Top Bad GNR Decisions over the years....

[Chief]

Good points there, i have to say I agree with most of them.  The Oh My God thing was really bizarre and probably not the best idea.  Axl even said it was a demo at one point.
but overall it may have been good because they realized that the song's feel/vibe wasn't the direction to go into.

[eraser]

-My main complaint is that this seems to be a "bitch about the CD delay" thread disguised as a "biggest blunders" thread.? Your last six blunders are about new material or new material based tours.

well 6 "blunders" seems a lot since there hasn't been a lot of new albums recently...

but only 6 for covering the last 13 years seems not enough!

i quite liked the whole list.. except maybe the 2 illusion albums. people should never never wish or say gnr should release less material!

 

[daubs]

i agree with everytihng there except the braids...i think it looks good. i think it would be pathetic if he was still running around with long hair, a bandana and tight shorts. times have changed.

[drpoon]

I meant Down on the Farm.  My bad.

[Orgasmatron]

Wow.. Down On The Farm was pretty much the best cover they ever did.. I'd rate it among some songs on UYI, how can you say that!?!?

[Skunk]

Well.....I won't talk about all of your list, you're entitled to that. Okay, ?a few yes, some definitely not.

What I will say is that your comparison to Zep, Stones, Aerosmith. POINT BLANK: The Stones and Aerosmith have been around TOO GODDAMN LONG. As there have been high pristine quality to both acts, both acts have not released good albums for almost 20 fookin' years!! 1978 (Some Girls) 1976 (Rocks). Yes, there have been some choice songs between both bands since then. But as solid as the entire Guns history? Think again.

And Zeppelin, as good as they are, are just overrated dinosaurs.

Granted, each of those bands are huge influences on GNR. But I'm sick to death of people naming these has-beens already. OK, we get it, the Beatles, the Stones, Zep, Aerosmith, yadda yadda yadda. Everyone knows about them, loud and clear. What about all the other bands since then? That don't get half the recognition? That were just as big, if not bigger, influences on GNR, or people like me?

Maybe it's just me, and that I think GNR (the entire old and new history) has more quality, warts and all, then the entire qunatity of each band you mentioned. You want your rawk safe and predictable? Be my guest.

Fact is the amount of good legendary material these bands have produced is huge. Also, while i know a lot of people don't like newer Aerosmith, do you have any idea how many records they've sold since 76? Nevermind the consistent sell-out performances (which is also true of the stones). When Appetite was hitting big and GNR opened for Aerosmith, the album they were touring for was Pump, which i think is a quality album, and probably the best Aerosmith album of their new era. As far as comparisons to these bands, i think a lot of it had to do with Slash's guitar play, (when you talk about American Hard Rock bands, Aerosmith/GNR, Slash/Perry is easy) but also because GNR is the only band that approached the kind of legend these bands have and the kind of pure rock attitude they have. How can you critcize a band for being around too long? To me it's incredible as i hope for more GNR material.

Which brings me back on topic. While i think this is a pretty good list, i have to say i agree with some of the other posts (dotf, oh my god, etc)... it's true that we can see the mistakes, but hindsight is 20/20, and none of these things seem like big problems if we have a new cd. The fact is that's the Only thing that makes GNR not as legendary or highly regarded as those other bands - they just don't have as much material.

[guitarpatch]

And I meant that he should have sang 1 new song at the VMA's.  Britney Spears and pop stars sing "medleys."  They should have sung just Madagascar or the Blues.  Mixing the songs up with part of Madagascar was lame.

Didn't Metallica perform a Justice medley at just about every show in the early 90's? Dude, I know you're upset, but it's easy to nitpick and complain 10-15 years after the fact. Try making some of those decisions in those situations at that time and you will quickly realize it ain't easy

[burden]

The biggest mistake GnR made was not writing and recording material while on tour for three years between '91 and '93 and taking on the grunge movement.  Izzy said it some interview, the band no longer sat around and just jammed acoustically.  GnR should have been writiing while they were toruing, regrouped after the Nirvana/Pearl Jam wave and took those bands on.  Instead Axl fled to the hills for 15 years.  GnR vs. Nirvana could have been a positive thing like the Beatles vs. the Stones. 

I think Axl wanted to sustain being the biggest band in the world but you can only burn so bright for so long.  New generations like different music.  However, if GnR kept putting out quality music their core would have stayed, there would have been plenty of new fans won over and GnR would be with U2 right now as the part of the last great relevent bands standing.

[doooodickiebr]

why didnt axl make out with brittany like madonna did?

[Skunk]

why didnt axl make out with brittany like madonna did?

give him time...

[TheMole]

Actually, releasing two albums instead of one might not have been an artistically great move (there is some filler on there), but the fact that both albums sold pretty damn good and actually debuted at numbers one and two in the charts has put another record behind their name. In every rockumentary type thing about them they talk about their "best selling debut of all time" and their '91 follow-up albums which made them "the first band to have two records debut at numbers 1 and 2 in the charts".

[Mauve_All]

-Releasing 2 Albums at the same time

I love the Use Your Illusions, but this was simply too much music for the public to absorb at once.  Also, there were a lot of songs that could be described as "filler".  Was "My World" really necessary?  Did we really need two versions of "Don't Cry" on the album?  If they had released one 12 song album it would probably go down in history with Appetitte.  Instead all of the perceived "filler" watered down the album in the eyes of historians.

Also, the public can't handle that many good songs at one time.  There was simply too much music and good songs didn't get their due.  It would have been a better move to release one, wait a year or two, and release the leftovers as a follow up.

