Sympathy for the Devil--opinions?

[T.wa.T]

GnR's version is good not great. As much as I like it, I prefer the Stones original. Maybe if Axl and Slash weren't having a bitchfest the song wouldn't have suffered, but they somehow managed to pull off a respectable version.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Awful. Totally draining all the subtlties of the song out and turning it into this meat head thing, that little Samba beat, the sparseness of it had a certain eerieness, Mick vocal take is sexy and alluring, in line with the theme of the song, Satan/temptation etc, Axl just does that horrible faux Alice Cooper voice of it but the worst...the WORST thing about it is the fuckin' guitar playing, they just make it SO dense...laid on so thick, it's just awful...the whole thing of that Keith solo is...the best way i can describe it is you have to play it as if the guitar is scolding hot...like it hurts to touch it for more that a couple of seconds, to give the that quick burst feel, it should sound like it stings.

Deep down inside this is why i've never thought anything of most hard rock and metal because it has absolutely no room for subtlty or going a different path other than loud and clangy to convey a particular musical piece, to me it's like a vaccum that just sucks all the style and control away from the guitar/guitar playing.

GnR in every way possible slaughtered and destroyed what was an amazing song, GnR can't do subtle very well at all, especially post Izzy. GnR turn what is actually a really contentious simmering song with a sort of sinister undercurrent (thanks to the drum-work) into this awful gauche cartoon of a song. Micks vocal take on the original is just absolutely fuckin' spot on head of the nail perfect and Axls is just, ugh, it's different to put into words just how badly they killed this fuckin' song.

The drumming though, the Samba drumming, the sort of foreignness of it sort of lended to the subtle sinisterness of the song and GnR just made a fucking total arse of it. And those little pseudo-sexual moans and yelps of satisfaction like 'awwww yeah' and 'get on down' to each little bursts of solo just strike this wonderful balance, like one is egging the other on, all these wonderful qualities that make the song are missing from the GnR one.

And those 'ooh, hoo-hoo's' that Mick does, you can tell Jacko was somewhere taking notes. Writing this has reminded me what i love about The Stones

Edited June 6, 2013 by sugaraylen

[DieselDaisy]

GN'R's best Stones cover is unreleased. It is 'Jack Flash' from the old pre-Appetite demos and club shows. It still isn't better than The Stones, Guns just punked and sleazed it up really, but it had spirit and a certain, rock n' roll energy, which Keith would have been proud of. A very good cover.

There is also, Dead Flowers from the Skin N' Bones 1993 tour. I suppose that is, alright. Just a straight busker version really.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Yeah, their JJF was brilliant see because their heavy handed style was suited to it. But they made a right cock up of Heartbreak Hotel. Well, not as bad as Sympathy for the Devil, it was like, slightly above average, not fuckin' intolerable like Sympathy was.

[WhazUp]

I quite like Gun's version of Sympathy -Slash's outro solo especially is really good

[Nosaj Thing]

GN'R's best Stones cover is unreleased. It is 'Jack Flash' from the old pre-Appetite demos and club shows. It still isn't better than The Stones, Guns just punked and sleazed it up really, but it had spirit and a certain, rock n' roll energy, which Keith would have been proud of. A very good cover.

There is also, Dead Flowers from the Skin N' Bones 1993 tour. I suppose that is, alright. Just a straight busker version really.

I agree.

A cover cannot be better than the original.

[DieselDaisy]

I quite like their version of Heartbreak Hotel just for hearing Axl sing, ''I 'm so lonely, so fuckin lonely, i'm so lonely I could die''.

[FuddMckagan]

Not a fan of either of the versions

Edited June 6, 2013 by FuddMckagan

[dalsh327]

GN'R's best Stones cover is unreleased. It is 'Jack Flash' from the old pre-Appetite demos and club shows. It still isn't better than The Stones, Guns just punked and sleazed it up really, but it had spirit and a certain, rock n' roll energy, which Keith would have been proud of. A very good cover.

There is also, Dead Flowers from the Skin N' Bones 1993 tour. I suppose that is, alright. Just a straight busker version really.

I agree.

A cover cannot be better than the original.

Leonard Cohen "Hallelujah".

Aretha Franklin "Respect"

Janis Joplin "PIece of My Heart"

Elvis Presley "Hound Dog"

Elvis Costello "Peace Love & Understanding"

GNR - KOHD

Hendrix "Hey Joe", "All Along the Watchtower"

Sinead O' Connor "Nothing Compares 2 U"

Willie Nelson "Always On My Mind"

Soft Cell "Tainted Love"

Whitney Houston "I Will Always Love You"

Harry Nilsson "Without You"

[Nosaj Thing]

The originals are better. I enjoy some of those covers more.

[EvH]

Remember that the cover was done for a soundtrack. They injected the gothic feel of IWTV in their rendition of the song.

[Vincent Vega]

Yeah, their JJF was brilliant see because their heavy handed style was suited to it. But they made a right cock up of Heartbreak Hotel. Well, not as bad as Sympathy for the Devil, it was like, slightly above average, not fuckin' intolerable like Sympathy was.

I think Heartbreak Hotel was actually a real disgrace of a cover. Elvis' version is sexy, it's subtle, it sort of slinks along with his sultry vocals and delivery...It's raw and basic. GN'R takes it and has Axl screeching all over it and it just comes off hammy and banal...Elvis songs aren't suited toward being punked up, at least not Heartbreak Hotel.

