Here Today... Gone To Hell!

I'm a new member but has been visiting the HTGTH site since 99.  It was one of the best GN'R site on the net if you want to get info on GN'R.  Anyway, I just want to ask few things about GN'R popularity back in the days. 

How big or popular GN'R during 1987 to 1993? 
Were they really the world's number 1 band? 
Which of the current artist now on the music scene would you compare GN'R?

they were the number one band, and there isn't a  band today even close to their top fame.. Metallica was pretty huge in 91-92 with the black album..  There literally were a million fans everything everywhere was gnr, t shirts buttons magazines mtv news videos etc.. They were tops

I don't think we've had a real rock star since Axl.

GNR were from the street, not manufactured by the industry.

Seems like Nirvana gets all the credit for bringing something new to a fairly stale music scene, but GNR did the same thing 4 years before Kurt Cobain. Kurt just pretended not to like success, which seemed cool in the early 90`s.

GNR were at the top in the late 80's/early 90's no doubt about it.

that's what I loved about the most of the strip era of rock : ok:

Only U2, Eminem and Metallica have been as big as GNR was in the past twenty-five years. ?One could argue, GNR were the biggest band since Zepplin.

I think Guns N' Roses was the number 1 band in the world between 1992-1993 (no doubt about it) but I DONT THINK the band was #1 BEFORE that period.

Today, there is no band with the success and the talent GNR used to have. ?Korn? No way.

the only band i can see today thats mainstream and has gnr influence/sound is avenged sevenfold, they're quite good, their like iron maiden/gnr/neo classical/numetal  quite interesting.

I'm younger so I wasn't really around then either, but my cousin phrased it this way:

"Imagine taking the popularity of Green Day, combining it with U2, and taking it to the next level"

(This comment was made when their CDs were new and you couldn't go 5 minutes without hearing Vertigo or Boluvard of Broken Dreams)

Even Mick and Keith said that GNR we're going to be the next Rolling Stones....and you see how big the Stones are.

When MTV used to be a music channel GNR were played almost every hour it seemed.

as big as a band gets.

They were just massive. Listening to GN'R and having their albums was the coolest thing at school. In January 1993, Guns N' Roses toured here and played in front of 80,000 people in Sydney, then in Melbourne. There was a Guns N' Roses competition on TV where you collect Coca Cola vouchers or something similar to win a car or guitar signed by Slash, and you could redeem them at any 7-11 for an Axl Rose bandana and Guns N' Roses tour stickers ?:D

FUCKING HUGE
Axl and Slash were Rock Legends, every kids wanted to be like them. Oh man, it was a great time!

yeah that's true,I miss those good old days :peace:

I still want to be like Axl and Slash  :yes:

 :D ,me too!those were exiting years!! :smoking: all younger and adults people dressed up like axl or slash, I remember the tv contests to look for the axl rose wanna be or slash hahaha. 

They were Beatle big in 1991/92.

During the AFD days, when SCOM hit, all cliques in my high school like GnR.  Headbangers, burn-outs, guidos, preppies, nerds, even the rap faction liked them.  Haven' seen that since.

Back in '91
In the year-end Rolling Stone
They went month-by-month

And covered music
And events through the whole year.
Not only was Guns

In almost EACH month
But they had THEIR OWN CHAPTER
Right in the middle. 8)

Splash

/Mike

Anybody like me old enough to remember what a watercooler event the video trilogy was?  Some small part of their hugeness in the early nineties was definitely due to trying to figure out what the hell had happened to Stephanie Seymour's face that required a mirrored casket divider.  By the way, does anyone actually know the answer to that question?  It's been bugging me for almost fifteen years!

My guess was always
Some violent manner of death
Left her disfigured.....?

Splash

/Mike

blew half her head off with a gun? just a guess, i couldn't get through del james' story :-\ I thought it was bad

Oh my goodness.  They were big as I could have imagined.

Thank you guys so much for replying to my post.  That made my day complete. 

