Sympathy for the Devil--Classic GNR's last song.

[Vincent Vega]

In GN'R's career, SFTD is among the most loathed songs they ever recorded. It's also the last that the Classic Era GN'R recorded and released.

Do you think most of this hatred comes from all the trashing of the song Slash has done since 1994?

Is it a good song, or a bad song--good cover, bad? Good

[bacardimayne]

Great cover but I can see why big Stones fans would hate it.

[ManetsBR]

It's a fantastic song. Guns N' Roses took a good song and turned into a great one. The GNR version is what the Stones should have been.

Kudos for Axl and Matt on that song. I know Mick Jagger wrote it, but Axl plays a much better Devil, and Matt's drumming gives the song the energy it lacks on the Stones version.

And Slash is ridiculously drammatic about what happened. The double guitar sounds awesome, and he knows it.

Edited August 14, 2013 by ManetsBR

[Kapitch_77]

Rolling Stones songs are like Pink Floyd songs, or Metallica, or Hendrix... you just can't make it better. Good cover though.

[Apollo]

Sounds horrible. IMO one of the 3-4 worst songs GnR ever did.

[Randy Lahey]

The GNR version is cheesy and overproduced.

[liers]

Never liked the stones version to begin with. I prefer the GnR version, but it's still not a song that I listen to very often.

[ManetsBR]

You're cheesy and overproduced

[AndreCC]

i love the guns n roses version of that song. Didn't understand why it was disliked so much. Especially considering Axl's vocals give it a nice twist.

[J Dog]

I always liked it. Pretty good different take on it. Not as good as the original.

[WhazUp]

I always liked the GNR version although nothing beats the original

[niceguy]

I heard the Stones original back when I was a kid (the song was decades old at that point). It was one of those moments which I'll never forget, the song hit me that hard.

The GNR cover is agonizing, just utter shit. Axl's vocal delivery is so stupidly clownish, and the drum reverb is abominable.

The original is just so raw and real.

[dalsh327]

I think this is the only time Slash played Sympathy live. Gives you some idea how it would've been with Slash and Dave on it.

Edited August 15, 2013 by dalsh327

[jimb0]

I liked it. An old friend used to say... Guns N' Roses.. Playing the Stones... It can't get much better.

I appreciate it as it's the last thing GNR ever put out together.

[axlsalinger]

Original versions of classic songs are almost always better than even the best covers, especially for songs that I love. But this is a rare case where I actually prefer the cover over the original. Axl kicks ass on this one Imo. Haven't listened to it too much lately and it is sad what happened after.

Special props to Axl here, even though he didn't show up initially to the studio, he did at some point manage to both record vocals AND release the song so, kudos for that.

Edited August 15, 2013 by axlsalinger

[RockerRoller]

ah axls voice just ruins the song for me. i cant stand how he sounds on it i dunno why. its just a bad cover.

[gunsfanoldie]

Its so weird. I like almost every cover they do on the Spaghetti Incident. I like both covers on Live Like A Suicide. I'll admit, most of those covers were songs I heard GNR do first. For example, I've always thought their version of Mama Kin is miles better than Aerosmiths, but I also heard GNR do it first. And with Spaghetti, aside from Buick Mackane (which is maybe my least favorite T Rex song of all time, and I don't think GNR makes it better) and Hair Of The Dog, most of those songs were new as they just weren't the same type of music I listen to.

So oddly enough, Sympathy is one of the few covers they do where I know the original so so well. Its a bonafide classic, and its honestly a REALLY hard song to cover. Its sparse, at least the original is, yet its so powerful and rocking. IMO the Stones have trouble playing it live. Its released on most of their live albums, and out of the 7 I maybe like 2 of them, and one was from directly after the album was released so its played very similar to that. The others sound like they are trying to make it grander and it kind of ruins it for me. The song drags, doesn't go anywhere in that weird bigger rocking format.

I think the GNR version is similar to that. I always try to really get into it, and every time it just comes out "blah" to me. I mean Axl sounds very good, the band sounds good, its just not a great cover. I think its just a weird choice, because like I said its not an easy song to do better than the original, and it comes off as pointless. As hard as I try to hear it and not feel that way, 4 minutes into their cover I'm so painfully bored. Its weird and probably personal preference. Also, I thought all of this before reading Slash's comments about it. I personally can't hear "the band breaking up" on that song, but I do think the sound is just off, which is maybe what Slash means. Nothing is glaringly wrong, it just does not click, and I don't know if GNR when they were a tight unit in 87 could have done it well.

[vaida]

More to the point, GNR's last 'released' cover song. That's how I see it.

Edited August 15, 2013 by vaida

[machinegunner]

It was their last released botched cover.

[Gracii Guns]

Excellent cover. I imagine it was bad timing as it was the same era as TSI. For a band who wrote such superb original songs, they did haul out loads of covers at the same time.

[trqster]

One of my favorite Gn'R covers - love it!

[themadcaplaughs]

It's a fantastic song. Guns N' Roses took a good song and turned into a great one. The GNR version is what the Stones should have been.

Kudos for Axl and Matt on that song. I know Mick Jagger wrote it, but Axl plays a much better Devil, and Matt's drumming gives the song the energy it lacks on the Stones version.

And Slash is ridiculously drammatic about what happened. The double guitar sounds awesome, and he knows it.

[dalsh327]

The original is still the best, but have no idea why GNR don't do that song now.

Excellent cover. I imagine it was bad timing as it was the same era as TSI. For a band who wrote such superb original songs, they did haul out loads of covers at the same time.

If they had made UYI into 3 albums, the TSI songs probably would have been thrown into it, and maybe one of Duff's "Believe in Me" songs (makes you wonder if a Prince cover would have been on a GNR album) It's just weird the timing of the Estranged video was after TSI was out.