The Greatest Hits reviews thread (Post album reviews here)

[echrisl]

Greatest Hits
by Guns N Roses on Geffen
Release date: 15th March 2004 Who really thinks that Guns N? Roses releasing ?Chinese Democracy? would be a good thing? Really?
No, didn?t think so. It?d be like someone unearthing a lost William Burroughs work and finding out that it was a Harry Potter book. Wrong, stupid and bizarre.

But still, something?s gotta keep the flames of the baddest heavy rock band ever ? going. This though? A ham-fisted rummage through the band?s ever-tatty-growing back catalogue? Hmm.

So, no, it?s not all good. Is it a greatest ?greatest hits?? No. It?s a well-proportioned selection of the band?s recorded history (and all the problems that go with that). Ergo, we only get three tracks from ?Appetite For Destruction? where there should be six (pushing on ten), and we get three tracks from ?The Spaghetti Incident? where there should be none. Guns N? Roses are an obvious kinda band, we accept, but please, grant us some sort of intelligence. You can stick your ?Sympathy For The Devil? up your arse.

In mitigation, it?s impossible to call a record that has ?November Rain?, ?Paradise City?, ?You Could Be Mine? and ?Patience? on it bad. But they?re really pushing it. A perfect example why a band falling to pieces from the start should never make a long term commitment to excellence in recording. But why should they give a fuck? They were Guns N? Roses.


From:  drowninsound.com

[The Devil]

from Kerrang

KKK

The problem is the title greatest hits. Cliched, flabby, redundant and obvious. A compilation album which rests on one assumption that the greatest hits of GNR are the songs that most deserved to be compiled and reappraised. And really they are not.

Well some of them are. The mangled visciousness of Paradise City wrapped in gloriously melody is still five minutes of ubversive brilliance. You Could be Mine is all spit n snarl the sound of a band teetering on the edge of total inssanity. Elsewhere not much. November rain has some nice huitar parts. Sweet Child O mine is just rubbish. But really thats not the poinnt. The point is that the songs that are missing the songs that the title ensures are missing. Coma is the best tune the band ever wrote and it is not here. Its so easy the dirtiest song the band ever wrote isnt here. Neither is 14 years, shotgun blues or Rocket queen. Neither are so many songs that told you what Guns N Roses really were.

Because what they were and what they wont be again was the most exciting, sexual,radiculous,unpleasant,unpreditable, misunderstood, repellent ,misconceived and undenialble band of their type. And you wont really know it from this.

best track : paradise city, you could be mine

That may be true, but it doesn't much matter since it isn't on the album.

[grog mug]

Geffen should NOT have put out a GH until Axl's masterplan is established with three new albums of material.  They can make a greatest hits package out of those three albums alone.

[DazRose85]

Yesterday at college I was reading the new copy of the NME and they gave a very good review, giving the album a 9/10. The ad for the album was also on the back page.

[America's Least Wanted]

Greatest Hits
by Guns N Roses on Geffen
Release date: 15th March 2004 Who really thinks that Guns N? Roses releasing ?Chinese Democracy? would be a good thing? Really?
No, didn?t think so. It?d be like someone unearthing a lost William Burroughs work and finding out that it was a Harry Potter book. Wrong, stupid and bizarre.

But still, something?s gotta keep the flames of the baddest heavy rock band ever ? going. This though? A ham-fisted rummage through the band?s ever-tatty-growing back catalogue? Hmm.

So, no, it?s not all good. Is it a greatest ?greatest hits?? No. It?s a well-proportioned selection of the band?s recorded history (and all the problems that go with that). Ergo, we only get three tracks from ?Appetite For Destruction? where there should be six (pushing on ten), and we get three tracks from ?The Spaghetti Incident? where there should be none. Guns N? Roses are an obvious kinda band, we accept, but please, grant us some sort of intelligence. You can stick your ?Sympathy For The Devil? up your arse.

