Hated Illusions Songs??

[EvanG]

Just now, Drexl said:

I love those numbers, but they're out of place on Appetite. I'm sure if they were on Illusions, people would hate those numbers.

I was only referring to Anything Goes, Think About You is terrific, one of the few pop moments on AFD. Hard not to like that one.

[Drexl]

1 minute ago, EvanG said:

I was only referring to Anything Goes, Think About You is terrific, one of the few pop moments on AFD. Hard not to like that one.

Well, Think About You is a great introduction to Sweet Child. Great Izzy number, just so un-Appetite.

[EvanG]

Just now, Drexl said:

Well, Think About You is a great introduction to Sweet Child. Great Izzy number, just so un-Appetite.

What made AFD stand out as an album, besides excellent songs, is that there were so many influences on the album... blues, hard-rock, metal, punk, pop elements in a couple of songs. Especially in the 80s that made them stand out from most other popular bands.

[rocknroll41]

1 hour ago, EvanG said:

What made AFD stand out as an album, besides excellent songs, is that there were so many influences on the album... blues, hard-rock, metal, punk, pop elements in a couple of songs. Especially in the 80s that made them stand out from most other popular bands.

Exactly, and all of those elements were blended together almost equally on each song, thus giving the album a consistent flow. I think that's why Axl once said he considers Appetite to be "a melting pot."

The Illusion records have flow, too, but in a different sorta way. It's more like "here's a section of a few hard rock tunes" and then "here's a section of a few southern rock tunes" and then "here's a section of a few ballads" and so on.

I guess that's why you can never get any two fans to agree on what the "perfect" one-disc version of Illusion would've been (I know mine changes all the time).

...Can we all at least agree that Don't Cry is kinda overrated, though? (both versions)

[MyPrettyTiedUpMichelle]

2 hours ago, EvanG said:

I was only referring to Anything Goes, Think About You is terrific, one of the few pop moments on AFD. Hard not to like that one.

2 hours ago, Drexl said:

Well, Think About You is a great introduction to Sweet Child. Great Izzy number, just so un-Appetite.

Goes to show how subjective this all is: I happen to love Anything Goes and I don't care for Think About You.   I wouldn't go so far as to call it filler but it does bore me.  Tom Zutaut called it their pure Rolling Stones moment (apparently he fought to get it on the album) but as a Stones fan, I can't give the song that much credit.  I guess it's got that interesting 'twangy' guitar thing happening in the chorus.  Anything Goes I like for its toe-tapping melody, Duff's bass in the intro...the bass before the final chorus is pretty cool too, and then you have that almost RQ style change in direction right at the end.  I think I'm just a bass fiend. ^^  

[EvanG]

1 minute ago, MyPrettyTiedUpMichelle said:

Goes to show how subjective this all is: I happen to love Anything Goes and I don't care for Think About You.   I wouldn't go so far as to call it filler but it does bore me.  

I'm just a pop fan, and when you come up with such a catchy melody as in Think About You, then you can't go wrong anymore. I even love the handclaps halfway into the song.

[RONIN]

19 hours ago, GNRfan2008 said:

Get in the Ring - good music, terrible lyrics

Shotgun Blues - music is OK, but again terrible lyrics

My World - worst GN'R song of all-time and it's not close

 

Those three songs really drag down Illusion 2 compared to Illusion 1, even though Illusion 2 has some absolutely incredible songs. Outside of those three songs, I don't really dislike anything else on the two albums. 

Basically how I feel. GITR would have been a great punk rock song if Axl had written some better lyrics. Ditto with Shotgun Blues. As it stands, they're just guilty pleasures. "Sorry" from Chinese Democracy has the same problem as those two songs - musically good with weak lyrics. They're like the trilogy of Axl songs that go after the press and "haters".

Back off Bitch is another guilty pleasure that could have been elevated with better lyrics. Bad apples is awesome. Bad Obsession is great but it would have been better if it was shorter with less harmonica. 

My world is shite. I like some of the synthy parts though towards the end - could have served as a cool instrumental track for some video game. 

Outside of GITR, Shotgun Blues, and My World - I think Illusions is fucking great. Sure - maybe Back off Bitch, You aint the first, and a few others could have been b-sides - but those are minor quibbles. UYI full of filler? Don't agree with that at all. The problem with Illusions is the shitty mix, Izzy being inaudible, and Sorum's drumming sounding dreadful. The mixing on TSI captured their Illusion sound so much better.

