Here Today... Gone To Hell!

Hi.
Getting away from all the madness around "Chinese Democracy"..for about 30 seconds at most

I wonder what people's opinions are of this album around here? The general consensus is people hate this album, but I don't understand why? Is it because it doesn't have any original songs? Is it the production? Is it the fact that its a covers album? Are people bitter because it was the swansong of the original era of GNR and that in light of events that followed they never got a chance to hear more original classics? Is it the CHOICE of cover songs?

I'm a fan of hardcore/punk, but I'm not biased. I enjoy GNR's back catalogue (obviously), everything from the bluesy melodic feel of "You're Crazy" all the way up to the blast of "Right Next Door to Hell", but I really enjoy listening to these covers, not necessarily because they are from my favourite bands, like The Damned, UK Subs, Iggy etc. The truth is, I actually pulled this album out again after they played "Down on the Farm", and I actually forgot some of the stuff on it, so it was like a pleasant (re-) discovery. I think they did a great job reworking what are essentially really rough, simple, lo fi bursts of raw punk rock into their grand hard rock style, but at the same time, they keep the vibe and spirit of the originals. Listening to the cover of "New Rose" after so many months on end listening to DAMNED DAMNED DAMNED, really struck me that apart from the more polished sound, its really close to the original.

Anyway I wonder what your opinions are on this album? Why you like it, what you like about it? Or if you don't, why you don't like it, what you would change etc.

I hear what casual fans have to say.. but I wonder what you guys think??

Really like it......LOVE aint it fun and Hair of the dog...Not much of a fan of Since i dont have you..
But i really do like it.. :peace:

Great album.

i love "ain't it fun", "human being" and "black leather"... the other songs are quite ok, but i'd rather stick to the originals... for a punk-cover-album i also think it's overproduced and duff definitely has too many vocal-parts...

Many people seems to complain about the sound on that album.. but I love it..

"Black Leather", "Hair of the dog" and "Look at your game girl" are all great...

I love it. I listened to it constantly for quite awhile after i got it. I should dig it out and listen again.

nice album! Can't say I'm all over it but i'm not all over cover as a hole

Yeah of course, its a bit too polished sounding, but they were true to the originals at least in terms of the music. The only song I don't really like is "Since I don't have you". I like the rest for their own reasons. Axl's vocals on "Down on the farm" make me laugh, not in a bad way, just the accent.

Really underrated album. Seems to be GNR's 'least' in terms of their catalog, but it's funny, because most of these songs would be pinnacles for any other artist.

I like most of the album. I think the only songs I didn't care for was Raw Power & Buick MacKane.

The rest are pretty damn good, with the covers of Down On The Farm, Human Being, Ain't It Fun, & Hair Of The Dog being some great GN'R songs, and deserve credit with all of the rest of the classics.

the "m?????????hhhhhh"-bleat in the end is also funny...

The album?s crap....5 songs are good...The rest is just...bad

what are the good ones in your opinion?

1. Down on the farm
2. Ain?t it fun
3. Attitude
4. Since i don?t have you
5. Hair of the dog

its a cool ablum and hair of the dog is a great song!!

so us buck makiane it really rocks

cant wait 2 hear down on the farm 2006 version!!

 : ok:

All the songs are good.  The album gets a bad rap because it came out when everyone was hungry for new GnR stuff and then never got it.

I don't know why in 1993 so many were hungry for a new album. They just got done releasing a double-album with 30 songs only two years before.

Quality over quantity. Although I will agree that 15 years for CD is a pretty long wait.

in 1993 the gnr-hype was over...

From UYI I & II or in-general?

i didnt mean that the fans were hungry because of the wait, it was because GnR were still one of the biggest, if not the biggest, band in the world at that point, and fans wanted more music. If TSI would have been what it was intended to be; an album to tide people over until they got a new album, then TSI wouldnt be looked at as it is today.

