Guns 'N Roses - Appetite for Destruction

B: Avast, there aqua C-foam green! You trying to sideswipe me? 

C: what are you talking about? We were at that fancy fake french department store getting new input devices for Skip and you told me to run two aisles over and see if there was anything that resembled music worth paying full price. I grabbed two without thinking, like you like. 

B: alright, then. It's Mother's Day, but i'm not your mom, so we'll just let the subconscious RHCP chemtrails float on the breeze. 

C: what are you talking about? 

B: ok, i'll spell it out this one time. Mother's Milk was Frusciante's first RHCP album, i reviewed Californication last night because i just happened to be editing the Station to Station review when that lyric from the title track compulsioned me into it like Bowie's freinds had to do to him, offhandedly mentioning Axl Rose in the process, every single one of those people hated the Corporate Marketing version of LA so much they tried to off themselves with cocaine and/or heroin, but somehow managed to be repeatedly ressurected, then here it is actual Mother's Day and you've given me 1) Appetite for Destruction, and 2) a now band desperately trying to ressurect the hard side of 70s rock, and we can't neglect to note the subtle unspoken antithesis between Anthony and Axl who loved and hated Kurt Cobain respectively. That's a hard pill of coincidences to swallow, even for a trained subconscious spelunker such as myself. 

C: wowzers, when you put it like that, i guess it is pretty astonishing. Still, not on purpose, i swear. I could just as easily have picked The Fugees' famous second album, The Score. 

B: i've been know to swear one or two times, two times too, when the occasion warrants. I might just have to go back later this week and buy that one myself. Oh well, if you aren't killing me softly, then i guess it's on with the show... 

You know where you are? You're in the bunker, baby. You're gonna listen to Guns 'N Roses and Greta Van Fleet with me. 

Just like Gin Blossoms, it took an entire year and heavy radio ratation for G'nR's major label debut to start flying off the shelves. Even the quickest glance at the Billboard #1s from 1987 will tell you trash rock was so far down in the underground even the Ninja Turtles didn't give these sewer rats a second glance. Walk Like an Egyptian was the best performing single of the entire year, but we're talking Bad, Madonna, Whitney Houston, George Michael, Belinda Carlisle, Bon Jovi's first time to crack the charts. 88's a slightly different story, but it's the closest thing G'nR has to a power ballad that's making it into drive time (Sweet Child 'o Mine sandwiched between Goerge Michael and Bobby McFerrin in September). They definitely had a fan base, but by Warner standards this was a band with barely a cult following until Kurt brought everybody into the spotlight with him, whether they liked him or not. 

Now, the question you're probably asking in your head is "Bottle, aren't you like diametrically opposed to Axl?  He's a sexist homophobe diva with a history of drug abuse and fighting everyone about everything." 

He's a person. A vociferously opinionated person, sure, but he takes full responsibility for the consequences of his actions. I agree with several of his many opinions, the same way i agree with several of Bob Geldoff's opinions. I'm not so sure Axl is as offensive a personality as Bob-o. You are free to have whatever opinion you want to have, but don't expect to get a pass if you act out the nastier ones in public. He vocally called out Trump's irresponsible shenanigans, he's lost a lot of friends along the way, he's well aware that people can and do disagree with him, and i'm certain i pointed out that he knows full well how terrible some of the things he did are. He actually asked them not to induct him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Rather than secretly ask security to escort people out of venues, he'd call them out on stage for being violent or obnoxious. People died at Guns 'N Roses shows and he found that completely horrible and unacceptable. He also lost a lot of lawsuits against him, and they had the perpetual riot problems at cancelled shows (some totally his own fault, some not his fault at all). I think the important perspective is that Axl was a "charismatic" personality, and that can either be good or terrible. Axl got a lot of the terrible side, more than most you might say. 

Now, as for the things he said that offended people, he gave probably the only legitimate apology anyone could give: he was raised in a religiously conservative Indiana town with a good lookin' momma who never was around. No, sorry, that's not right, oh yeah, he had a major dose of culture shock when he got to LA. Given his less than wholesome upbringing (documented elsewhere) he very much wished to insult specific muggers and sexual abusers without realizing that the words he used had much larger racist and homophobic implications which he did not intend to promote. To put that in Bottle terminology, he said "i'm sorry i said those shitty things, i didn't fully realize just how shitty they were at the time i said them." Also notice that he didn't try to backtrack from the consequences of having said them, he acknowledged the offense they caused. Regardless, now we listen. 

Oh yeah, just fantastic trash rock. This is a fantastic album. It's crude, nasty, and dangerous, which is important because it's specifically written from the perspective of living at the bottom of the sleeze pit that is LA. Welcome to the jungle, we're not the nice guys. This is a "here's what it's really like, you won't survive it unless you're just as nasty" album. 

The difference is he's not defending it, and he's not defending his part in it. He's saying he's merely one piece of trash in the heap, how you deal with that is your own problem. 

Or, you really can read the album as Axl's actual culture shock. This is what happened when he bought into that Californication timeshare sales pitch. It's easy to forget where you're going, sometimes it's harder to leave. What's the mirror version of Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll? The offender's list, addiction, and being dead. Axl says the first one is the illusion, the second one is reality, and i don't disbelieve him. He's always been pointing out that the world he lived in is terrible, but everybody had that Neil Young reverse psychology reaction to it. Christgau hints at it in his actual review of Chinese Democracy. People interpreted Axl all wrong and it took everyone actually not caring what he had to say anymore for his real intent to finally hit home. I didn't like Chinese Democracy, but maybe i should give it another chance at some point. Regardless, i don't think i'm the one misunderstanding Appetite for Destruction. We're the biggest dirt bags we know is a pretty coherent concept in my book.