Edited August 10, 2017 by RONIN

[Dimezy]

21 hours ago, Chris 55 said:

Live and Let Die. Bleh. 

Good song to listen to every now and then but its ruined live now with the gunshot that goes off every beat haha

[F*ck Fear]

I honestly can say that I do not hate a song on the Illusions. Any Guns' song in fact. However, I do skip past a few due to liking them less than others. 

So Fine, Shotgun Blues, You Ain't The First, Get In The Ring (was fun when I was a kid).

I leave My World off the list because it's not really a song.

[Fourteenbeers]

On 9.8.2017 at 5:31 AM, rocknroll41 said:

Bad Apples and Get in the Ring are the only songs on the two records that I absolutely HATE.

with that being said, there's only a handful of songs between both records that I genuinely enjoy. The rest are mediocre in my opinion. I can listen to them every now and then, but none of them are anything special. 

in contrast, I still love all the songs on AFD to this very day.

Get in the ring... the lyrics are dated, but I love that song (because for me -  it's funny as hell )

The only song I hate on UYI:s is My world (if you can call it a song in the first place) Annoys the living shit out of me, and it doesn't help that it reminds me of Limp Bizkit (can't stand them either) 

 

Edited August 11, 2017 by Fourteenbeers

[Chris 55]

19 hours ago, RONIN said:

Basically how I feel. GITR would have been a great punk rock song if Axl had written some better lyrics.

I thought Duff wrote those lyrics. He does suck at writing those. "Yeah that made me HAPPY"....ugh

[Tom-Ass]

There are no songs I hate on Use Your Illusions.. Maybe a couple I find over rated but I like them all.. Even My World... Back Off Bitch fucking rocks too.

[MyPrettyTiedUpMichelle]

1 hour ago, Chris 55 said:

I thought Duff wrote those lyrics. He does suck at writing those. "Yeah that made me HAPPY"....ugh

LOL! 

Bless him, I love the man, but he does suck at lyrics and he does suck at singing.  I think that's why I can't get into Loaded (only Executioner's Song and even then, lyrics are awful).  A front man he is not.  But I have a soft spot for So Fine.  God knows why.  I think I like the way the piano overlaps with the guitar.

50 minutes ago, Tom-Ass said:

There are no songs I hate on Use Your Illusions.. Maybe a couple I find over rated but I like them all.. Even My World... Back Off Bitch fucking rocks too.

Glad someone else likes BOB. Was beginning to think I was the only one. I don't care about the lyrics. It's a great song.

[RONIN]

3 hours ago, Chris 55 said:

I thought Duff wrote those lyrics. He does suck at writing those. "Yeah that made me HAPPY"....ugh

Yeah - they aren't great or anything but I think the Axl rant in the middle of the song is the key portion that drags the song down.

As per Duff:

What's your opinion about "Get In The Ring"?

You know what, I wrote part of that song. The title was "Why do you look at me when you hate me", and it was about the press writing shit about us. Well, why do you write about us if you actually hate us? I could give you the names of those that hated us. Why didn't the press hire another people to write about us, instead of bashing us? Why did they have to write about us? I was very idealistic and I thought the world had changed. You need a lot of negative energy within to write so much about someone you actually hate.

 

Izzy said he didn't understand why Axl came to the point of mentioning in the songs the journos he hated.

The song was sort of a joke, and it all started with that song. Then Axl took it very personal. He thought it a good idea. But definitely, if there's some filthy people that need to be treated like filth, who cares? Fuck 'em!

[SoulMonster]

Get In The Ring:

Axl: And Duff’s brought in one song - Duff said it all in one song- it’s called ‘Why do you look at me when you hate me?’ and it’s just bad-assed [Stick To Your Guns by Mick Wall; Kerrang, 21st and 28th of April 1990]