GN'R were HUGE back in the day. Hell, even my grandmother knew or had heard about them, and you'd be hard pressed to find another hard rock band that had such mainstream appeal across the board like GN'R did back then.

You get popular bands these days, but nothing like GN'R in the early 90's.

As time goes by things always get exagerated, GNR were huge the biggest band of the world no doubt! for a short time. only bands during and after GNR heyday that were as big were defetnly U2, and Nirvana.
Nirvana I beleive has always been over ratedbecause of the tragic death of Cobain. U2 have been the biggest band in the world several times starting with The Joshua Tree, right up untill their newest Album
It would be interesting to see what GNR would of did if they had stayed together somehow, I wonder if they would of had the same success that U2 did.

u2, metallica, nirvana or no band was as big or bigger than gnr. Just good at the craz the release of the UYI albums caused. No band since the beatles and after gnr ever did that. SCOM still holes the record for most times in a row at #1 on dial mtv/trl. They were #1 for something like three months straight if im not mistaken.

Absolutely. The American version of the rolling stones.

"SCOM still holes the record for most times in a row at #1 on dial mtv/trl. They were #1 for something like three months straight if im not mistaken."

When was did Dave?

1988

Ps PC may have broken SCOM record later on too. One of those two videos holds the record if im not mistaken.

Guns was SO big that when they farted it made MTV news.  They were on the cover of every rock magazine every issue.  They were the kings of controversy and mayhem, and it was all legit.  Best of all, nobody sounded like them.  It was the last solid era of quality rock with quality rock stars.  Nobody has come close.  If kurt cobain doesn't kill himself, nirvana are a footnote in rock.

That's just it, it's NOT an exaggeration though, GN'R were HUGE! :o

Oh one more thing ?guns n roses were one of the FIRST band to really play LIVE at the VMAs. At the time all the bands played to a tape but guns n roses said we want to play live and did. If you watch those old VMAs pretty much all the bands were not really playing live but guns ?n roses did.

guns n' roses was the definition of rock and roll. still is. : ok:
a bunch of bad-ass guys from the street who conquered the world with their incredible music, controversies, attitiude and audience attraction, and nobody has ever done it after them. :smoking:

Guns just exploded..when they came out with the Jungle video..I remember all my friends trying to sing like Axl and all the guys wearing t-shirts and just trying to be bad ass like him.   They were all over MTV and yes all of Axls headlines making news.   They were big...really big :beer:

You're correct, Dave. Sweet Child held the record for over a decade. I think Britney Spears or someone like that finally broke the record. The previous record holder before GNR was Michael Jackson's Thriller.

If only they didn't play live in 2002  :(

VMA 2002 was not one of their best performance but it was still better than the other artist.  MTV folks were calling it one of the best performance in years right after they perform.

Yeah, I don't know people pan that performance so much.  It was a great little surprise to most people, it was the "return" of Axl, his scream in the beginning is amazing.  His voice, def not at its best, but what do you expect when the guy is running around like crazy.  I think he put more into the performance looked/felt then into how it sounded.

Back in the day gnr were about as big as a band could possibly get. Pretty much everyone listened to gnr regardless of what type of music they liked. No band since has even been in the same league as gnr was in terms of popularity. Just think about the fact that gnr would play regular shows in football stadiums that seated 60 thousand people. These days the biggest bands play shows in front of like 15 thousand.

It is always strange that gnr is kind of forgotten about when that period of music is talked about, the story normally just talks about the hair bands of the 80s and how nirvana wiped them out, and that's it, gnr is normally not even mentioned. That's always kind of been a reason I've hoped that Axl would come back and make everyone remember just how great gnr was/is and correct the fact that music history about the early 90s was rewritten after Kurt's death.

Ahh, those were the days, I remember everyone talking about that at the time. It's all true folks, Axl and GNR were as big as anyone back in those days. I guess Eminem is the best comparison from recent times, Axl was just as controversial (probably more so) and always talked about, everyone had an opinion. I remember watching the news one day, and there was a report about how Axl and his limo got a traffic ticket on the way to a show. This made the news!

