When did Guns N' Roses become so fashionable? - Guardian Music Article

[reayj2003]

i agree that describing gn'r at any point in the bands career as uncool is utter bollocks. and to use bon jovi as a comparison is plain stupid. the article is positive which is good, but the stance or hook line of 'when did they become cool?' is bull shit. i think alot of people on this forum missed out on the 80's and 90's and feel the need to prove that gn'r is as important/worthy now as back then. don't worry it's all good, then and now! jarmo it's a great site you have here but leave people to express themselves. try getting laid, i think it might help!

[jarmo]

If you only come here to try to insult me, you're on the wrong fucking site. 


Another clever person who adds a personal attack to his post. So if i remove his/her post, it'll be followed by "My post was removed because I disagreed".

Morons...




/jarmo

[fieldsy]

Despite a few factual errors, I enjoyed the article.  A pretty honest summing up of public perception of GNR from the early 90's to today.  I got me thinking to 1992/93 when I would often see GNR being voted ' the worst band', 'worst album', in public magazine polls, despite then selling out Milton Keynes 2 nights running.  Always made me laugh.

[faldor]

so a dude slagging off the early 90's band is positive?

I defend all eras of GNR. What the dude reported was bullshit. I call that out. Nirvana didn't make GNR uncool, GNR were never unpopular or a guilty pleasure.

Last i checked this is a Guns N Roses forum, not a 2002 and beyond only Guns N Roses message forum.

I think Jarmo covered it quite well but the writer clearly gives props to the old lineup.  He's not slagging them at all.

There was a time in the early 90s when nobody liked Guns N' Roses. Well, obviously some people did, on account of the millions of records they sold and hundreds of arenas they filled, but it was a bit like weeing in the shower; no one ever admitted to it (aside from Manic Street Preachers, but let's face it, back then they'd have admitted to shooting JFK if it put them on the front of music papers).

[D]

^
Faldor stop selectively reading

read what it says AFTERRRRRRRRRRRRR that.

Jesus Christ.

Amazes me how even GNR fans hate on a certain era of the band which without we  wouldn't be on here even talking today.

It isn't about new vs old, its Guns N Roses and Axl regardless of the year.

[Axlspants]

Why is everyone getting so wound up about this.

The article is a positive one, its much better than the usual Axl bashing that goes on in the press.

Back in the early to mid nineties lots of people loved GnR and lots didn't. Like now, hands up if you think Glee is cool? Some people do some don't big deal.

The main thing that stopped making GnR cool was that they stopped releasing music, they faded from peoples minds and people moved on to Oasis or whatever. Nirvana broke through in 1991 GnR were still one of the biggest bands in the world at that time. For the masses most started to want to be Kurt rather than Axl but for the millions of GnR fans around the world it was business as usual and fuck me, some people even liked both bands!

[icpillusions]

Nice article.

Somebody gets it.

What other people whine about, this guy points out that it's what makes GN'R different. Which is absolutely true.

Obviously most fans know that GN'R are different. That's why we all like GN'R!

But there's a big group of people who have no fucking clue and assume all the bands are the same..... That everybody has read and lives by the "Rock N' Roll rulebook for the 2000s".




/jarmo

Iagree. This writer gets what a rock band is.  They show up late? So what? This is a rock band, rock bands don't follow the rules all the time.  You should expect the unexpected when going to a rock concert.

[sworrm]

Awesome, its all set for GnR to make a huge statement in England that they are back and ready to rule again, lets hope they dont manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory like they sometimes do

[Scabbie]

Nice article.

Somebody gets it.

What other people whine about, this guy points out that it's what makes GN'R different. Which is absolutely true.

Obviously most fans know that GN'R are different. That's why we all like GN'R!

But there's a big group of people who have no fucking clue and assume all the bands are the same..... That everybody has read and lives by the "Rock N' Roll rulebook for the 2000s".




/jarmo

Iagree. This writer gets what a rock band is.  They show up late? So what? This is a rock band, rock bands don't follow the rules all the time.  You should expect the unexpected when going to a rock concert.

Because when a curfew is imposed and the band has to stop or can't play then the fans miss out. Its not so bad when the venue is open all night, but thats rarely the case these days. I'm sure on the Hollywood strip or whatever it was diffrent.

[StardustGirl]

Based on my personal perception GNR were not only immensely popular but also rather cool until about 1991/92. Of course there are always those who like to dislike a band precisely because they are so popular and most likely this crowd too was rather numerous at the time. Then the tastes in music changed, GNR stopped giving out music and their popularity faded due to lack of new material plus that people probably would have grown tired anyway and started to look for something new, people always do. The band was really uncool for the rest of the nineties but started gaining on popularity and coolness as one of the classic bands throughout the 2000s. Time's a great healer...   And I'm referring to the general public now, not the sworn fans.