Yeah, definitely, thats what I was hoping to cover by my opinion that people feel bitter towards the album in some way because it robbed them of an albums worth of new GNR, instead they were stuck with that covers album, and the band disappearing off the face of the earth (until now, but some people dont even realise GNR are still going now, or if they do, the whole 'its not GNR' rap and 'wheres slash' etc etc)

i'd say in general... the grunge movement certainly had something to do with it... lots of "rock"-kids had turned to something else at that time... "nevermind" had been nr. 1 (beating michael jackson); stadion rock or 80's hardrock was getting out of style... so a punk-cover album by a (now) mainstream-act that people were slowly getting bored of was quite a strange idea... but the release certainly shows the i don't give a fuck attitude of gnr.

TSI? is a great album. My "top numbers" would be Buick Makane, Down on the Farm, Attitude and Since I Don't Have You. And the rest of the songs really aren't THAT bad....



M.

That's true. I lived in Los Angeles when TSI got released and nobody really cared about it. And rightfully so...
After the UYI Tour and grunge, people were tired of GNR. They were considered as dinosaurs in comparison with bands as Nirvana, Pearl Jam or Soundgarden.

TSI sounded as millionaires trying to do punk-rock... It just doesn't work. The sound should have been rawer.
TSI is a mistake.

I've been interested in reading your opinions. Thanks alot you guys for your input. keep it coming.
It definitely does show GNR didn't care what people expected or wanted. A theory that is still well enforced by them today..greater than ever i guess. I wasn't there when TSI was released.. Does anyone recall, was there alot of hype or promo surrounding the release of the album? I guess GNR still have the same kind of relevance in the music industry today, except instead of grunge, its more emocore/new metal taking over the industry..

Whats living in LA have to do with anything? ?I live in LA too. ?When the album came out, people knew what it was. "Not a real album" Thats why it wasnt a huge sucess. But GnR were still highly relevant. ?Yeah, so were Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and a lot of other great hard rock bands of that time. But dont try and re-write history and say that people werent into GnR in 93.

gnr was not such a huge thing anymore... nobody is saying that people were not interrested in gnr at all...

Where were you in 93?  Guns and Metallica were still the Big two.  The Seattle bands were also huge then, but not bigger than GnR. 

in school, so i kinda knew what kids were into at the time... it was slowly - but definitely - getting uncool to be a gnr fan... and the "spaghetti"-record was not well received... also not selling too well... and it's not just because it was a cover album (although this is another reason, i admit).

no love for human being?

ONE TWO THREE FOUR! :beer:

and if i'm acting like a king... don't cha know it's coz...

Like I said earlier, I don't know how it was at the time, but I'd imagine based on what I've heard/seen/read, the grunge thing was starting to get milked out by that time, Nirvana were well and truly on top of things, the release of IN UTERO, and then Pearl Jam with VS, Soundgarden, and other bands starting to crop up, but at the same time i'm sure there was a 'market' for GNR in there too, kind of like the 'alternative' to all that.. Just like how emocore and the new wave of american metal scene are both two very popular 'divisions' of rock/metal, but in their own separate areas or whatever, along with Metallica etc, and then, a point clarified by Kurt Cobain, was crossover fans, like macho GNR kids who liked Nirvana as well, so I'm sure their collective fanbases could have spilled over each other as well

i'm a human being

Saying that people 'round 1993 didn't care that much about GnR anymore because of the whole grunge thing is bullshit. I can remember that era very well and GnR were still the biggest band around in those days. When the subject of the whole hairmetal movement beeing killed by the grunge comes along it always irritates me when the are saying that GnR were also part of that hairmetal movement.
GnR were very very above all those other hairmetal bands. They were the biggest band on the planet and there is just no fucking way that grunge killed the popularity of the band just like it couldn't touch bands like Aerosmith, Metallica and U2. The only thing that made the attention in the band fade away was the lak of info and the silence in the 6 years after that.

...and plays too many instruments.

