Do people still like Rockers?

[jacdaniel]

As a Guns fan, the rockers have always been my favourite songs. Of course I really like the ballads too, but I prefer them to be 1 or 2 to an album. I never liked CD due to the lack of real rockers on that album.

However, I've seen a lot of evidence on this forum to suggest that I'm in a minority. 

SMKC have a bunch of cool rock songs, some bad songs as well. I understand people hate Myles and that's ok, but the music is very quickly dismissed as generic rock.

Contraband is also a cool rock album. I see a lot of negativity towards that album.

I also picked up on a lot of people saying the band shouldn't do an AFD 2.0 and it would suck if they did. 

Finally, I see ACDC get a lot of grief on here for releasing a similar style of music over the years. 

 

The question is, after so many years of rock music, is it possible to write a rock song that's not instantly dismissed as generic? 

Do people still want a good old riff driven song with a cool solo? 

Would you prefer a much higher ratio of ballads/experimental type stuff? 

I'd personally like Guns to strip down again. No dizzy or Melissa in the studio. Just a 5 piece writing some guitar driven, high tempo rock songs. Maybe something acoustic as well.

 

[skik08]

I'm in the same boat as you. I prefer "the rockers" but still want a couple of ballads on an album. Slash, be it with The Conspirators, Snakepit or VR, has been constantly pumping out rockers for years now and ultimately keeping rock alive and fresh, for me anyways. So for that, Slash deserves massive credit and if there will be a new GNR album, I want plenty of rockers.

 

[Len Cnut]

In general terms people don't like rock music full stop.  It was overtaken long ago by hip hop as the dominant music of popular culture.  Rocks in a nostalgia phase now more than anything, older people, essentially a gradually diminishing audience, are the ones listening to it predominantly.  Pop cultures a reasonably young thing, only 60 to 70 years old so it'll be interesting to see where rock music goes, whether it was just be left in history or whether there'll be a revival of some sort.  If there is a revival it will be very different than the sorts of revivals it had before now, through punk and grunge and such, chiefly because the next one will be so far removed from the last one.

I don't see it myself, everything has a space and a time in history and when its gone its gone.  And I'm comfortable with that quite honestly.

[janrichmond]

1 or 2 ballads is enough for any rock album. I'd be very happy with an AFD type album. No piano. No added bits like the talking in Coma or the MLK speech in that nuGuns song (can't remember what song) Keep it more 'basic' 

I guess i'm in the minority too @jacdaniel

 

[Caught_in_a_Coma]

I think I'd rather hear them go more bluesy-rock than either, but I see what you are saying, OP. I think there needs to be a mix

Edited August 26, 2018 by Caught_in_a_Coma

[Gordon Comstock]

I'd be more interested in something based around Axl at a piano and Slash adding licks and solos throughout, like November Rain or Estranged.

I'd want TWAT or CITR 2.0 over World On Fire or Driving Rain 2.0, basically.

[UsedYourIllusion]

I think it's more about content of the song than just necessarily the structure. Scraped is a bad song for a few reasons, not great structure-feels like 3 songs overlapping, but mainly the lyrics are just boooooooooooooooring. Feels like the lyrics of a cheap pop song. Whereas Madagascar isn't a generic rocker but it's a killer song for the lyrics and structure. Depends, wouldn't want too much of one thing; ask Metallica why they stopped playing certain songs like 'And Justice for all' live for a while, no one likes 20-seven minute long songs in a live set.

[Ninjapie24]

Albums with mostly hard rock songs and only a couple of ballads end up being my favorite. AFD is my favorite album of all time for that reason. I love SMKC, VR and Snakepit because of the amount of rocking songs on those albums. There’s a reason that I think the Black album is my 5th favorite Metallica album. They made their sound less aggressive, and got rid of their longer, instrumentally fantastic, songs. Axl is great at writing ballads, and I like CD, but it took time to like it. I was expecting some killer riffs when I instead heard mostly mid-tempo songs. It’s great but not the hard rocking, aggressive, attitude filled godly songs of Appetite. Put some ballads in there for Axl to shine, but limit it to a few so the band can show just what they can do.