[Limulus]

ahhh....the coolness factor!
i've been around with GN'R all the very late 80s and whole 90s and IMO the coolness factor went down in steps more and more with the UYI releases: loosing Izzy, loosing the hard rock element with UYI music a lot, releasing all the softer songs/ballads as video singles like Dont Cry, November Rain(, Estranged) which then would be shown on MTV all over. adding horn sections and a 2nd keyboard player isnt "that cool" either, many metal fans took off their GN'R patches. nevertheless that all helped getting much more popular winning the "softer" audience more and more. by the end after the Freddie Mercury Tribute in 4/1992 they were as big as the Rolling Stones worldwide, the media was all over them aswell until 1993. then after the poor TSI release it all went down for years and sorry for newer line-up fans but many many people consider(ed) Slash being cool on and off stage.....so loosing Slash was definately uncool for the general public.
in 2000+ probably the aging, long years of silence and still wanted absence of media helped to concentrate on the music mostly only more and more. all the line-up changes might have helped in this case, too - even if they mostly always are considered uncool.

oh, and GN'R didnt play Leeds in 2003 

[Ignatius]

Love the article! It was about time GNR got some good media praise.

Regarding the other discussion going - whether GNR was popular or not back then - It's not just about stadiums filled, records sold and videos made. Fact of the matter is, for those of us who were fans then, we know how the general perception of GNR was in 92.

GNR had become so big, that it was not cool to be a fan anymore. For those of us who once lived that time, GNR was the most successful musical act in the planet; bigger than U2, bigger than Metallica, bigger than Madonna and bigger than Michael Jackson. They just became very mainstream for the cool people to follow. All I could hear about GNR back then from those trendy music fans was "they are a bunch of sellouts".

So Nirvana came along in 91-92 and all those trendy people, started to praise Nirvana like it was the new, coolest thing. It was not just the music, but the clothes, the attitute...everything changed. That became the cool thing. The Media got the message and started to praise all these new bands from Seattle...up until they became the next HUGE thing. However, if you were around in 93, when "In Utero" came out, it was totally outsold by Pearl Jam's "Vs". That to me meant people had gotten tired of Nirvana and were ready to move on to the next big thing (Pearl Jam). PJ had released Ten in 1991 and sold a bunch of records, but didnt' quite received as  much media coverage as Nirvana's. So, In utero came out, and didnt sell well. We witnessed a shift (again) from a massive successful band Nirvana to a not as successful band (Pearl Jam).  Then PJ put at a new record in 94 (Vitalogy) which didnt' sell as good as Vs because people were again shifting to the next cool thing; The Offspring and Green day.


What I'm trying to say is, people tend to like what's cool to like. Huge successful bands that everybody likes, tend to fade away quickly at some point or another. Had GNR released an studio album in 95-96 with the old line up, it would've been the biggest failure in music history. See what happened in 99 when Live ERA and Oh my God were released, nobody gave a fuck!

However, things swift again. Younger generations got to listen to GNR records and the perception changes, and older people get to listen to the music now with an open mind. To put you an example, a friend of mine (44 years old) is coming with me to the GNR show in Madrid in october. He always made fun of me 10-15 years ago cause he HATED the band. He was one of those cool people who diss the band cause they were sellouts, but, the minute I told him GNR were touring again, he was dying to come along. Nowadays, on his books, GNR are a respected band, a band who gets thumbs up because they are not a commercial act, the media does not really say much about them so his opinion is  NOT biased anymore. Now he can listen to the  music with no interferance.

I just wish more people just listen to the music. They'd be pleasently surprised.

I can't believe I will be attending another GNR show in a little bit over a month 

[Limulus]

What I'm trying to say is, people tend to like what's cool to like. Huge successful bands that everybody likes, tend to fade away quickly at some point or another. Had GNR released an studio album in 95-96 with the old line up, it would've been the biggest failure in music history. See what happened in 99 when Live ERA and Oh my God were released, nobody gave a fuck!

yes, people like to get "new kicks" by new bands and music (styles) after some years.
but cant agree on your studio album mid 90s, if they would have had released great timeless songs it would have worked out absolutley fine. live albums in general dont sell that much (and in this case after years of silence and being an "live" album full of re-recorded vocals, ouch!). and lets face it: ther version we know from "oh my god" isnt really a great song for the general public and fans.