I thought this album was great, despite the previous albums obviously being better and more popular.  This was something very different from them, which was in fact a good thing unlike other people who think it was a bad thing.  Sure it has a strange album cover and title but realisticly it was nice to hear some more of their less mainstream stuff as well.  I'm no big fan of punk at all, but these songs are like re-done and sound punky but with a GN'R feel IMO.  My favourite songs on the album are New Rose, Down on the farm, human being, raw power, Attitude and Look at your game girl.  Axl's singing on LAYGG is amazing and to hear his voice in such a way at the very end of this album was great and made up for the one song I don't like before this 'I don't care about you'.  That and 'Since I don't have you' are the only tracks I don't dig so much on TSI.  It was nice to hear more of Duff too and It was a cool idea to create one song where he plays everything  : ok:  The only other bad thing I can think about with this record is that it is true what they say, this album had a sense of the band breaking up, as said by Slash.

this album IS the band breaking apart... and yes, the cover/booklet is terrible.

I love it because its a bit different.

I don't know if it was like that in the US, but here in Australia there was quite a bit of excitement over TSI being released. The Estranged video/single was released not too long before this album came out and was a pretty fuckin HUGE deal.
I also remember the excitement my friends and I had (about 10-15 of us) over a new GN'R album coming out. To say people didn't care about GN'R anymore because of grunge is a bit of stretch...

Anyway, I love the album. It was the only GN'R release I was actually around for to look forward to from the original line-up, seeing as I only really got into them in 1992. I still remember a local rock radio station previewing Raw Power and a couple of other songs before the album was out. Man, those were good times. :beer:

I remember very well the day TSI got released : I went to Tower Records on Sunset Blvd to buy the new record. There were no queue in front of the shop, unlike the day the UYI albums got released... Some radios played Ain't it fun and Rolling Stone did a positive review, but kids were really into grunge, 'alternative music' and rap.

TSI was probably GNR's attempt to get closer to the grunge wave... but it didn't really work. And we all know the problems that followed...

(I don't live in LA anymore. I was there as a student trying to learn English.)

same situation in austria... in record stores not too many people were listening to tsi; when i asked people/friends how they thought of the new gnr, they mostly answered that they didn't care... yeah, and it's a good point that rap was getting bigger... not to neglect the alternative music beside the "grunge"-ph?nomenon (skater-punk, etc).
but again: people noticed that gnr were back with a new album, some bought it (among them lots of people disliked it), but many had simply turned to something else...and didn't care...
i think it's a simple thesis that in late 1993 gnr were not so important anymore... although they were still no peanuts...

I was around in 1993, and I disagree with you.

What I remember from that year was...

1. Metallica
2. Guns N' Roses
3. Nirvana

Not the other way around. So I don't see your point. TSI was a flop because word spread that it was a cover album, with nothing but punk covers, and seeing how the casual fan didn't know half of the fuckin songs on there, I can see why it was a flop.

It didn't fail because people were tired of GN'R, it failed because it wasn't original.

Exactly - in 1993 GN'R staged (at the time) the LARGEST ever outdoor concert held in Australia, and Metallica played 2 sold out shows at Sydney Entertainment Centre when they toured as well. I think it's easy to dismiss GN'R as being passe, but really they were still pretty fuckin huge and TSI was a big deal when it was released. The only thing it had going against it was like you said - the fact that it wasn't original GN'R songs, but it was still a new GN'R album!

ok, here we go again:

people noticed that gnr were back with a new album, some bought it (among them lots of people disliked it), but many had simply turned to something else...and didn't care...
i think it's a simple thesis that in late 1993 gnr were not so important as they were some time earlier... yeah, they may have been nr. 2 behind metallica (as you said), but not number one anymore...
i tell you, many people that still bought gnr records had become bored with axl and co after a 2,5 year worldtour and lots of charttopping hits...

I think what happened was a reversing of popularity, just like it is in 2006. It became cool, to 'not like' GN'R. Because of where the music world was going in rock with bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Nine Inch Nails, etc. Interest & popularity were still there, probably not as much as they were a year and a half before, but it was still there none the less.

