Similarities between Axl and Michael Jackson

[ludurigan]

9 hours ago, Srushti7 said:

Made it huge in music business solely on the basis of talent

Care about fans

Lonely souls who just needed a little love back in their prime when all bashing started

Workaholics to the point will risk their health

Were thrashed by the media for being themselves and not giving a shit

 

thats your perception of axl rose?

really?

[ludurigan]

7 hours ago, Srushti7 said:

Yes. Axl was always very passionate about Guns. Keep in mind he gave up heroin, became clean nearly around '88 or something. One I thing I always say about Axl, is how he gave his 100% in every performance. UYL tour, Appetite tour etc prove that. And in 2006 he was I think hospitalized or something like that because of over working. He's got an incredible work ethic. 

please keep it coming!

 

[killuridols]

7 hours ago, Srushti7 said:

Well then how do you think he became this successful? Many have described his work ethic as being strong. 

Because he is in a band called Guns N' Roses? 

Axl is not a solo artist. He became successful in a band of five where everybody was talented and contributed to create the brilliant music released in AFD, Lies and the Illusion albums.

The similarities between Axl and Jackson are more related to their lifestyle than with music or career.

Jackson is a larger artist than Axl and I'd say far more darker too.

 

[ludurigan]

Just now, killuridols said:

Because he is in a band called Guns N' Roses? 

Axl is not a solo artist. He became successful in a band of five where everybody was talented and contributed to create the brilliant music released in AFD, Lies and the Illusion albums.

 

thank you

[killuridols]

Just now, ludurigan said:

thank you

[gunsguy]

They both wore one glove?  Not sure where Axl picked that up from but he has worn one on stage for a long time, I meant to ask him about that but never did.

[ludurigan]

axl had great dancing moves and fantastic stage presence in the GNR era

post-GNR -- starting on the GNC era and then specially evident on both ANF and GNA eras -- axl completely lost whatever dancing abilities he used to have along with pretty much all of his stage presence, charisma etc

[PirateRadio]

6 hours ago, janrichmond said:

They're the only MJ vids i watch 

 

Edited February 8, 2018 by PirateRadio

[Derick]

3 hours ago, killuridols said:

Because he is in a band called Guns N' Roses? 

Axl is not a solo artist. He became successful in a band of five where everybody was talented and contributed to create the brilliant music released in AFD, Lies and the Illusion albums.

Agree on the "everybody was talented and contributed to create the brilliant music" but I disagree when you try to put it as a sufficient condition to justify their success. That´s not true. You can lean on the romanticized idea that in a band all members are equal, that everyone contributes in the same way, that everyone strives the same way but it´s not. 

We all know that the band's main visionary (from the beginning) was Axl and that the band had members who was there just for fun and wanted to just make songs, play them in clubs, make some money and that was all, without big ambitions. Others just got carried away by the wave of success..

I would tell you that good songs only open a possible path to success, but to get there and stay there a musician has to work a lot besides making music, he has to throw himself in the eye of the hurricane, go out for extensive tours, videos, expose himself to the public and do whatever it takes for these brilliant music to reach the people..because without those things there is no success. You can compose the most incredible songs in the Universe, but without a good job behind it there is no success.

Anyway..At that time, alongside Slash and Duff, he may rather be considered a workaholic. Take a look at what they did at Illusions era, look at the amount of shows around the world and videos they did, look at all the production and work they have on the November Rain, Don't Cry and Estranged videos. To me much of the success they're making on the NITL tour comes from the hard work that they did back then and it's not just about the songs I'm talking about.

 

[action]

i agree with the OP, even though not all points of similarity are of equal strenght.

off the top of my head, MJ and WAR are the two absolute biggest rock / pop stars of the late 80s, early 90s.

different styles, different image, but the same mythical, almost god like status

[Srushti7]

1 hour ago, Derick said:

Agree on the "everybody was talented and contributed to create the brilliant music" but I disagree when you try to put it as a sufficient condition to justify their success. That´s not true. You can lean on the romanticized idea that in a band all members are equal, that everyone contributes in the same way, that everyone strives the same way but it´s not. 