[Voodoochild]

I dont agree, I think a new album in mid-90's with the old lineup wouldnt ve a huge sucess. Bluesy hard rock wasnt exactly a trend. I think it would sell well, but it would be more like Bon Jovi's These Days album (IMO, one of their best). I dont know if it sold well enough, but it wasnt the cool/trending thing to follow in that year.

SFTD and the Live Era both had part of the classic line-up and it didnt sell too well either.

Anyways, one thing that also comes to mind was also the band's sex appeal in the early 90's. The girls were all over Axl, Gilby or whoever back then and it made some people to label the band as somewhat "for girls". At least here in Brazil.

Again: that didnt stop the band for being popular. But thats way different from being cool. This STILL happens with the current band, but it seems things are slowly changing.

[Limulus]

if the songs would have been great then it most likely would have be near as big as before, its about the quality of the songs and if they are able to stand up the test of time i think.

SFTD is only a cover and even a bad one as band members themselves agreed about. Live Era.....again its only a "live" album (live albums in general dont sell as much as studio albums most of the time), add that it is far away from being live and has been released after many silent years. also the few live parts on there could have picked much better from other circulating shows IMO.

hope Axl and his musicians are doing well this weekend live. setlist change please 

[jarmo]

if the songs would have been great then it most likely would have be near as big as before, its about the quality of the songs and if they are able to stand up the test of time i think.

Yeah well it didn't happen like that... The article just points out what actually happened and some have issues with it because they take it as "bashing the old band". 

It focuses on the present and is positive. But some have to try to make it to be about something else.




This isn't anything GN'R specific. This happens to most artists/bands who keep going.

Some examples: Look at AC/DC. Same band been pretty much together for decades (different drummers) doing the same thing. Yet their popularity has gone up and down over the years.

U2. They've experimented with their sounds. Some tours were hugely popular and others weren't (remember Popmart?).





/jarmo

[Buddha_Master]

Well its just a damn good thing Chinese Democracy was released. That took care of the main ammo motherfuckers were using at Axl, and now they don't have that. So what's left? Judging the "new" band on its own merits. The fact that Axl doesn't really do interviews and there aren't and videos or any real promotion at all for CD is kind of a wash. Album sales still don't reflect that GN'R are "fashionable" but they were good enough to show there is some interest. It looks pretty cool to have a Rock Star not whoring himself. Axl is total fucking Rock N' Roll which that reflects. Its still done how the fuck he wants it. Nothing pissed me off more then following stories about the "Classic" band and Axl being pissed that things were being taken away from him, or he was being forced to do something. In a way that too is a wash. Its great seeing Axl happy but, few things are as cool and Rock N' Roll as a pissed off Axl Rose. Axl's rants were so fucking Rock N' Roll and pure balls. I kind of miss that. In the end though nothing is more important then the music and Chinese Democracy is a masterpiece and was pretty highly acclaimed which is just great. There is no band as cool today as the "new" GN'R. In a lot of ways, I like this band better then the classic one. I certainly have enjoyed their new album more then I have any GN'R album since Appetite (in my heart of hearts I like Chinese Democracy much more).

Anyway you want to look at it, Guns N' Roses today represents real resilience and triumph. I would love nothing more then to hear that others are figuring that shit out for themselves.

[demanding_GNR_rock]

How so much can be taken from one small article amazes me, Read though good article, no slaging off end of......

Anyway regarding the article (i may as well have my two cents) I think GNR have always maintained popularity in the UK hence there been at least 3 full time cover bands roaming the uk at once. Cant really comment on the early 90s as im not old enough to remember them. As for increased popularity sure why not, anybody watch arctic monkeys headline last year? 2 hours of the front-man rooted to the spot. Bands today just dont have the stage presence and with ever increasing ticket prices who wants to pay to see a band stood still?
Also working in GNR favour is the trend, anyone who listens to mainstream  radio all day will have noticed a lot more heavier riffs, 'pop' bands starting to go more rock and generally a swing back to guitar based tracks . Which can ony be good

Anyway all that been said i think a lot more younger people are getting a taste for something other that the garbage on the top 40. Something raw and not mass produced. 
 

[D]

Just because I don't agree with the first half, doesn't mean i don't like the last half and am glad at least one reporter gets it.

I still think some of that could be construed as back handed compliments but i digress.

I just don't think u have to shit on the old GNR to support the new or shit on the new to support the old. I feel that is  Message Forums in general's M.O. and I don't like it.

[jarmo]

I just don't think u have to shit on the old GNR to support the new

I didn't see any of that in the article.



/jarmo