount of edge was lost. Axl forcing Sorum to play the "dub dub dubba dub" fill for what seemed like 50 times in November Rain was just the beginning of the embalming of the band that gave us Appetite.

After that, they became IMO the world's worst cover band. I only like GnR when they're playing GnR songs--they bring nothing to the songs they have covered. I mean, I dug Chinese Democracy--kill me lol. I just feel like they were the last band of true excess. They arrived on the scene with a bang, and spent the next two decades squandering that momentum.


Dan

 

yes you have the dolphin memory right
Yes, he attacked someone in St Louis, July 1991
Then the Canada show with Metallica was August 1992
Weren’t very many cancelled shows in 1993, but almost all shows from 1991-1993 featured late starts (hour / 2 hours late)

 

at least 3 songs were released before the album came out (Civil War, You Could Be Mine, Don't Cry).

My cousin told me that the local rock station in Orlando played both albums start to finish before the albums came out or on release date

 

How were they at first? Very uneven to my ears. Some really good songs, but not as good as the ones on Appetite, which just seemed hungrier. The success Guns had experienced caused a shift in Axl's lyrics and in his overall seriousness about the band and its output. It lacked any humor or self-awareness. There were still killer tracks from each album, but even those great tracks meander and find no end, really. It's a self-indulged pair of records by a self-indulged (and indulged from the outside) band.

Still kicks some serious you-know-what at times, though.

 

Their rep in 1994 had plummeted to real lows. Axl's weirdness mixed with the volatility of their live shows dampened their perception. There was a notable shift in what made bands appealing to the public from a sociopolitical aspect (this was ushered in by groups like Nirvana, groups who were bent on destroying the previous rock star ethos to create their own mythology along their own values and lines).

This could be summarized by the VMA exchange between Axl and Cobain in '92 or '93. Axl had told Cobain to "control" or something like that "his woman," and Cobain laughed in his face in disbelief at even the notion. Courtney Love, of course, had been mouthing off to Guns N' Roses, and they didn't like it one bit. But Rose's pathetic aside was met and ridiculed by the more culturally astute Cobain. (This is regardless of whether you agree or not. Rose looked like a fool and was portrayed that way in the media.) Point -- Cobain.

So, yeah, Nirvana were the kings of that day and many others to come. They doused G N' R's rock stardom with a fresh ethos that dissolved it a bit into the cultural stew, ironically rendering G N' R a bit impotent.

 

You wan'da step into my world
It's a sociopsychotic state of bliss
You've been delayed in the real world
How many times have you hit and missed?
Your cat-scan shows disfiguration
I want to laugh myself to death
With a misfired synapse
With a bent configuration
I'll hold the line while you gasp for breath
You want to talk to me
So talk to me
You want to talk to me (7x)
You can't talk to me
You don't understand your sex
You ain't been mind****ed yet
Let's do it (3x)
Oh my distorted smile
Guess what I'm doing now

 

I believe Courtney was mockingly fawning over Axl and Axl looked at Kurt and said "Tell your b**** to shut up." Kurt looked at Courtney and sarcastically said to her "Shut up b****."

 

Frankly, I had moved on. AfD was exciting in 1988. Thrash metal was happening. By the eraly 90s, G'n'R was too theatrical. The cool music was 'alternative' led by RHCP.

 

I remember the hype. My best friend bought both albums at midnight on the release day. I guess that was a large chunk of change for a high school student at the time.

I think each CD was about $17-$18 in 1991 dollars...

Songs really stood out. I was a fan of "Locomotive", "You Could Be Mine" (wasn't this in Terminator 2?), and "Live and Let" among others. But, other songs were definitely more like statements than worthwhile music. I remember my friend and I just sort of shrugging our shoulders and saying "whatever Axl" to stuff like "My World". "Get in the Ring" was cool in a high school lowbrow way for about 5 minutes then it was old.

The best parts rivaled the debut IMO, but in hindsight 150 minutes was at least 60 too many. Edited down to standard double album length it might rival the greatest double albums of all time like Physical Graffiti. They had enough good material to do it, but not enough wisdom to know when to stop. It was like eating a whole bowl of candy bars just because you can, and no one is there to tell you no. By the 3rd or 4th candy bar the "awesomeness" has begun to wear off.

There's enough good songs for me to really like the albums, but somehow the debris manages to take the whole record down 3 stars out of 5 level.

See also Smashing Pumpkins

A year or two later it seems like they were in the news for a feud with Nirvana and Axl just looked foolish. Axl wrote a playbook that many NFL wide receivers would mimic years later. Meanwhile Izzy's solo record was pretty cool.

Seems like they just imploded from 1992-1994.

