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What do you think of Axl Rose as a songwriter?


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Axl has written some great lyrics, but most –if not all– of them are lacking the poetry that makes the listener find different meanings and interpretations (I don't know, think of lyricists like Perry Farrell or Courtney Love, who use a lot of imagery, and from those pieces you can analize the content and find endless meanings to their words). On that regard, Axl's lyrics have a more defined role: delivering a specific concrete message, and he does a great job at it.

I think he can be great but he needs help from the right people. He's not "Great" on his own. I can fully amit the ideas are there on Chinese Democracy but the execution is horrible. If Axl had surrounded himself with complimentary musicians and not just "all stars" CD could've beena great album. Instead Axl wantd full control and it had a negative impact on the album. I mean can anyone seriously sit there and say that CD would not have been infinitely better had Axl brought these ideas to Slash and co and allowed them to work on them and mold them? Axl has great ideas but he needs the proper help bringing them to fruition.

It's so hard to tell if Slash would have improved those songs. I don't doubt his skills, but I have never heard something new or refreshing coming from Slash.

I like his style, he has his own sound and tone, but there are songs (if the world, shackler's, scraped, riad) that seem like a departure or a bit too far from what Slash has delivered through his career. And of course there are songs like Madagascar, twat, catcher, street of dreams where slash's style would fit really well.

i think he would do alright with if the world

i agree with songs like Shacklers though...i don't see him fitting on those type songs

Edited by -HollywoodRose-
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I think he's a very good songwriter, and I don't think it matters that he hasn't put out a lot of material. I think the material he has released, has been really good, and some of my favourite Guns tracks were largely written by Axl; Estranged being favourite over all. Jeff Buckley died young, only having made 2 albums. I don't think anyone (anyone reasonable) would suggest that he wasn't a great songwriter simply because they were only able to judge his songwriting on 2 albums; and yes, I know Axl is very much alive, and hasn't released much... that's beside the point.

Obviously it would be great if we had more material to listen to though.

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Think of it as a closer in baseball vs a starter.

A closer can throw 100 mph and have an era under 2.5 for his career. Looking at those numbers you would have to say he would be in the running for goat.

But besides Mariano Rivera, a closers name never enters the goat equation. Why not!

Because a closer is pitching one inning a game. He isn't carrying that 2.5 era and 100 mph fastball for 7 innings. It's a lot easier to dominate for one inning or for 3 albums than it is to dominate for 7 innings or 15 albums.

So again. One of the best if our time for rock - without a doubt. But his body of work isn't large enough to be in the goat conversation.

He didn't need more "masterpieces." He just needed to 3-4 more great albums.

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he wrote the majority of the songs in every era.

Factually incorrect.

this is a terrible topic - the songwriting consisted of izzy + axl + slash + duff + steven for the most part ----- axl wrote some good ones but to say he was the sole great songwriter of the band is simply FALSE

it was 100% collaborative minus say November Rain and say One in A Million - therefore based on tthose 2, yeah he's very good

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Well I was bored so I googled "axl rose songwriter", yeah I know...I know..

Anyway, I found this http://everything2.com/title/Axl+Rose+as+genius%253A+An+analysis+of+themes+in+the+music+of+Guns+N%2527+Roses

This article is full of shit. The guy who wrote this even used Izzy's lyrics to determine that GNR's work is all about Axl's life.

How can somebody be so stupid and ignorant to think GNR is based on one person, when even the so called solo-written-songs are a collaborative effort in every single way?

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Even on CD Axl only has one real solo song, This I Love.

I thought SOD was an Axl song but Dizzy wrote the piano for it.

But Axl basically wrote the riff for TWAT and Catcher is pretty much an Axl piano song.

Madagascar he brought french horn riff the song is based on.

I think Axl wrote the piano on Prostitute. So that is his song. This one is interesting because it shows that with just a beat, a bit of piano and Axl singing there's a song.

Chi dem - Freese riff

Shackler's - Bucket riff

Better - Finck riff

SOD - Dizzy

If the World - Pitman

Scraped - Bucket riff

Riad - Tommy

Sorry - Bucket

IRS - Tobias

Axl must orchestrate and select and collab but these other guys wrote these songs. Not always sure to be honest. Like Sorry not sure but seems like Bucket was talking about it. I wish I could be a fly on the wall sometimes.

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  • 5 weeks later...

I have often read or heard it said of great guitar players that they...know when NOT to play, or they have great taste (i.e. they know how to contribute something excellent to the overall song without trying to dominate the song), or they can "say" more with one note than most players can do with a hundred notes, etc....in other words there is often a "less is more"/quality over quantity approach to their playing.

I think the same can be said of songwriters/singers. I think Axl suffered from not knowing when to shut up and a lack of good taste. He often seemed to be trying to fill every little space within a song with his voice, or a silly sound effect (for lack of a bettter term to decribe it) or a clip/speech from a movie, etc...this was especially apparent on UYI and CD. Whether it was from insecurity or an overblown ego, he often tried to dominate the songs. In fact, he sometimes ruins what would be an otherwise great song for me. Breakdown is a good example. I would much prefer to just hear the band jamming at the end without them being drowned out by Axl's ridiculous monlogue from Vanishing Point. Same thing with Locomotive...Slash and Co. are laying down some beautiful music at the end of that song, and it would be so much better without Axl wailing all over the top of it. It seemed like he could never just let the band have their moment to shine without him inserting himself somewhere in the mix. And it ended up detracting from the overall quality of the song rather than enhancing it.

So with Axl maybe it wasn't so much "just shut up and sing"...but maybe it was more know when to just shut up.

All that being said...I do think he was a good lyric writer at times (horrible and immature at others), a great hard rock vocalist and a great frontman...and the perfect guy to front the "most dangerous band in the world".

Edited by foghat43
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Very well said.

Breakdown would've been one of my favorite GNR songs ever. Instead, I press skip when the song gets to Axls idiotic fake-Japanese movie accent and speech.

Honestly, why is that speech there? Imagine if he recited a speech from Three Amigos during the outro of Paradise City, complete with fake Mexican accent.

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I am a fan of his writing style but his lyrics seemed so much better and so much more authentic when he wrote from the heart instead of writing...I dunno....for a specific purpose, I guess? It seems to me that the songs on CD were written and rewritten and rewritten again trying to perfect a certain goal he had. A few seem very forced, for lack of a better term. I don't like the lyrics of TIL, but the melody is beautiful and the chorus....oooooh the chorus. The chorus, with that raw, painful sound to it just kicks me right in the feels. But he wrote that waaaay back during UYI and the emotion shows. AFD was angry and unapologetic and raw. It was awesome. Lies was stripped and brilliant. UYI, he grew as a lyricist but was still had that edge. He had, however, opened up and allowed the wounded part of him to show. The result was incredible. I feel like CD, as a whole, sounded desperate. The overthinking of everything is very obvious to me. It became a maelstrom of desperation. Just my opinion.

Edited by DangerousCurves
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He could be a really good songwriter but he isn't simply because he destroys amazing songs with his layers and overdubs. Some people here calls it "perfectionism" :facepalm:

Biggest victims of Axl's ejaculations are Coma, KOHD, Breakdown and Madagascar as well as Perfect Crime and Get In The Ring.

All these songs would be so much better without that crap. Just keep it straight rock n roll motherfucker. Don't fuck with the songs.

KOHD from Guns could be the best version on planet earth but it's a mess. I skip it everytime the phonecall starts.

Edited by Free Bird
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