It's funny, it seemed like all the chaos was accidental, but I swear Axl planned it that way. He had a major controversy ready for each album release that got them into the news - rape cover + explicit lyrics for AFD, "One in a Million" lyrics for Lies, the constant delays and "Get in the Ring" for UYI, and the Manson cover "Look at Your Game Girl" for "The Spaghetti Incident?"

I guess somewhere around 1994 Axl got tired of the mayhem and basically disappeared.

"It is always strange that gnr is kind of forgotten about when that period of music is talked about, the story normally just talks about the hair bands of the 80s and how nirvana wiped them out, and that's it, gnr is normally not even mentioned. That's always kind of been a reason I've hoped that Axl would come back and make everyone remember just how great gnr was/is and correct the fact that music history about the early 90s was rewritten after Kurt's death."

I totally agree with you.  I don't really care if GN'R was forgotten because of the death of Kurt Cobain. Atleast Axl Rose is still alive, and there is always a chance that Axl will release a song and see him perform. 

I wouldn't say they were forgotten, but I think they were unfaily lumped in with the hair metal scene, and anyone who was around at the time just knows that wasn't the case at all.  Guns broke away from that scene, redefined hard rock and set the standard for rock/rock bands.  Then grunge comes along at a time when the economy is doing bad - people didn't want to see Axl and all his excess on stage - they wanted someone to feel their pain - enter grunge.  Of course, that recession only lasted a few years and surprise surprise, so did grunge.  I think its so ironic how the anti-success bands made it so big in the early 90s, and yet now all the pop stars/rap stars have videos with their expensive cars, and their "bling".  How soon people forget.
I hope someday a GNR movie is made to bring Guns back into the main spotlight - kinda the way the Doors movie did for them.  Introduced them to a whole new generation of fans.

It was like it went from being cool to be into Guns N' Roses in 1993 to being totally uncool in 1994. I guess the music scene took a big turn that year. Around the time of Kurt's death everyone was really into Nirvana.

I remember lots of articles from around 94 to 97 with headlines like "will GN'R be back.. does anyone really care?".

Although it has dragged on a long time now ( :hihi:), I think Axl did the right thing to lay low and let that attitude and trend pass. It seems when they came back for RIR and the VMAs etc.. everyone was really glad to have Axl back.

^^ not only that, but by laying low Axl has made himself into a true legend.  I think if he was out there releasing NIN or nirvana wanna be CDs he eventually would have been laughed off the music scene.  But by keeping a low profile, having people asking from time to time "what ever happened to GNR??" it just made the legend grow.

It is sad that we missed out on his entire 30s though - I think not hearing how his music could/would have evolved and matured over a decade or so of time is going to really be a shock when CD is released with nothing in between the UYIs (besides OMG).  I'm sure it'll be rocking though.

Yeah, I remember that if you would admit to being a GN'R fan at that time you'd get laughed at.
I thought it was really odd to be into a band so much and then so suddenly not be, but then I was never one to follow whatever was "trendy" like the rest of the sheep :o

Now though, it seems like its ok again to admit you're a GN'R fan, well at least the original line-up anyway.

That's true Hanna Hat. But I hate to think how the music would have sounded if Slash & Duff didn't want to do what Axl was into and vice versa. I don't think the results would have been crash hot.

And true what you say, the whole laying low and how long it has taken has really made the world curious. Even non GNR fans would be keen to hear an album that has been talked about and reported on for so many years.

Thats why there wasnt a WAYNES WORLD III :hihi:

That whole era seems to be trendy now. I see youngens who have probably never heard the bands wearing reprinted unofficial GN'R, Poison, Motley Crue etc. t-shirts ?:D ?They probably replaced their Sum 41 and Green Day shirts ?:hihi:

I sometimes wonder being axl basically skipped his 30's in front of the fans then did something minor around 40 which had the chance to be huge only to be a huge letdown if he didn't wait too long.. Not many people in their mid 40's with an entire new band are nmearly as big the second time around..