In mitigation, it?s impossible to call a record that has ?November Rain?, ?Paradise City?, ?You Could Be Mine? and ?Patience? on it bad. But they?re really pushing it. A perfect example why a band falling to pieces from the start should never make a long term commitment to excellence in recording. But why should they give a fuck? They were Guns N? Roses.


From:  drowninsound.com

3 Tracks from 'The Spaghetti Incident?'............'Ain't It Fun'.......'Since I Don't Have You'.............and.......

[Mutherfunker]

That may be true, but it doesn't much matter since it isn't on the album.

  It is on the album  

Doh!

@#$%Muther

[jbenzz]

Greatest Hits
by Guns N Roses on Geffen
Release date: 15th March 2004 Who really thinks that Guns N? Roses releasing ?Chinese Democracy? would be a good thing? Really?
No, didn?t think so. It?d be like someone unearthing a lost William Burroughs work and finding out that it was a Harry Potter book. Wrong, stupid and bizarre.

But still, something?s gotta keep the flames of the baddest heavy rock band ever ? going. This though? A ham-fisted rummage through the band?s ever-tatty-growing back catalogue? Hmm.

So, no, it?s not all good. Is it a greatest ?greatest hits?? No. It?s a well-proportioned selection of the band?s recorded history (and all the problems that go with that). Ergo, we only get three tracks from ?Appetite For Destruction? where there should be six (pushing on ten), and we get three tracks from ?The Spaghetti Incident? where there should be none. Guns N? Roses are an obvious kinda band, we accept, but please, grant us some sort of intelligence. You can stick your ?Sympathy For The Devil? up your arse.

In mitigation, it?s impossible to call a record that has ?November Rain?, ?Paradise City?, ?You Could Be Mine? and ?Patience? on it bad. But they?re really pushing it. A perfect example why a band falling to pieces from the start should never make a long term commitment to excellence in recording. But why should they give a fuck? They were Guns N? Roses.


From:  drowninsound.com

3 Tracks from 'The Spaghetti Incident?'............'Ain't It Fun'.......'Since I Don't Have You'.............and.......

Maybe they have a bonus track of Look at your game girl.,  

[St.heathen]

from Kerrang

KKK

The problem is the title greatest hits. Cliched, flabby, redundant and obvious. A compilation album which rests on one assumption that the greatest hits of GNR are the songs that most deserved to be compiled and reappraised. And really they are not.

Well some of them are. The mangled visciousness of Paradise City wrapped in gloriously melody is still five minutes of ubversive brilliance. You Could be Mine is all spit n snarl the sound of a band teetering on the edge of total inssanity. Elsewhere not much. November rain has some nice huitar parts. Sweet Child O mine is just rubbish. But really thats not the poinnt. The point is that the songs that are missing the songs that the title ensures are missing. Coma is the best tune the band ever wrote and it is not here. Its so easy the dirtiest song the band ever wrote isnt here. Neither is 14 years, shotgun blues or Rocket queen. Neither are so many songs that told you what Guns N Roses really were.

Because what they were and what they wont be again was the most exciting, sexual,radiculous,unpleasant,unpreditable, misunderstood, repellent ,misconceived and undenialble band of their type. And you wont really know it from this.

best track : paradise city, you could be mine

Is that a real review from Kerrang?  I don't know why i am suprised mind you. I'm sure Kerrang has been taken over by the idiots from the now defunct Melody Maker lol  

Sweet child of mine is rubbish??  The whole world loves that song.  Ok doesn't have to be everyones favourite GN'R song, but calling it rubbish is very silly, lazy journalism.  It's that kind of thing that has put me off buying it for about a year- since i last bought one.

It's meant to be an album of Hits, so songs like Coma would not be on it.  Just like any Greatest hits.  So him moaning about what songs are not on there is also stupid for a proffessional  music journalist. We all know what it should have been but just take it for what it is they are fabulous songs.  

[Mutherfunker]

Typed up from Planet Sound, Text, channel 4, UK:

A sorry mess of a band who haven't released an album of new songs since 1991, it's hard to blame Geffen for trying to get some money out of GN'R as Axl's navel-gazing drags on and on.