We all know that the band's main visionary (from the beginning) was Axl and that the band had members who was there just for fun and wanted to just make songs, play them in clubs, make some money and that was all, without big ambitions. Others just got carried away by the wave of success..

I would tell you that good songs only open a possible path to success, but to get there and stay there a musician has to work a lot besides making music, he has to throw himself in the eye of the hurricane, go out for extensive tours, videos, expose himself to the public and do whatever it takes for these brilliant music to reach the people..because without those things there is no success. You can compose the most incredible songs in the Universe, but without a good job behind it there is no success.

Anyway..At that time, alongside Slash and Duff, he may rather be considered a workaholic. Take a look at what they did at Illusions era, look at the amount of shows around the world and videos they did, look at all the production and work they have on the November Rain, Don't Cry and Estranged videos. To me much of the success they're making on the NITL tour comes from the hard work that they did back then and it's not just about the songs I'm talking about.

 

Thank you

[Srushti7]

9 hours ago, cooker said:

"This forum has nothing to do with Michael Jackson" 

It's not that deep fam

[J Dog]

13 hours ago, Ratam said:

I think that Axl and MJ not have in common absolutelly nothing

Agree with completely this I do.

(Sorry I couldn't resist! You know I haven't messed with you in awhile my tortoise ninja friend )

[RONIN]

There's actually quite a few similarities between the redhead and the gloved one aside from the fact that they both are extremely talented (musical geniuses?) and went into major pop-culture decline circa 1993. MJ had the first child molestation allegations in '93 and Axl had the wife beating allegations in '93 as well.

1. They're OCD perfectionists - they will toil over a single song for god knows how long and add all kinds of layers of odd/unnecessary vocal tics. A single song will go through countless revisions in the studio.

2. They're both extravagant - Everything they did was in grand style. Both had obscenely expensive videos. Invincible is the most expensive album ever made. Chinese Democracy is the most expensive rock album ever made. 

3. They love to overproduce their albums and loathe a raw sound for their songs - see #1.

4. Vanity and ego driven - Both are self absorbed and love sycophants and adulation. In their prime, the videos they made capture their vanity and ego pretty well. Each one views themselves as an auteur who is solely responsible for their success - they have difficulty crediting or valuing people who helped them achieve their vision and fame (MJ - Quincy Jones, Axl - his band)

5. They are both musically/vocally versatile - Axl and MJ can do a lot of different styles of music well. They're not afraid to experiment

6. Neither enjoy touring/releasing music - Post-1991, MJ took years to release his albums and famously loathed touring. 

7. Ruthless businessmen who are not above screwing over their own friends for money/control - MJ screwed over his friend Paul McCartney in purchasing the Beatles catalogue. Axl screwed over his bandmates through his legal shenanigans. 

8. Both of them got increasingly out of touch with reality as time went on and are considered batshit crazy. 

9. Their artistic/creative peak was in 1991 when both respectively released Dangerous and Use your Illusion 1 and 2. Neither topped those albums. 

10. Both have/had an out of control entourage and inner circle of enablers who eventually led them to ruin personally and professionally.

11. Both also fell victim to success and became stuck/paralyzed creatively when following up their earlier albums - they never really reinvented their sound after the early 90's. MJ kept trying to top Thriller while Axl kept trying to top AFD - both were unsuccessful there.

12. They are both worldclass showmen/entertainers - perhaps the top of their class respectively. 

13. Both have instantly recognizable and iconic vocals/stage wear (Axl's kilt and headband, MJ's gloves and pennyloafers).

14. Both of them cracked under media scrutiny in their prime and became increasingly private and guarded towards the press. Their appearance/life have been relentlessly mocked by the media in their later years. One was dubbed by the media as the Howard Hughes of Pop. The other, the Howard Hughes of rock.

15. MJ and Axl are extremely polarizing figures in music (they can invoke anything from intense devotion to strong hatred). Both have a mythic/larger than life mystique surrounding them.

Edited February 8, 2018 by RONIN

[Srushti7]

49 minutes ago, RONIN said:

There's actually quite a few similarities between the redhead and the gloved one aside from the fact that they both are extremely talented (musical geniuses?) and went into major pop-culture decline circa 1993. MJ had the first child molestation allegations in '93 and Axl had the wife beating allegations in '93 as well.