[LikeADog93]

I'm right there with ya. Straight ahead, bare bones rock n roll has always been what I gravitate towards. All the early punk bands like the NY Dolls, Dead Boys, Dictators, Hanoi Rocks, MC5, Stooges, etc are all at the top of my list. I love the energy and simplicity of that music. Appetite had that same spirit and attitude. Nowadays, if I listen to GNR, I mainly listen to Appetite and the rockers from UYI like Right Next Door to Hell, Perfect Crime, and Garden of Eden. I haven't listened to November Rain, Estranged, and Breakdown in a long time.

Edited August 27, 2018 by LikeADog93

[-W.A.R-]

Yes i still like rockers but one of the reasons Guns is my favorite band is their versatility (They can make rockers, ballads, epics, acoustic, etc etc)

Basically i would want UYIIII out of a new album (But more raw...no weird shit like whats on Garden Of Eden, phone calls mid-song, or speeches from movies).

Edited August 27, 2018 by -W.A.R-

[newusedillusion]

I like rockers. I don't know if I'd say they're my favorite, but who doesn't get a little pumped when PC kicks up or Back In Black? In terms of albums, the ideal for me is a mix of everything. I think that's why I prefer UYI over AFD. They're a good mix of both despite the "filler" gripes about them.

Too many of any variety is a bad thing. I'm a big fan of epics but a whole album of them is boring, same with any one style.

[RJ88]

I just want a new GN'R album with new songs.

Edited August 28, 2018 by RJ88

[Tom-Ass]

Rockers and good hard rock for me very day. Guns did do some good ballads for sure.  Estranged (if you call it a ballad) still gets me off and November Rain is a classic.  I would actually prefer Guns to make a statement and come out with a balls to the wall hard rock album. That being said, if there was an epic type ballad on there I wouldn't hate that either. I just want it to be good.... I like SMKC but it would have to be better than that. 

 

Edited August 27, 2018 by Tom-Ass

[Ratam]

Love variation, and GNR always was about variation.

[Draguns]

2 hours ago, Len Cnut said:

In general terms people don't like rock music full stop.  It was overtaken long ago by hip hop as the dominant music of popular culture.  Rocks in a nostalgia phase now more than anything, older people, essentially a gradually diminishing audience, are the ones listening to it predominantly.  Pop cultures a reasonably young thing, only 60 to 70 years old so it'll be interesting to see where rock music goes, whether it was just be left in history or whether there'll be a revival of some sort.  If there is a revival it will be very different than the sorts of revivals it had before now, through punk and grunge and such, chiefly because the next one will be so far removed from the last one.

I don't see it myself, everything has a space and a time in history and when its gone its gone.  And I'm comfortable with that quite honestly.

Actually I think you are now seeing a revival of rock. Bands like Halestorm, Pretty Reckless, Shinedown, Greta Van Fleet, Black Stone Cherry, etc. are bring rock back to the forefront. 

I do like a mix of rock and ballads. I guess that why I'm a fan of Bon Jovi, besides the fact they are from NJ. I think it's good to mix it up.  

[Dean]

I think Chinese could have done with a few more solid straight up rockers. Chinese, Better and I.R.S. are all brilliant, but the other ones are Riad and Scraped which are nowhere near the level of the others in my opinion.

I'm also skeptical of what tunes Slash may bring forward. I've never been a big fan of his work outside of Guns but he does have the odd moment where he can come up with something golden, so I'm hopeful that he can come up with a few gems. Plus working with Axl and co. will probably help matters. I just hope when it comes to working on material that the three of them have a lot of input in the same room.

[PsychoKiss344]

3 hours ago, Draguns said:

Actually I think you are now seeing a revival of rock. Bands like Halestorm, Pretty Reckless, Shinedown, Greta Van Fleet, Black Stone Cherry, etc. are bring rock back to the forefront. 

I do like a mix of rock and ballads. I guess that why I'm a fan of Bon Jovi, besides the fact they are from NJ. I think it's good to mix it up.  