Still, they,ve made a right mess of the tracklisting. Only three appetite songs - who'd pick their dim Sympathy For The Devil cover over Nightrain? Plus, the gatefold packaging is shoddy.

However, if Axl hears You Could Be Mine or Paradise City and remembers what he was good at, then it's done its job.

@#$%Muther

[EET_FUK]

Geffen should NOT have put out a GH until Axl's masterplan is established with three new albums of material.  

I know this is off topic but I couldn't resist!!


I always laugh when I hear about Axl's Master Plan.  I'm sure he sat down sometime in the ealry 90's and said, "You know what, I think i'll get rid of all the original band members or piss them off so they leave...but i'll keep Dizzy because, well, no real reason.  Then, I'll dissappear for the better part of the next decade.  Sit on my ass, get fat, get a ton of plastic surgery so everyone makes fun of me while the rest of the world thinks I'm working on a new record.  Then, while recording my masterpiece, I'll go through producers and band members like diapers on a new born.  Then, once  I find the right group of freaks, err, hired-guns, i'll play a hand full of one-off gigs here and there.  Then, I'll make my triumphant return on the VMA's only to be made fun of because I was nervous and so out of shape that I could barely run from one side of the stage to the other without losing my breath.  Then, for my first US tour in a decade, i'll play mostly half-full areas and cause riots on the opening night of the tour and then quit halfway through the tour and cause another riot.  After that, i will retreat to the "Studio" to put the "Finishing Touches" on my new album and all durring that time i'll tell my freaks, err, hired-guns to say the album will be out soon, even though I have barely even started on the thing.  Man, this is a fool-proof plan...there's NO way I could fail with this."

OK, so I exaggerated a bit at the end...but you get the point.  There is NO master plan...or is there??  

[Miz]

Geffen should NOT have put out a GH until Axl's masterplan is established with three new albums of material.  

I know this is off topic but I couldn't resist!!


I always laugh when I hear about Axl's Master Plan.  I'm sure he sat down sometime in the ealry 90's and said, "You know what, I think i'll get rid of all the original band members or piss them off so they leave...but i'll keep Dizzy because, well, no real reason.  Then, i'll dissappear for the better part of the next decade.  Sit on my ass, get fat, get a ton of plastic surgery so everyone makes fun of me while the rest of the world thinks I'm working on a new record.  Then, while recording my masterpiece, i'll go through producers and band members like a diapers on a new born.  Then, once  I find the right group of freaks, err, hired-guns, i'll play a hand full of one off gigs here and there.  Then, I'll make my triumphant return on the VMA's only to be made fun of because I was nervous and out of shape that I could barely run from one side of the stage to the other without losing my breath.  Then, for my first US tour in a decade, i'll play most half-full areas and casue riots on the opening night of the tour and then quit halfway through the tour and cause another riot.  After that, i will retreat to "Studio" to put the "Finishing Touches" on my new album and all durring that time i'll tell my freaks, err, hired-guns to say the album will be out soon, even though I have barely even started on the thing.  Man, this is a fool-proof plan...there's NO way I could fail with this."

OK, so I exaggerated a bit at the end...but you get the point.  There is NO master plan...or is there??  

LMFAO [rofl]
That's possibly the funniest thing I've read all year...[rofl]

[St.heathen]

Here's a review from the Sunday Observer by a Ms Kitty Empire.

"Success ruins talent like nothing else. Just look at Axl Rose, bloated with ego and fast living, isolated from his bandmates, and interminably(five years and counting) working on his Chinese Democracy album, thus named because it was never going to happen. Meanwhile, there's the rest of the once-proud gunners, known as Velvet Revolver (a mockery of their former good name).  Anything either camp release will never live up to expectation.  It's often easy to forget why anyone bothers with these addled clowns.  This Greatest hits is something of a reminder.  Harvesting all their biggest hits and some later period flim-flam, it dangles their anthems ( Sweet child of mine, Paradise City) before the listener then charts GNR'S decline into a covers band.  There are no new songs, no unreleased tracks or rarities to sweeten the pill of their spectacular fall from excellence. Anyone who cares about  their record collection should buy Appetite for Destruction instead."