 

That sounds right. Thanks.

 

LOL. So true. Ain't it fun.

 

Just curious. Why do you keep starting threads asking about 93-94? data-mining or writing a book/article?

 

I was born in 1990. The 90s are honestly my favorite part of modern history. They are a time I was alive for, but not old enough to have fully experienced. As such, I like hearing about them from others who were old enough to actually appreciate them, comprehend them fully. The period especially from 1992-1998 is most interesting to me, the rapid changes, the pop culture and its changes, video games of that era, the fashion.

 

No Son of Mine had some edge though.

 

This is a huge reason I love these forums too.

 

I was in grade school when AFD came out. I heard about GnR through a friend right when Sweet Child broke out and they were becoming huge. He played the tape for me and I wanted it immediately. It also swore a whole lot which made be gasp and chuckle. I saw Slash swear on the AMAs when him and Duff drunkenly got their awards...taped it on vhs and watched it probably 100 times. They seemed like something really interesting and special.
Over the next year I probably listened to them 7 days a week. My mom bought me t shirts, called record stores to see if they had Live Like A Suicide (I just knew it existed) and let me buy the original cover version when I found it new at a shop (not sure why it was reissued with a hype sticker for a movie but there it was in the gnr section for $8.99.) I was still all in when Lies came out and played it to death, being too young to really understand the bigotry in One In A Million. My first 2 cd purchases were AFD and Lies.
Back to the core question, It was a long wait so my enthusiasm waned gradually by 1991. I found other bands both new and old, and went through a pretty heavy Aerosmith phase. There was also a lot going on in 1991, from thrash bands breaking through to alternative rock, hip hop, etc. A lot to take in as I entered high school.
When Gnr finally put out You Could Be Mine and readied the release of the YUL albums, they were all over MTV, seemingly 24x7. They were a 6 piece and no Adler, different but back for really their 2nd album. I definitely turned my attention back on them and bought UYI 1, which I listened to for usually the first 7 songs or so but rarely all at once. I didn't get II until years later.
I recall they were still all over the media in 1992 with the meaningless weird videos, celebrity relationships, etc. But the vibe was changing. Izzy was my fave and he was gone, concerts ran late or cancelled, riots, etc. They were huge but their antics weren't really rebellious anymore, just dopey (the artsy videos) or outright petulant.
I never heard the Spaghetti incident until many years later. I recall the collective groan of everyone over the Manson cover and it seemed like they were burning out at an alarming rate, so I avoided that whole thing until the download era. As fas as a retrospective assessment of the UYL albums, I have nothing much to add (white album vibe, could've been a classic double, etc) but they do have their moments and I like II a little more.

 

It was all very weird. The anticipation had been building for about 2 years and several projected release dates came and went with no new album. “Civil War” was released on a charity album nearly a year in advance. Then, “You Could Be Mine” came out on the Terminator 2 soundtrack.

Finally it was announced that the two discs would be issued as technically separate albums (I’ve always considered them to be one album), but that each one was the length of a traditional double LP, so we were really getting a quadruple album of new material.

The thing that was so impressive was the diversity of the material and the sound of the album. The sound quality and production was so much better than AFD. On the negative side, there were some really terrible lyrics on some of the songs (“Get in the Ring” being the classic example, but “Back off Bitch” also meriting mention).

Once the tour started, the band’s reputation took a serious hit. Not because they played badly, but because they regularly took the stage 2 or more hours late - often not until after 11 pm on a weeknight for an advertised 8 pm show. A few shows had to be cancelled. It was really a huge mess, and it became obvious that the band didn’t care about the fans. Once grunge and the Seattle bands broke, that sort of imperious attitude suddenly seemed archaic and GnR took a big hit of backlash.

The covers album (which was mostly, if not entirely, outtakes from the UYI sessions) didn’t do anything to restore their luster.

 

I remember the hype from the "You Could Be My Mine" video premiere on MTV. Terminator 2 hadn't yet opened in theaters, so to see parts of the film, along with Schwarzenegger as the cyborg hunting GNR, was pretty cool to 13 year old me. The video premiered on the morning of the the day I went to go to the Lollapalooza concert here in San Diego.
When the album came out, I didn't really pay attention for some reason, and ended up getting tired of MTV constantly playing the other videos from UYI. I was also put off by seeing Axl acting like a dick, which seemed like every week, whenever I'd watch The Week In Rock.
My classmates in junior high really liked it though, and it still was being played among them up until late '93. By then, that's when STP, Pearl Jam, and yes Nirvana ruled things.

 

I remember thinking they were simply copying Bruce Springsteen buy releasing 2 albums on the same day.