I strongly disagree on that. Releasing two double albums at the same time is something that shows just how great and unique this band is. Any other band with so much material would go like "OK, we'll release half of it now and the rest in a couple of years and we'll keep feeding ourselves on the material we already have without having to write any new songs". It's called marketing. GnR didn't do that. Instead, they took up this enormous project and pulled it off amazingly well. Maybe, these rock historians should give GnR the credit that they had the guts to do something like that, somehing that no other bad has ever done, as far as I know.

Plus, the two versions of Don't Cry were part of this big project. I don't know if they were necessary like you put it, I know that when I first heard it, I thought "Well, not only do they cover mega songs like "Knocking on heaven's door" they also cover their own songs from one album to the other! That's super, that's unconventional considering the simultaneous release, that's like pulling a curtain and saying to the fans "Hey, come inside, take a look in our world, this is how we work with our songs".

And one more thing. IMO, artists with originality should not care about "what the public can handle". They should only care about what they have to give to the public. And those who can't get a grip on it, .. well... you know how the song goes 

[Marc8382]

Well, in my opinion, the fact that they haven't released a live CD/DVD from a concert from 87-91 drives me nuts.  Ofcourse, Axl probably won't push for such a release since he has a new band and is "focused" on Chinese Democracy but maybe Slash, Duff, Matt, and Izzy can do something about it. 

I know it's not necessarily a blunder, but it's something that the original band should've done.

[MarioGunner]

Well, in my opinion, the fact that they haven't released a live CD/DVD from a concert from 87-91 drives me nuts. Ofcourse, Axl probably won't push for such a release since he has a new band and is "focused" on Chinese Democracy but maybe Slash, Duff, Matt, and Izzy can do something about it.

I know it's not necessarily a blunder, but it's something that the original band should've done.

Absolutely, big mistake, instead they did it as soon as Gilby entered the band, which in a way gave Guns a more dynamic-on-stage presence, but it was less GN'R already.

The biggest mistake GnR made was not writing and recording material while on tour for three years between '91 and '93 and taking on the grunge movement. Izzy said it some interview, the band no longer sat around and just jammed acoustically. GnR should have been writiing while they were toruing, regrouped after the Nirvana/Pearl Jam wave and took those bands on. Instead Axl fled to the hills for 15 years.

They weren't a band anymore, I mean,? in the brotherhood? they were born as a band.

Every band makes bad decisions, and some bands make what we call really bad decisions. Old GNR only had one really bad one and that was breaking up.

I agree with this, I've always thought that Slash should have tried to record something in the direction Axl wanted, it wouldn't have been the end of the world, I think Slash wanted to be too much the same, eventually, just as Oh My God, the new direction would have shown that wasn't the right one. They would have gone back to basics, and rock the world again the way they just knew how to. As a matter of fact, and it's been said here, Axl dropped that style and he's going back to the hard rocking style, with some electronic shit, but still keeping it cool. Slash has worked with so many other people, he would have done well for an album and then just reinvent GN'R or whatever.

Actually, releasing two albums instead of one might not have been an artistically great move (there is some filler on there), but the fact that both albums sold pretty damn good and actually debuted at numbers one and two in the charts has put another record behind their name. In every rockumentary type thing about them they talk about their "best selling debut of all time" and their '91 follow-up albums which made them "the first band to have two records debut at numbers 1 and 2 in the charts".

When it comes to this, it could be polemic, cause indeed a single use your illusion album with a perfect song list would have been killer, and would have sold as much as the appetite and with a different style, and out of topic what would that list be?? Is there a topic for this already?

Civil War
Dust N' Bones
Yesterdays
Don't Cry
Right Next Door to Hell
Double Talkin' Jive
Knockin' on Heaven's Door? (enough with one cover)
Pretty tied Up
November Rain
Dead Horse
You Could Be Mine
Estranged
Garden of Eden
Coma

I don't know, that actually is 1:18:51 so it would fit in a cd, and eventhough I know I'm leaving Locomotive behind and maybe So Fine, it has some nice rockers and enough balads on that one, it's a 14 songs cd and makes the best use of the space available... by the way, how's? the mixing???

[CheapJon]

why didnt axl make out with brittany like madonna did?

because axl has some class

[drpoon]

I guess we can disagree about "Down on the Farm."  I think it would be a much better song without the accent.

[Bang Bang]

Good points there, i have to say I agree with most of them.? The Oh My God thing was really bizarre and probably not the best idea.? Axl even said it was a demo at one point.
but overall it may have been good because they realized that the song's feel/vibe wasn't the direction to go into.

Not sure I agree on this one.  I didn't like VR's "Set me free" when it came out.  I thought it was week.  But when you listen to it in the context of the entire album, it was awesome.  Oh My God could also have been very cool in the context of an album that was all like that.  On its own, it had no legs...

[GeorgeSteele]

-Releasing "Civil War" on a charity album a year before the Illusions came out.?

I swear to God, this song was out on the album "Nobody's Child", which was a benefit album for Lithuanian orphans or something.? It was nice and all, but the song never got what it deserved.? It was played on some radio stations, but it should have been at least a single (it was never released as one) and had it been a debut on the album, I think it would have been huge.? This song never really got its just praise from the general public and it was due to the bizarre decision to throw it on a compilation album where most artists put B side quality songs.

Yeah, I bought that album (I think it was for Romanian orphans).  I didn't have a CD player then so I bought the cassette.  I'd always have to fast-forward to Civil War and I resented having to listen to the very end of some terrible Mike & the Mechanics song that was just ahead of Civil War.