Things like the Estranged video (released in 1993), didn't help matters. The song, a masterpiece, the video, a travesty. It was WAY over the top and WAY overdone, and that epic, bigger than life, hard rock band thing seemed 80's at that point.

I'm not disagreeing with that fact interest was starting to slip, but TSI was not a failure because of this. It was a failure because it was a cover album. Had it been all new material and marketed as such, the album would've been another platinum record for GN'R.


How can you have hits, if people are bored with you? Somebody's requesting them on the radio.

I'm not saying interest didn't slightly wain in GN'R, and also Metallica on top of that. Their act seemed aged at that point, compared to the others.

But i'm saying that TSI was not a flop because of this. It was a flop, because it wasn't new material. Had it been, it'd been another hit record. At that point it was 1993, and although people weren't 'as' interested, Metallica & GN'R had obviously survived the bloodbath in modern-rock music, that killed many bands.

I was around in 1993, and I disagree with you.

What I remember from that year was...

1. Metallica
2. Guns N' Roses
3. Nirvana

Not the other way around. So I don't see your point. TSI was a flop because word spread that it was a cover album, with nothing but punk covers, and seeing how the casual fan didn't know half of the fuckin songs on there, I can see why it was a flop.

It didn't fail because people were tired of GN'R, it failed because it wasn't original.

i think it's this AND that way: interrest started to decrease and the no-new-material status was not helping either; also gnr didn't have a video (for "ain't it fun" as the first single) till "since i don't have you" (far away from being a punk-song) came along... which was NO hit, by the way...

I think its funny to see a bunch of teenagers discussing what happened in 1993... by what they read??  :hihi:

GNR. Nirvana.Metallica


OK, to answer the question, its a great album, just not very accessible to the masses.

how do you know?

Um, I was a teenager in 1993, and still remember those days well.

me too

If at the end of 1993, GNR had released an original album instead of TSI, it would have sold more copies but it wouldn't have reached the sales numbers of UYI by far. Not to mention the sales of AFD...

Someone mentioned the video for 'Estranged'. I think 'November Rain' was already problematic...

Me too. We are just debating the slide.

How do we not remember those days?

First off- I absolutely LOVE TSI?. 45 minutes of a great rock band just having a blast in the studio playing songs they love. It's also cool in that it's the only album with Gilby. : ok:

As far as GN'R's place in the world in late '93... they still had plenty of fans... but Metallica, Nirvana, PJ, STP, etc. were the new flavors of the day. GN'R needed to come up with something fresh and exciting to compete with those guys... instead they put out a covers album... followed a year later by yet another cover (SFTD)... soon the perception grew that they couldn't "hang" with the grunge bands and could only record other artists' music... GN'R became "uncool" and basically dead.

They only slowly started getting back some of their "legendary" status in '99 with the Spin article about Axl and when grunge itself had gotten lame and played out...

I think it's a great album.. Just an album they wanted to release after the tour because they just wanted to.. filled with band members favourite tracks and great attitude. And it was well produced too.. and I like the fact that it was made during the Illusion-sessions and -tour, so they couldn't put that much energy into it, and I think that's why it sounds so great.

that's what i think...

Agreed. I think the reality also was... irregardless of grunge... GN'R in late '93 was a spent force. Exhausted from touring, videos, etc. saddled with lawsuits, major personal problems (Axl-Stephanie, Slash and Duff with marriages falling apart), and tired of each other. I'm not sure they could have just sat down in a studio at that time and come up with the next great rock masterpiece or whatever. It would been an album just for the sake of putting out an album and would likely have been an inferior product.

There was an interesting time a little later on in the mid 90's, after they had all had a break- when Zakk Wylde was jamming with them... Gilby was penning some great music that turned up on Pawnshop- which could have been used for GN'R etc.. that they probably could have come up something pretty cool to weather the grunge storm... but Axl veered industrial while Slash and Duff wanted AFD redux- the rest is history.