[Len Cnut]

Yeah, their JJF was brilliant see because their heavy handed style was suited to it. But they made a right cock up of Heartbreak Hotel. Well, not as bad as Sympathy for the Devil, it was like, slightly above average, not fuckin' intolerable like Sympathy was.

I think Heartbreak Hotel was actually a real disgrace of a cover. Elvis' version is sexy, it's subtle, it sort of slinks along with his sultry vocals and delivery...It's raw and basic. GN'R takes it and has Axl screeching all over it and it just comes off hammy and banal...Elvis songs aren't suited toward being punked up, at least not Heartbreak Hotel.

For one of very few times in my life Miser dear, i agree with you. Sympathy was just actually totally killed though. I bought that, as a cassette single from Woolworths when it came out. Imagine my suprise when i stuck it in the tape deck. Luckily, at that point in my life I wasn't aware of The Rolling Stones. Not sure I listened to it more than a couple of times and i was fanatical about GnR in them days.

Edited August 6, 2015 by Len B'stard

[WAR41]

I bought the CD single when it came out because it was a GNR release. But I am definitely not a fan of it.

[brocky888]

No cover can ever be better than the original cos its a performance of an idea - it's not creative in any way - still love it tho but it not a patch on what the stones created

[DieselDaisy]

The original is hypnotic, tribal, sexual, political. Jagger speaks for a generation that is traumatised, from Vietnam, from the civil rights era, from the 'death of the 1960s' (alright Altamont had not happened yet but it was obvious the hippy ideal had turned into vacuous nothingness). GN'R's version is none of those things. It is not obnoxiously bad I would say but it is basically completely uninteresting. You could never call The Stones' version ''uninteresting''.

[ludurigan]

I heard this on the radio on the way home last night.Guns version is wayyyyyyyyy better then the stones original.Sorry but Axl was born to sing this.

Axl was born to sing, period.

The US Congress should have created a law that allowed GNR to pay for their "law problems" by recording albums.

- Hey Axl, you are going to jail for 3 months to pay for the mess you did in St Louis. But there is this new law the US Congress just approved that allows you to choose a alternate sentence. You need to record 30 classic rock songs and release them for free to the American people, that would be an alternate way to pay for your jail time.

By now we would have a zillion gnr albums hahahahaha

Now back to topic, the Stones song is a classic, and they deserve all the praise for writing such a masterpiece.

Doing a cover is really easy when compared to writing a song.

Slash Duff and Matt said that they were pissed off about Paul Tobias, but nonetheless they did a terrific job here.

Axl also said in interviews that he wasnt feeling it on studio, but he also manages to create magic here. I just love how his voice goes from very low to very high in the chorus (1st chorus low voice, 2nd chorus higher, 3rd chorus even higher...)

This is the sound of GNR breaking up, as they say, and they still managed to make it sound great. They could release 10 albums of that and id buy them all

[Lies They Tell]

Personally I slightly prefer the GNR version over the original. Probably cause I'm a fan of Axl's voice. But I do understand why some even hate the GNR version

[SoulMonster]

I prefer the cover to the original, too. Axl > Jagger.

[DR DOOM]

Like I see others have said, I bought the single when it came out and despite still being in that GNR frenzy of the first half of the 90's, barely listened to it.

It's probably the one GNR song/cover song I've listened to the least.

It isn't AWFUL, but it is completely uninteresting...Slash's comments from back in the day were/are 100% spot on.

[dalsh327]

I would have liked to have seen that one become a Dave Navarro and Slash duel when they recorded it, or Slash and Tracii Guns...a guitar duel between the two "local" gunslingers would have made for a cool moment, and I don't think Slash would have been as pissed about that as he was about Tobias because at least he had some history with Dave and Tracii.

When Slash talks about this, he's not talking about personal enjoyment of listening to his own music, it's his livelihood so his whole train of thought is around the recording sessions of when they made it, so he's going to be more critical where he says he "hated" working on any of the songs. He didn't hate it enough to play it with Perry and Dave, he should still give it a go with Myles. If it falls on its ass, so be it.

[wasted]

They should play it live it would add something to the show.

[Bumblefeet]

Remember that the cover was done for a soundtrack. They injected the gothic feel of IWTV in their rendition of the song.

I once heard the movie's composer Elliot Goldenthal explain that the style of his score evolved throughout the picture as the vampires lived through the different time periods, and that the "Sympathy With The Devil" cover was the last stop performed by arguably the greatest contemporary band at that time, Guns n' Roses. So there was some thought put into it being there and ending the movie.

I like the cover and Axl seems to be having fun with it. I'd like a live version as well.

[Johnny Drama]

Yeah, their JJF was brilliant see because their heavy handed style was suited to it. But they made a right cock up of Heartbreak Hotel. Well, not as bad as Sympathy for the Devil, it was like, slightly above average, not fuckin' intolerable like Sympathy was.

I think Heartbreak Hotel was actually a real disgrace of a cover. Elvis' version is sexy, it's subtle, it sort of slinks along with his sultry vocals and delivery...It's raw and basic. GN'R takes it and has Axl screeching all over it and it just comes off hammy and banal...Elvis songs aren't suited toward being punked up, at least not Heartbreak Hotel.

Right on, Miser.

[Rovim]

I don't like any of the studio covers Guns did. They're better at doing Guns songs. Or were.

Edited August 7, 2015 by Rovim