Was Axl a Poser during UYI Era?

[double talkin jive mfkr]

2 hours ago, maynard said:

Trent Razor

All these old interviews show how Axl wanted to sell out to 90s music and didn't care about the rest of the guys.

true that, should've stuck to rock and roll but without izzy impossible feat 

[maynard]

6 hours ago, double talkin jive mfkr said:

true that, should've stuck to rock and roll but without izzy impossible feat 

Yeah, a back to basics album would do wonders after they whole UYI thing. Maybe even a southern rock album. Who could really say people would not pay attention to it? They had all the talent in the world to make southern rock mainstream again.

[Silent Jay]

30 minutes ago, maynard said:

Yeah, a back to basics album would do wonders after they whole UYI thing. Maybe even a southern rock album. Who could really say people would not pay attention to it? They had all the talent in the world to make southern rock mainstream again.

Actually it would have made sense since UYI II had that southern rock vibe.

Axl fucked up. He could have ruled the late 90s and early '00s, rock was still mainstream at the time, it was almost given to him.

Instead he lets bands like Offspring, Creed, Green Day etc. sell shit tons of records. Can you believe it, Nickelback's 2005 album All The Right Reasons has achieved Diamond status in the US while he was tripping in Sedona and with his experimental lineup.

I understand that NIN and Manson were interesting at the time, but man get your priorities straight. GnR's biggest success was Sweet Child 'O Mine.

Edited March 17, 2017 by Silent Jay

[double talkin jive mfkr]

1 hour ago, maynard said:

Yeah, a back to basics album would do wonders after they whole UYI thing. Maybe even a southern rock album. Who could really say people would not pay attention to it? They had all the talent in the world to make southern rock mainstream again.

i would've like some hip hop rage against the machine/public enemy/ice T/Eazy E collaborations myself then a raggae led album and finally a return to their roots of pure rock and roll

[EvanG]

3 hours ago, tremolo said:

 

In some way, I think that was Cobain trying to save face, appearing as having a change of mind instead of admitting he had to compromise so much to get the album released. That's what I get from what Steve Albini had to say about the recording and release of In Utero and the influence of the label over the final product.

To me, mainstream is not being on top of the charts. It's more about the media attitude towards you. In the case of REM, they never got HUGE despite having big hits. Yes, they were very popular, but they never reached the status of huge bands like Nirvana, GNR, Metallica, Led Zeppelin, etc. They managed to get big without it getting overbloated and out of control.

PJ... their songs are easy to listen to, good melodies, but they lack balls. I wouldn't say they suck, but I find their music pretty "pussy".

 

Maybe you're right about Cobain. It's kinda impossible for us to know... maybe he was saving face, or maybe they, because Krist was saying the same thing in interviews, just didn't like the mix too much... there's a difference between a recording and a mix which always happens after the studio work is done. But like I said... impossible for us to know.

For me the mainstream is when you're having many hits and you're on commerical radio a lot and most people know your band. The bands you just mentioned are all legendary, that doesn't mean if you've never reached that status you can't be part of the mainstream. And about the attitude the media had towards R.E.M.... they were critics favourites at that time, they were on MTV constantly, they had a broad fan base because they were in between pop and rock and alternative. So for me they were very much in the mainstream by 1991 and I think most people will look at it that way, they considered themselves part of the mainstream as well. There's a great interview on youtube on how they got commercial success with Out Of Time and how the mainstream found them, but I can't find it right now. 

And about Pearl Jam, well... like I said, it's subjective. Nirvana's music is easier to listen to then Pearl Jam's simply because Nirvana was much more poppy than Pearl Jam ever was. Not that that is a bad thing obviously. I was never a huge fan of their first album, too much standard rock for my taste, but they turned to a more alternative and noisy rock sound with their second album, which I really prefer. Pearl Jam have made many different albums, so if you're a rock fan I'm sure there's something out there you might like. I don't agree that their music lack balls... just listen to a song like 'Brain of J' or 'Leash'.

Edited March 19, 2017 by EvanG

[Silverburst80]

So did Manson ever put out that One In a Million cover then?....yeah thought not he really showed us how it's done then didn't he.

[Jahbulon'sBlues]

I'll start by saying that calling someone a  "poser" was serious fucking business at the time for those that weren't around. The only comparable term in the modern lexicon would be "sell out," and i think most of us would agree even that term is all but devoid of meaning at this point. When one musician anoints themselves  a qualified arbiter to  determine the credibility and artistic integrity of another artist, they are seriously going out on a limb. They had better have a spotless track record themselves, or they're going to be called out for hypocrisy. Axl has always been extremely ambitious as a songwriter, recording artist and performer. I'm not going to sit here and say he has always been 100% successfully in some of the more experimental work he has done, but he has never played it safe and pandered to the masses. He absolutely could have delivered AFD-style albums for the rest of career and played it safe like a lot of bands do. That simply wasn't the case. He continued to raise the bar with each release. UYI I and II took some major risks. This was not the 70's after all. 10-minute progressive epics were anything but the norm. Yet he pursued that vision, whether it be the piano-based, symphonic arrangements of November Rain or the relentless changes in arguably the most difficult composition to co-write and perform that Slash ever presented the band-Coma. Banjos in the intro to Breakdown-Why not? A few songs where Izzy or Duff take over  on lead vocals?Knock yourselves out. Cap the whole 30 -song affair off with a befuddling industrial rocker in My World and that is a seriously challenging work to release on an unsuspecting fan base. Did he make some unconventional wardrobe decisions? Absolutely. Were One in a Million and Look at Your Game Girl really released to incite controversy? We'll never know for certain. Take all that, then consider that beyond the stop-gap Spaghetti Incident release, his vision was so clear that he balked at repeating himself with the next release. He wanted to continue to evolve as an artist. One can question the wisdom of pursuing the electronic textures on CD all day. You could make solid arguments for or against that record and the dissolution of the UYI lineup in favor of a revolving door policy of who was in or out up until the current tour. These are matters for our own subjective perception of what Guns N' Roses is, was, or should be. Taking all that into account, calling Axl a poser is probably the most inaccurate criticism one could make of him.