Great Village Voice Article, on why everyone still loves GNR

[Minneapolisnewsman]

Bored in the U.S.A.
Axl Rose's refusal to release a new record is a powerful work of art all its own.

by Neil Shah
May 8th, 2006 1:03 PM

Hardly anyone believes in Axl Rose anymore, but I do. The paranoid Guns N' Roses frontman?who's burned through $13 million and well over a full decade tweaking his quagmire of a comeback album, Chinese Democracy?does whatever he pleases, even if that means doing nothing at all.
In the late '80s, Rose's wedding of classic-rock fantasy and urban realism produced the Sunset Strip's definitive perversion of the American Dream, Appetite for Destruction. Onstage, his hypnotic snake dance seduced legions of landlocked Middle American prisoners. I fell for Axl too. My Indian parents had left Bombay for Los Angeles in 1967 (long before Rose would arrive from Indiana), but his stories of urban survival seemed to echo their own cautionary tales. If Axl taunted Iranians on the admittedly repellent "One in a Million," maybe it was because he felt like a foreigner too.

But not long after 1991's messy Appetite follow-up double album Use Your Illusion I and II, GNR imploded, and Rose retired to his Malibu estate, trailed by a trickle of "What Happened to Axl?" articles that questioned his sanity. An endless stream of New Year's Eve shows (often in Vegas) and quickly, disastrously canceled comeback tours has plagued loyal fans ever since. At 2002's MTV Video Music Awards, Rose seemed out of tune, out of breath, and out of time, resplendent in an oversize sports jersey and cornrows. Chinese Democracy, meanwhile, remains a legendary nonentity, the modern age's all-purpose synonym for "broken record."

Well, get ready to protect your ears, because it's Axl-shooting season again. GNR is playing four sold-out shows at the Hammerstein Ballroom starting Friday night, before kicking off a European tour later this month. There's even chatter that Chinese Democracy will finally see release this fall. In January, Rose told Rolling Stone that fans would hear new music this year, and indeed, four demos have already leaked: "I.R.S.," "Catcher in the Rye," "There Was a Time," and the best of the bunch, "Better." While the songs could use an infusion of lyrical depth and tighter arrangements, they're proof that Axl's pop instincts are intact.

Of course, anyone expecting Chinese Democracy to resurrect classic shit-kicking GNR will be disappointed. This is an Axl Rose solo album, and it showcases Rose's contributions to the old band: anger, melodrama, melody. If the danceable grunge of "Better" is any indication of Axl's intentions, this will merely be an enjoyable pop album?GNR without the grit. The bigger problem, however, is that Axl's genre splicing can often feel forced and choppy.

But before you write off Rose for all these optimistic announcements and subsequent, crushing delays, let me say this: Rock 'n' roll isn't about productivity. It's about doing whatever you want, whenever you want. Otherwise, it ceases to be a form of rebellion. Axl's idiosyncratic career confronts us with a kind of paradox: If being a rebel is your job, why work when you don't want to?

Consider the derided Use Your Illusion records. The accepted wisdom is they scatter three or four solid gems among reams of tossed-off studio jams and overproduced pop-metal. But Appetite and Illusion are two halves of a deeply American story. If Bruce Springsteen embodies the stoic working-class hero (happily serenading his wife as the factory closes), Axl plays the Boss's dysfunctional son, an angry runaway who refuses to work at all. Long overdue and wildly overbudget, the Illusions rejected the rock business as well, alienat- ing critics, fans, and even, ultimately, Axl's bandmates with an indictment of the very rags-to-riches dream that'd fascinated him on Appetite. It's as if Axl suddenly realized that his "Paradise City" was "Right Next Door to Hell," that fame was only a facade concealing heartbreak, emptiness, and disappointment. The vicious bite of the one-minute industrial set-closer "My World" reveals that at the very moment we sought to enter Axl's world, he basically wanted to throw us out. The Illusions hated us, so we hated them too.

Still, unlike Springsteen and Kurt Cobain (who both pretended to be anti-commercial), Rose has always strived to be as crassly commercial as possible while still pissing everyone off, showing up late to concerts and instigating riots when he arrives, assuming he shows up for "work" at all. "They don't like it when I let them know they don't own me," Axl told Rolling Stone in 1992. Chinese Democracy's maddeningly epic delay is the most "punk" gesture in the decade it's lasted.

So who cares if he breaks our hearts again? Axl Rose is still a rerun worth watching. Whether rock deity, psychological case study, or reality show?worthy disaster, he nonetheless gives his audience what it craves most: authenticity.



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Guns N' Roses play Hammerstein Ballroom May 12, 14, 15, and 17.

http://villagevoice.com/music/0619,shah,73131,22.html

[Steel_Angel]

Very interesting read.. thanks 

[Hatts]

Awesome article and really a good point.




Hatts

[Mandy.]