Forefront? Not really.

As a 21 year old the only band you listed that people talk about is Greta.

[ludurigan]

7 hours ago, jacdaniel said:

SMKC have a bunch of cool rock songs

 

show me one

[bigpoop]

 Is it possible to write a rock song that's not instantly dismissed as generic?  Yes it definitely is.  Is it possible for guys like Axl and Slash at this point?  Maybe not.

[username]

7 hours ago, janrichmond said:

1 or 2 ballads is enough for any rock album. I'd be very happy with an AFD type album. No piano. No added bits like the talking in Coma or the MLK speech in that nuGuns song (can't remember what song) Keep it more 'basic' 

I guess i'm in the minority too @jacdaniel

 

This. But at the same time a lot of rocker albums can feel really generic and/or forgetable these days. The key is to still make the relative simplicity of good hardrock stand out. 

[t-p-d-a]

I listen Greta Van Fleet all day long.. I can't understand people who listen to rock say GFV sucks and copy Led Zep. but fuck you. Look at Guns N' Roses in 1985. there were posers too and Axl and Izzy tried to act like Hanoi Rocks.

I'm a rebel, so that's why i post a Greta Van Fleet Music Video in a Guns N' Roses Forum

so Greta Van Fleet deserve a "fuckin'" in they name: Greta Van fuckin' Fleet

I don't have hope for new GN'R music that's why we need a young generation who play Rock!!!

Edited August 27, 2018 by t-p-d-a

[MJRemastered]

Im in both camps, i love an album like appetite, pure hard rock songs in your face but at the same time i love chinese democracy as well because it has all those weird things(scraped and riad are too weird 😂) but i love the fact that you can feel axl's pain and sadness. From jungle i can instantly switch to twat or prostitute. I would love a double album to please everybody, a pure rock album and cd2. I would die for an afd-like album, but it has to sound hard rock, slash's latest sounds soft imo, appetite has some agression that i love. 

[Lies They Tell]

I don't know if "people" still like rockers, but I do. In other words I like energetic music. But I'm also in the camp, who doesn't want GNR to become AC/DC and by that I mean that I don't want them to become a repetitive generic rock band. So I like in your face rockers, but that doesn't mean that I like generic music. Ballads can be generic too and often they are. What I want is fresh sounding somewhat experimental music. AFD was somewhat experimental for it's time too. I'm not talking about Pink Floyd type experimental. I'm just talking about interesting songwriting, like for example the shun n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n knees part in Welcome To The Jungle makes the song instantly recognizable and that's what I want. Recognizable and interesting music. Not something that I've already heard. I don't think GNR has more than maybe a couple of songs that sound the same and I hope that they continue making songs that sound different from each other. That's what I want. I like Chinese Democracy very much, but one of the reasons why I'm not crazy about Street Of Dreams is cause it sounds too much like a November Rain clone song. To me it's uninteresting. So a song can sound uninteresting or generic to me, no matter if it's a rocker or a ballad. So yeah, I want rockers, but I don't want generic music.

In the end any new GNR music is better than nothing, so I wouldn't mind a AFD2 and especially if it would be on par with AFD quality-wise, how could I complain? But at the same time I wouldn't mind if it sounded a bit more modern. I wouldn't mind industrial influences on some songs. What I want is cool interesting songwriting. Not something that we've heard a million times before.

[gnfnrs1972]

I wouldn't mind 14 Welcome to the Jungle's on one album. But like others say, I like GNR because they mix it up a bit.

[Tom-Ass]

4 hours ago, t-p-d-a said:

 Look at Guns N' Roses in 1985. there were posers too and Axl and Izzy tried to act like Hanoi Rocks.

But they didn't sound like them to the extent that GVF sounds like Zeppelin. Guns sound nothing like Hanoi Rocks (thank God). The singer of GVF sounds exactly like Plant.. The Harmonies, phrasing and even the lyrics to an extent are a total rip off.  I have only heard a few songs so I can't speak for their entire album.