Axl: 'Get In The Ring' was a song that was… basically put together by Slash and Duff, and I came up with the low vocal part. And Slash and I wrote that part together. We wrote different verses. And we wrote a whole song that when the whole band actually had the song together, the words didn't fit the arrangement of the song. And so, we were in Toronto, playing a show in Toronto. And we had one last song to finish recording, that was 'Get In The Ring'. So, we went in the studio and just kind of started putting things together. And then Duff decided that I should express my feelings about how we've been treated by the press, because that was his initial concept for the song, and that I should just go for it. And I was kind of like: "Are you sure? You sure I should do this?". And then Tom Zutaut, of Geffen, was there and he was like: "Go for it." So I got behind the mike and went for it. And everybody was really happy and we just decided to do it. And this naming names, and things like that, were because most bands can't afford to express how they feel about how they're treated in the press, because they need the press so much. And I know that this could hurt us, but we're in a position where I think we owe it to ourselves, and we owe it to an element of the public...[GN'R on WNEW 102.7 - September, 1991]

Izzy: Axl's real critical of himself, and his anger seems to propel him in a lot of ways. That song 'Get I The Ring', I really love a lot of the lyrics just cos they're really aggressive. Axl played guitar on that track as well, that was the first time I saw him play electric guitar, and he did pretty well. I was digging it cos it was a god punk energy. But with all the names at the end I was thinking, shit! I wouldn't have slagged people off on my record [Kerrang!, September 1992]

Duff: You know what, I wrote part of that song. The title was "Why do you look at me when you hate me", and it was about the press writing shit about us. Well, why do you write about us if you actually hate us? I could give you the names of those that hated us. Why didn't the press hire another people to write about us, instead of bashing us? Why did they have to write about us? I was very idealistic and I thought the world had changed. You need a lot of negative energy within to write so much about someone you actually hate. [...] Then Axl took it very personal. He thought it a good idea. But definitely, if there's some filthy people that need to be treated like filth, who cares? Fuck 'em! [Popular 1, July 2000]

Duff: I just hated some of the music critics, the ones which were uninformed. When they just listened to classical music and didn't know about rock and then they criticised it. So I wrote a song, you know that ‘Get In The Ring’ song. For me, I’ve never been a pop single writer, you know about a boy and a girl that meet up and then suck dick, I’m not like that, I’m just able to write songs so that I can exorcise immediately. I just write songs as my therapy [Clash Music, November 2009]

Axl: That was not my idea, you know, that was Tom Zutaut and Duff McKagan's idea. Because there was this blank space in the song, and I was 'We've gotta do something,' and they were like 'Why don't you just go in and go off on Andy Secher and Bob Guccione Jr?' and 'Sure, yeah, yeah' and eventually I did and everybody was happy with it. But when it hit the fan everybody disappeared. And I was naive and didn't realize the political wars going on between the different publicists at the record labels and their relationships with The Rolling Stone and Spin, and whatever, so I was set up but no one stepped forward to say anything [TMS with Eddie Trunk, November 2011]

-----

On a sidenote, when I read many of these discussion of songs or shows, it is remarkable how consistent Axl often is in his versions of what went down. According to Axl, and corraborated by Duff, Duff wrote the scaffold of the song, it was then worked on by Slash and Axl. The rant came later and was suggested by Duff and Zutaut. Duff has not said anything to support that, in fact he seems to imply it was entirely Axl's idea ("then Axl took it very personal. He thought it a good idea"), but seems to approve of the overall sentiment in interviews, so Axl's story seems plausible.

[Blackstar]

1 hour ago, SoulMonster said:

On a sidenote, when I read many of these discussion of songs or shows, it is remarkable how consistent Axl often is in his versions of what went down. According to Axl, and corraborated by Duff, Duff wrote the scaffold of the song, it was then worked on by Slash and Axl. The rant came later and was suggested by Duff and Zutaut. Duff has not said anything to support that, in fact he seems to imply it was entirely Axl's idea ("then Axl took it very personal. He thought it a good idea"), but seems to approve of the overall sentiment in interviews, so Axl's story seems plausible.

I agree about Axl's consistency and the plausibility of his story. I think Axl's and Duff's versions about the rant part don't necessarily contradict each other. In 1991 Axl said that he was prompted by Duff to "express his feelings", but he didn't say explicitly that Duff told him to name those specific journalists. And in 2011 he said at first that "they" (Duff and Zutaut) suggested two names, but then he implied that it was mainly Zutaut's idea because of the "political wars ... between the different publicists at the record labels...". Duff said that Axl "took it very personal".

I think Axl was really prompted to improvise and express his anger (I can see Duff suggesting it, as it would be a "punk" thing to do), then maybe he was encouraged by Zutaut to go all the way, and it's possible that some of the names were Zutaut's idea and others were Axl's; Mick Wall, for example - and maybe this is what Duff meant with "Axl took it personal", because at least two of the three journalists (I don't know about Bob Guccione Jr.) weren't called out for bashing the band in their reviews, but for other reasons.