Cheers for the article 

[RichardNixon]

"The accepted wisdom is they scatter three or four solid gems among reams of tossed-off studio jams and overproduced pop-metal."

I thought the company line was "half filler," and now we're down to only four good songs?
Overproduced? Yeah, esp 1.
pop-metal? Not really.
Studio jams? No.

[Oh My Choking Soul]

nice

[Gunner80]

Journalistic fluff!!

Use your Illusions I & II are masterpieces that take more than one listen to fully appreciate. They tell a twisted story that most pop fans can never relate to.

[February]

this guy put the right word's to my feelings

[RichardNixon]

It was a good read. Glad Axl is getting some good press (knock on wood). 

[sandman]

awesome article. thanks M.!

but i agree, the writer is harsh when it comes the illusion albums. i have friends that criticize them, but even they admit there's about one album's worth of great material, which equates to about 10-15 songs. not 4!! that's ridiculous.

still, a great article. i love the jabs at the boss and kurt go-bang. phonies.

[Minneapolisnewsman]

I love this line:

Chinese Democracy's maddeningly epic delay is the most "punk" gesture in the decade it's lasted.

[asstvp1009]

Not really a great article. Very much written to satisfy his own sense of intellectual superiority over the average fan...a few OK points mixed with what amounts to no content, and rewriting the same "critic" response to UYI that has been around for years.

Thanks for link , it was good to read something, but I want to read something that hasn't been said over and over.

[RichardNixon]

Not really a great article. Very much written to satisfy his own sense of intellectual superiority over the average fan...a few OK points mixed with what amounts to no content, and rewriting the same "critic" response to UYI that has been around for years.

I think you have a point there. This guy seems to get off on how smart he thinks he is. Most critics that call the Illusion albums pompous and pretentious should take a look at their own writing (see the awful AMG reviews).

[Barbie567]

Thanks for posting - I never get to the Village anymore, & it's always good to see press about GNR, regardless of the content.? ?? That being said, I agree that the writer comes off as being somewhat pretentious, but I do agree with his closing line about Axl being authentic.? I don't think you can argue with that.? I don't understand the ripping on the Illusions, though - only 4 good songs?? No way!

[alternativemonkey]

The article says a lot about the state of modern journalism. To say that the "Use Your Illusion" records were "derided" is historical revisionism at its worst.

Not only were they Billboard blockbusters, but they got outstanding critical reviews as well. Take Rolling Stone magazine for example. Check for yourself.

All those people that bought Warrant, Ratt, Poison, GNR albums back in the day apparently have come down with amnesia. Now they wear Ramones t-shirts and talk about "Sgt. Peppers". Fakers!

[GunnerOne 84]

The article says a lot about the state of modern journalism. To say that the "Use Your Illusion" records were "derided" is historical revisionism at its worst.

Not only were they Billboard blockbusters, but they got outstanding critical reviews as well. Take Rolling Stone magazine for example. Check for yourself.

All those people that bought Warrant, Ratt, Poison, GNR albums back in the day apparently have come down with amnesia. Now they wear Ramones t-shirts and talk about "Sgt. Peppers". Fakers!

DING DING DING (no not ping) we have winner. I have this argument all the time with people. People like to tell themselves and me that guns was just another hairband and a blip on the musical and cultural radar. Im not sure which planet they inhabited back in the day, but it obviously wasn't the one I live on.

[TOPGUNner]

typical, typical, T-Y-P-I-C-A-L Village Voice shit. This guy is so fucking full of himself.

First off, "Better" does not sound grunge. Secondly, the fans and critics hated Use Your Illusion I and II?!

It's a well written article, he has a good vocabulary, but otherwise, it's crap. Village Voice writers are a total different breed of journalists who hold themselves on a pedestal higher than god; I know this, because one of them work at my college as a film teacher, and this professor thinks himself jesus christ as well.

[Chief]

I think some people are misinterpreting the author's views on UYI. 

he said: "The accepted wisdom is they scatter three or four solid gems among reams of tossed-off studio jams and overproduced pop-metal.

This doesn't mean he hates it at all.. its just what many people have said about them......

[TOPGUNner]

I think some people are misinterpreting the author's views on UYI.?

he said: "The accepted wisdom is they scatter three or four solid gems among reams of tossed-off studio jams and overproduced pop-metal.

This doesn't mean he hates it at all.. its just what many people have said about them......

Find these people then! I want links to reviews by critics who said Use Your Illusion has 3 or 4 good songs and the rest are shit. I don't think they exist.

[GeorgeSteele]

I think some people are misinterpreting the author's views on UYI.?

he said: "The accepted wisdom is they scatter three or four solid gems among reams of tossed-off studio jams and overproduced pop-metal.

This doesn't mean he hates it at all.. its just what many people have said about them......

Yeah, but those are just semantics that enable him to weasel out of responsibility for what he wrote. ?Like telling your girlfriend "people" think she dresses like a slut. ?