Meeeeowwww lol  She is bitter. Do you think she's a member here ?? lol

The paper also had a big advert for the GH

[SLCPUNK]

Wow Ms Kitty is HARSH.

[SlashFan]

Geffen should NOT have put out a GH until Axl's masterplan is established with three new albums of material.  

I know this is off topic but I couldn't resist!!


I always laugh when I hear about Axl's Master Plan.  I'm sure he sat down sometime in the ealry 90's and said, "You know what, I think i'll get rid of all the original band members or piss them off so they leave...but i'll keep Dizzy because, well, no real reason.  Then, i'll dissappear for the better part of the next decade.  Sit on my ass, get fat, get a ton of plastic surgery so everyone makes fun of me while the rest of the world thinks I'm working on a new record.  Then, while recording my masterpiece, i'll go through producers and band members like a diapers on a new born.  Then, once  I find the right group of freaks, err, hired-guns, i'll play a hand full of one off gigs here and there.  Then, I'll make my triumphant return on the VMA's only to be made fun of because I was nervous and out of shape that I could barely run from one side of the stage to the other without losing my breath.  Then, for my first US tour in a decade, i'll play most half-full areas and casue riots on the opening night of the tour and then quit halfway through the tour and cause another riot.  After that, i will retreat to "Studio" to put the "Finishing Touches" on my new album and all durring that time i'll tell my freaks, err, hired-guns to say the album will be out soon, even though I have barely even started on the thing.  Man, this is a fool-proof plan...there's NO way I could fail with this."

OK, so I exaggerated a bit at the end...but you get the point.  There is NO master plan...or is there??  

LMFAO
That's possibly the funniest thing I've read all year...

 :hihi:I also think that has to be the funniest thing I read all year

[Mutherfunker]

From Amazon.co.uk:

If time is the true test, then Guns N' Roses' Greatest Hits confirms that they really were one of the greatest rock & roll bands in the world. While, in retrospect, fellow graduates of the class of 1987 are about as cool as poodle perms and spandex, the LA bad boys still rock like gods. Listening to the sun-drenched chords of "Paradise City" and the ensuing stadium-sized swagger is enough to make wearing leather trousers and bandanas seem like a good idea. Of course, it helped that for them sex, drugs and rock & roll was a way of life, not a fashion statement. As Axl Rose wails "I wanna watch you bleed" on "Welcome to the Jungle", like a chain-smoking lunatic possessed, it's hard not to believe he meant it. Yet equally, it was his surprisingly poetic nature that made genuinely touching love songs of "Patience" and "Sweet Child of Mine".
Though none of their subsequent albums matched the drug-crazed genius of Appetite for Destruction, they did, as the Greatest Hits reminds, have their moments. From the bloated Use Your Illusion I & II came ultimate rock ballads "Don't Cry" and "November Rain", along with the primal rage that was "You Could Be Mine". And while the covers of the The Spaghetti Incident were largely forgettable, the fact that their final single was a seedy sneer through the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" seems spectacularly fitting. --Dan Gennoe

@#$%Muther

[Booker Floyd]

From Amazon.co.uk:

If time is the true test, then Guns N' Roses' Greatest Hits confirms that they really were one of the greatest rock & roll bands in the world. While, in retrospect, fellow graduates of the class of 1987 are about as cool as poodle perms and spandex, the LA bad boys still rock like gods. Listening to the sun-drenched chords of "Paradise City" and the ensuing stadium-sized swagger is enough to make wearing leather trousers and bandanas seem like a good idea. Of course, it helped that for them sex, drugs and rock & roll was a way of life, not a fashion statement. As Axl Rose wails "I wanna watch you bleed" on "Welcome to the Jungle", like a chain-smoking lunatic possessed, it's hard not to believe he meant it. Yet equally, it was his surprisingly poetic nature that made genuinely touching love songs of "Patience" and "Sweet Child of Mine".
Though none of their subsequent albums matched the drug-crazed genius of Appetite for Destruction, they did, as the Greatest Hits reminds, have their moments. From the bloated Use Your Illusion I & II came ultimate rock ballads "Don't Cry" and "November Rain", along with the primal rage that was "You Could Be Mine". And while the covers of the The Spaghetti Incident were largely forgettable, the fact that their final single was a seedy sneer through the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil" seems spectacularly fitting. --Dan Gennoe