I can still remember the nirvana scene like it was yesterday..... The slackers of the world thinking he was so amazing :hihi: Ah april 94 :-*
Store near me use to sell everything gnr, they were one year removed in 94 when he killed himself then I couldn't find gnr bootlegs or t shirts anymore.... I had to look at the 67-94 t shirts with him (kurt) as a kid.. All those cool kids with nirvana patches on their bookbags

Lets just say the band falling apart ever since after the get in the ring tour was why they left the scene, releasing two big ballads so damn close together with a video only a true gnr fan could love (estranged) lets say TSI and using SIDHY in like nov 93 as another single really burried gnr at that time

The one non grunge band that really did good around then that I really remember was aeromsith with Get A Grip, living on the edge, crazy, amazing, etc all did great and it was still basic guitar rock.. :smoking:

I think guns at that point could have still sold out any arena and most stadiums but their commercial success was way down and people were sick of the giant rock star..... I remember by the start of the 90's every band had power ballads, and although gnr wasn't dfoing fly to the angels, or every rose has it's thorns people were just sick of that style..  Grunge had a lot of hard rockers and that helped... YCBM would have been a better type single for gnr..

I have to agree there, it was so universal , and it was like lightning. BAM

i can remember not even being able to get GnR merch for a good few years..... Maybe 97? around there... I didnt have the internet and i live in australia.

Well put it this way: Novemeber Rain was #1 for 60 weeks in Columbia.

people loved so much GNR, it was amazing.

lol...you guys sound like granpas telling their children how great things were when they were young :hihi:
I like it, though...
...and I totally agree  : ok:

See, I think Guns were bigger than U2 are now, and certainly bigger than Eminem.
EVERYONE liked them. Rap wasn't big in the mainstream then, so pretty much all the white kids who listen to rap now were into Guns at the time. The rock audience was just bigger, and GNR had everyone eating out of their hands. Parents were scared of them, but yet when they heard a song like Patience or November Rain, even they would admit that it was damn good music. Eminem doesn't get that kind of reaction these days.

Plus, U2 don't have the teen appeal these days that GNR had. Bono comes off as being like your dad... Axl was like that guy down the street who just got out of jail and everyone was afraid of, but you still had to talk about him and pay attention to him.

I don't know how many people wore bandanas just because Axl did... It was crazy. I can't think of anyone who has had any kind of fashion impact like that lately. And all those bands that had singers trying so hard to be Axl... I mean, anyone remember Jackyl? hahaha

And I don't think younger people quite remember just how big November Rain was. At the time, and for years later, it was pretty much regarded as the new Stairway To Heaven. You could count on hearing it at every highschool dance up until at least '97. And MTV and Much Music used to play the video regularly until at least then too. How often do videos from 5+ years ago be shown on MTV now?

Guns N' Roses will be remembered for how huge they were. Even if it was just 5 or 6 years of glory, they'll always be remembered. I expect that in 5 or 10 years time, Guns will definitely be remembered on the Led Zeppelin and Pink Floy level. Bands seem to TRULY be remembered and admired about 20 years after their time. I mean.. would you have seen a kid with a Motley Crue shirt on a few years back? Hell no. Things always work in cycles.

that pretty much sums it up.
eminem is a good comparison actually, i remember kurt loder interviewing eminem and asking him if he was the axl rose of today, talking about all the hype, the controversies, being from the midwest and moving to LA, the homophobia accusations, the elton john performance, racism accusations and so on (i've thought about this myself, alot of similarities between the two) and eminem replied that he didn't know axl rose personally or know anything about the way he was brought up. at least he didn't diss him, cause if he did he would be fucking stupid. one major difference between the two though, as i see it: eminem tried to be controversial, axl never did.