1. They're OCD perfectionists - they will toil over a single song for god knows how long and add all kinds of layers of odd/unnecessary vocal tics. A single song will go through countless revisions in the studio.

2. They're both extravagant - Everything they did was in grand style. Both had obscenely expensive videos. Invincible is the most expensive album ever made. Chinese Democracy is the most expensive rock album ever made. 

3. They love to overproduce their albums and loathe a raw sound for their songs - see #1.

4. Vanity and ego driven - Both are self absorbed and love sycophants and adulation. In their prime, the videos they made capture their vanity and ego pretty well. Each one views themselves as an auteur who is solely responsible for their success - they have difficulty crediting or valuing people who helped them achieve their vision and fame (MJ - Quincy Jones, Axl - his band)

5. They are both musically/vocally versatile - Axl and MJ can do a lot of different styles of music well. They're not afraid to experiment

6. Neither enjoy touring/releasing music - Post-1991, MJ took years to release his albums and famously loathed touring. 

7. Ruthless businessmen who are not above screwing over their own friends for money/control - MJ screwed over his friend Paul McCartney in purchasing the Beatles catalogue. Axl screwed over his bandmates through his legal shenanigans. 

8. Both of them got increasingly out of touch with reality as time went on and are considered batshit crazy. 

9. Their artistic/creative peak was in 1991 when both respectively released Dangerous and Use your Illusion 1 and 2. Neither topped those albums. 

10. Both have/had an out of control entourage and inner circle of enablers who eventually led them to ruin personally and professionally.

11. Both also fell victim to success and became stuck/paralyzed creatively when following up their earlier albums - they never really reinvented their sound after the early 90's. MJ kept trying to top Thriller while Axl kept trying to top AFD - both were unsuccessful there.

12. They are both worldclass showmen/entertainers - perhaps the top of their class respectively. 

13. Both have instantly recognizable and iconic vocals/stage wear (Axl's kilt and headband, MJ's gloves and pennyloafers).

14. Both of them cracked under media scrutiny in their prime and became increasingly private and guarded towards the press. Their appearance/life have been relentlessly mocked by the media in their later years. One was known dubbed by the media as the Howard Hughes of Pop. The other, the Howard Hughes of rock.

15. MJ and Axl are extremely polarizing figures in music (they can invoke anything from intense devotion to strong hatred). Both have a mythic/larger than life mystique surrounding them.

Agree and disagree too. While MJ did credit Quincy for his success, Quincy was the one who has dismissed Michael's contribution to his albums. Q couldn't have the success he had with Thriller, BAD, OFF The Wall. He didn't even want Billie Jean, Smooth Criminal on the albums. Q took credit for Michael's songwriting on songs Michael had made demos at home. 

Reason why MJ dumped Q. 

While the allegations against MJ were a joke, sadly the allegations against Axl were true.  

Both had their depressive periods during the same time. 

[RONIN]

7 minutes ago, Srushti7 said:

Agree and disagree too. While MJ did credit Quincy for his success, Quincy was the one who has dismissed Michael's contribution to his albums. Q couldn't have the success he had with Thriller, BAD, OFF The Wall. He didn't even want Billie Jean, Smooth Criminal on the albums. Q took credit for Michael's songwriting on songs Michael had made demos at home. 

Reason why MJ dumped Q. 

Very good point. I remember the passive-aggressive comments Q has made in the press about MJ. 

[RussTCB]

3 hours ago, RONIN said:

9. Their artistic/creative peak was in 1991 when both respectively released Dangerous and Use your Illusion 1 and 2. Neither topped those albums. 

I'm gonna nitpick here and point out that MJ at least released both HIStory and Invincible past '91. Invincible is far from perfect but it does have some great material on it. As far as HIStory goes yes, the first disc is just a GH compilation, but the second disc is a new album. The second disc of HIStory happens to be my favorite MJ album.

[F*ck Fear]

They both made music.

[Stress Fracture]

Both were icons who felt the need to change their appearance.

At some point Axl may have been turning into a Michael Jackson type figure but MJ died at the age of 50 because of everything that happened to him and what he did to himself while Axl appears to be having the time of his life as he turns 56.