Edited August 12, 2017 by Blackstar

[rocknroll41]

Guys, what do we think of Locomotive? I love the ending but I can't decide how to feel about the rest of the song.

is it a good song?

[RichardNixon]

9 minutes ago, rocknroll41 said:

Guys, what do we think of Locomotive? I love the ending but I can't decide how to feel about the rest of the song.

is it a good song?

One of the best songs in their catalog.

 

[MyPrettyTiedUpMichelle]

6 minutes ago, rocknroll41 said:

Guys, what do we think of Locomotive? I love the ending but I can't decide how to feel about the rest of the song.

is it a good song?

I think it's a flawed masterpiece, which are the absolute best kinds.  Flawed because a) it's too long b) Axl couldn't leave well alone and put vocals over the stupendous outro.  The outro didn't need him wailing 'sooooo strange'  over all that beautiful instrumental.  

Things I love about it: Duff's fuck off awesome bass in the intro; the guitar after that; that crazy off-beat thing they do at the end of the chorus (I'm not a muso, so don't know wha you call that); the piano in the outro which makes you think at first that it's all about the piano and then? Here comes the guitar...and it's like a kick to the chest.  I don't think Slash is better than Jimi but I am always reminded of him when I hear that outro.  

[EvanG]

21 hours ago, MyPrettyTiedUpMichelle said:

Bless him, I love the man, but he does suck at lyrics

Lyrics have never been a strong aspect of GnR's music. Izzy's lyrics are shit too most of the time. I like 14 Years because it's a sincere lyric about his friendship with Rose, but most other Izzy lyrics in GnR songs that come to mind are childish or simply awful. Axl's lyrics are usually hit or miss. Some are good, some are terrible. 

[DieselDaisy]

7 minutes ago, EvanG said:

Lyrics have never been a strong aspect of GnR's music. Izzy's lyrics are shit too most of the time. I like 14 Years because it's a sincere lyric about his friendship with Rose, but most other Izzy lyrics in GnR songs that come to mind are childish or simply awful. Axl's lyrics are usually hit or miss. Some are good, some are terrible. 

I completely disagree. Izzy's lyrics are great.

[marlingrl03]

22 hours ago, MyPrettyTiedUpMichelle said:

Glad someone else likes BOB. Was beginning to think I was the only one. I don't care about the lyrics. It's a great song.

Count me in that club! It's a great f'in song!

[EvanG]

14 minutes ago, DieselDaisy said:

I completely disagree. Izzy's lyrics are great.

The first verse in Think About You and Patience is something a 15 year old writes in his first love letter when he's trying to be romantic. Dust N' Bones is a fine song, but lyrically... oh my. Sometimes these women are so easy, sometimes these women are so cold. Riiiiight. Don't even get me started on You Ain't The First. Something that could have been on a Weird Al Yankovic album. Pretty Tied Up and Double Talkin' Jive... are kinda boneheaded. Good thing is that even with not such great lyrics you can still have a good song, so I still enjoy most of them.

I guess it's preference. I like more surrealistic and poetic lyrics, and that's hard to find in any GnR song, let alone Izzy's.

 

[DieselDaisy]

2 minutes ago, EvanG said:

The first verse in Think About You and Patience is something a 15 year old writes in his first love letter when he's trying to be romantic. Dust N' Bones is a fine song, but lyrically... oh my. Sometimes these women are so easy, sometimes these women are so cold. Riiiiight. Don't even get me started on You Ain't The First. Something that could have been on a Weird Al Yankovic album. Pretty Tied Up and Double Talkin' Jive... are kinda boneheaded. Good thing is that even with not such great lyrics you can still have a good song, so I still enjoy most of them.

I guess it's preference. I like more surrealistic and poetic lyrics, and that's hard to find in any GnR song, let alone Izzy's.

 

Al good rock n' roll/ballad lyrics - Dust N' Bones has exceptional lyrics.

[EvanG]

1 minute ago, DieselDaisy said:

Al good rock n' roll/ballad lyrics - Dust N' Bones has exceptional lyrics.

Jagger isn't the most poetic lyricist either, but I can take him more seriously than Stradlin.