(http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/427/images327141mtvenimem3ht.jpg)

It seems amazing to me that they were so big, especially in Europe. Over here, GnR have been completely forgotten about in the mainstream media. I wasn't really into GnR yet in 2002 and I heard nothing about any big tour or return. It was never mentioned, except in magazines. When Velvet Revolver came out, I know lots of people, including GnR fans, who never heard of them, even now. They are never mentioned and their songs are never played on the radio. In spite of them having the fastest selling debut album ever and having three members who were in the world's biggest band at one stage. As for GnR, you hear SCOM on  the radio very rarely but never any other song. People do talk about Nirvana but never GnR. On stations and magazines, dedicated to rock they get mentioned, but on more general music radio or magazines, neither GnR or VR are ever mentioned.

The main reason GN'R aren't mentioned much is because there was no blow out, they just fizzled out.  It's easy to tell a story about Motley Crue where they lost their singer and released a crappy album etc, or to talk about Led Zeppelin who disbanded after John Bonham died.  How do you explain that they just stop touring and go in the studio and every year a different member quits. 

It's true about them getting popular again.  They're almost considered 'retro' which is always good.  GH did alot to help improve their image.  Alot of reviews don't like them that much for whatever reason.  Read the pitchfork review of GH, basically sums up what the 94-99 view of GN'R.

one major difference between GNR and Eminem is the musical legacy.  I think with music, rap in particular, being so dynamic in terms of change, ten, twenty years from now, nobody is going to care about him.  you won't have kids who were 15 who are now 35 STILL playing their eminem tapes.  There really isn't such a thing as "classic rap".  Sure people will point to run DMC and big daddy kane and public enemy and all of those guys as pioneers, but you put on any of their songs and you kinda laugh.  they dont stand the test of time.  especially when they drop in all the pop culture references.  they just won't make sense 20 years from now.  i think rap/hip hop just doesn't have the sound that rock has to make it classic.  when you do hear old school rap its kinda like a joke, i don't think anyone REALLY digs it though.  Does ANYONE you know put on dre, snoop or puffy from the early 90s???  I don't think eminem has a chance of equaling GNRs legacy.   I think hes kinda on his way to becoming a has been as it is.
people can/will argue that axl is over the hill, but GNRs music will never be.  I seriously pray that CD comes out and does what AFD did to the rock scene 20 years ago....we need our rock back!!!

When the Illusion albums came out, I had just started college.  I was too busy getting stoned and partying to notice what other people thought of them.  Though I did hang out with a few punk rockers in college the liked bands like the misfits, etc., and would go for bake breaks, get stoned, drive around, and I made them listen to the Illusion albums, I more so that II since it was a little heavier, but I do remeber they fucking loved that album.

Lol!  :hihi: Poster boy for driving schools everywhere!

"Why drink and drive, when you can smoke and fly"

I still hope that one day everyone will be into GN'R again.

It would be cool to see people wear GN'R stuff again and being talk all over the place.

It'll never happen.  There is too much choice out there now with all the different types of music and the different means with which to hear it.  Satellite radio, internet radio...its too easy to listen to new stuff and find your own niche.  Popular music seems to change every 2-3 years too in every genre of music.  Since the death of rock/hair rock, in the 90s alone, you had so many different types of rock:
grunge (pj, stp, nirvana)
nu-metal (korn, linkin park)
rap-rock (limp bizkit)
ska rock
then what I call puss rock - but I guess thats always been around (match box 20, goo goo dolls, etc...)

I honestly wouldn't even know what to call todays rock.....I guess its somewhat emo rock now?  Well, I guess you could call it what I call it...Total SHIT! :)

I don't think you'll ever see a type of rock music, new or old dominate the charts for more then a year or two the way we have since the 80s.

HannaHat, I think you're going to be wrong about that.  Well, might be.  It depends how good the album is. If it's as good as we're all hoping, I wouldn't be at all surprised if GN'R exploded in a way that we haven't seen a band for a long time.  GN'R has been diverse enough to get Mainstream Rock and Pop radio to play their songs.  IF the new GN'R is basically expanding their sound, and the album shows that, they could make it huge.  The problem with music today is that you never get a band that appeals to a large fan base.  Even great bands like NIN, Radiohead, etc don't have the diverse sound that is needed to appeal to most people.

dude, I TOTALLY hope I am COMPLETELY wrong :)