@#$%Muther

Excellent review - some really great song descriptions  

[MoonMax]

(No about the album-)
NOW I'M PISSED!!!!

I live in Poland, and the Greatest Hits relese was earlier here(like in some other countries). I bought it on saturday but I had no time to even listen to the album, and share with opinion either, damm!

Okey. I think, for us, fans the list of the songs has no matter, 'cause we've got all of them. For other listers, it is the graetest hits album, with full spectrum of they carrier, so come on. Oftenly Greatest Hits albums make people to try the regular album.

But, I think the remastering is great. I hear every instrument part in it's own space - no sound flood. It's great. Beside the sound is more clear for me. I think it's well done.

The only funny thing is, the on the left side of the cover there is for example Slash and on the right Saul Hudson.... Why? Weired, man. If today kid will read the credits, he's first thought will be like: Guns N' Roses was just a cover band.

The other thing. The authors of the songs from Apettite, where always like "the hole band, name, after name", or "Guns N' Roses". That's fine. But why, after years, I suddenly find out, the November Rain was written by every each Guns N' Roses member?  

Cheers
MoonMax

 

[echrisl]

3 Tracks from 'The Spaghetti Incident?'............'Ain't It Fun'.......'Since I Don't Have You'.............and.......

I'm guessing they were thinking Sympathy for the Devil was from Spaghetti Incident, but that's just my guess.

[Doc Emmett Brown]

(No about the album-)
NOW I'M PISSED!!!!

The only funny thing is, the on the left side of the cover there is for example Slash and on the right Saul Hudson....

You mean on the left side, it has the text "Slash", and on the right, the text says "Saul Hudson"??
That's funny...  Was somebody drunk when they put this thing together?

One thing I noticed about the reviews is that some of them are trying so desperately to bash GNR, but they are forced to admit their talent.  Even a bad tracklisting of GH makes them grudgingly concede just how great they were.  

Makes me laugh.  

[jaknudsen]

Review from the norwegian newspaper VG

Guns N'Roses: ?Greatest Hits? (Geffen/BMG) (the full article in norwegian)

My translation: (bear with me for any mistakes.. )

Band over board!

A "Best Of" by Guns N' Roses seems like worth acquiring. Until you put the disc in the CD player and is reminded why everything went so terribly wrong so terribly fast.

?Appetite For Destruction? added an irresistible element of drama to an apathetic pre-grunge rock world in 1987. The first four songs on ?Greatest Hits? does indeed, pretty obviously, show why it was precisely Guns N' Roses - and not just anyone else of their numerous contemporaries in Los Angeles' shocklingy foolish hard rock scene - that took the world by storm in a short period, until Nirvana's ?Nevermind? (1991) put a forcible end to the stupidities a few years later.

But honestly. The remaining ten tracks, mainly derived from the insanely megalomanic ?Use Your Illusion? albums (1991), are pretty much completely awful. For, what happens when confused ?white trash? kids get unrestrained ?artistic? freedom of action and unlimited access to California's finest cocaine? Well: What's released is ?epic? piano ballads with choir of angels and other kitch-trimmings, together with endless creative admissions of failure in shape of bloated, stupid covers of some of rock history's most worn classics.

What burst so loud? Except from Axl Rose's frightful siren voice, I mean?

Rating: 3/6?

MORTEN ST?LE NILSEN (VG?16.03.04 kl. 07:55)