[Gnrcane]

2 hours ago, F*ck Fear said:

They both made music.

And they were both white...

[Srushti7]

3 hours ago, RussTCB said:

I'm gonna nitpick here and point out that MJ at least released both HIStory and Invincible past '91. Invincible is far from perfect but it does have some great material on it. As far as HIStory goes yes, the first disc is just a GH compilation, but the second disc is a new album. The second disc of HIStory happens to be my favorite MJ album.

Invincible is actually a masterpiece. The whole bullshit with Sony was ugly yet it sold 13M ww. MJ doesn't get any appreciation for his later work tho. They Don't care about us, Earth song, Stranger in Moscow are brilliant tracks. 

[DieselDaisy]

I still have never gotten around to listening Invincible. 

[TheGeneral]

HIStory is also my favorite MJ album.

And Dangerous, HIStory and Invincible all have tracks with Slash on guitar.

Give In To Me, D.S. (awesome, very kick ass unknown song) and Privacy I believe

[killuridols]

14 hours ago, Derick said:

Agree on the "everybody was talented and contributed to create the brilliant music" but I disagree when you try to put it as a sufficient condition to justify their success. That´s not true. You can lean on the romanticized idea that in a band all members are equal, that everyone contributes in the same way, that everyone strives the same way but it´s not. 

Sufficient condition to justify their success? I don't know where you're reading that but I didn't say anything like that. What I said is that Axl is not a solo artist, so when it comes to comparing him with Michael Jackson, I'd take it with a grain of salt, since Axl is in a band with other talented people who also helped achieving that success. It doesn't matter how much or little they all contributed, "Appetite For Destruction" could have not be built on Axl solely. And I think Axl would agree with me much more than with you, now that looking back, he understood how hard it was to replicate that success when he tried to build a new band after the break up.

14 hours ago, Derick said:

We all know that the band's main visionary (from the beginning) was Axl and that the band had members who was there just for fun and wanted to just make songs, play them in clubs, make some money and that was all, without big ambitions. Others just got carried away by the wave of success..

This is not true. Guns N' Roses came as the result of five guys looking for each other after a revolving door of musicians and people who wanted to do what you say, but none of them made it to the final lineup that recorded "AFD".

You should listen to Axl in the interview at the CGBG'S when he talks about it and there are other interviews too where he says it was hard to find the right people who wanted to seriously start a band and commit to playing, recording, etc.

Axl was not a visionary in 1985 or 1986. Not even after releasing AFD. None of them expected the success of that album, which took a long time to take flight.

14 hours ago, Derick said:

I would tell you that good songs only open a possible path to success, but to get there and stay there a musician has to work a lot besides making music, he has to throw himself in the eye of the hurricane, go out for extensive tours, videos, expose himself to the public and do whatever it takes for these brilliant music to reach the people..because without those things there is no success. You can compose the most incredible songs in the Universe, but without a good job behind it there is no success.

Congrats. You just discovered the wheel. And?

Guns N' Roses did all that. The whole band did it. Not just Axl. Were you alive and conscious in 1992?

14 hours ago, Derick said:

Anyway..At that time, alongside Slash and Duff, he may rather be considered a workaholic. Take a look at what they did at Illusions era, look at the amount of shows around the world and videos they did, look at all the production and work they have on the November Rain, Don't Cry and Estranged videos. To me much of the success they're making on the NITL tour comes from the hard work that they did back then and it's not just about the songs I'm talking about.

Again. You are speaking the obvious and I don't know what's your point because I never said anything objecting their work or denied whatever is that you are remarking here. I simply don't understand you.

About Axl being workaholic, I don't think he fits this term at all. If he was a workaholic, he wouldn't have gone MIA for so long and would have released an album every year. A workaholic person is someone who spends most of their time working and producing because they have a sense of time passing by that is not normal, they feel as if time is running out from them and every second lost is money lost with it, so they can't stop inventing/producing things or goods.

Slash is the one who could be considered a workaholic, as the guy is always on tour or making albums.

 

Edited February 8, 2018 by killuridols

[janrichmond]

I've never seen a fat MJ pic