Guns N' Roses killed Rock N' Roll

[neatd99]

Source

When I say "killed Rock N' Roll," I mean killed the traditional, fun rock n' roll that reflected the culture of young people as a group. Obviously rock music still lives on today, but it is rock music that reflects the "alienation of the individual." I think some of you are misunderstanding what I meant when I said "killed." Modern rock exists today, I don't question that fact. To me (and to this author), modern rock does not have the same attitude as rock pre-1987. According to the author, that kind of rock was killed off by bands like GNR, Jane's Addiction, and Metallica.

Is Rock & Roll Really Dying? A Case Against Dourist Rockism

Listening to rock & roll radio has become a chore. It's not the ten minutes of commercials or the narrowing of formats. CD stores and online music retail sites have the same problem — though, truth be told, the offerings are more diverse.

The bands that rule the airwaves now are Korn, Nickelback, AFI, Tool, Godsmack, and their ilk. Rock & roll, that great music that celebrated freedom and exhilaration, has become repressively dour. The bright and wild colors of rock & roll have faded to a shade of dark gray.

When did this happen? Who is to blame? What has been lost? All are questions that come to mind when turning on a radio or finding music videos on TV these days. Can the halcyon days of rock & roll be that far gone?

Rock & roll music burst like a comet onto the airwaves and television screens with Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" in the early '50s. It scandalized America, and then the world, with Elvis Presley, and reverberated with a new energy, a new sexuality, teen freedom, and rebellion, as expressed in parking lot parties, malt shop dances, and even high school sock hops. The sounds of Chuck Berry ("School Days"), Little Richard ("Good Golly Miss Molly"), Jerry Lee Lewis ("Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On"), Gene Vincent ("Blue Jean Bop"), Eddie Cochran ("Summertime Blues," "Twenty Flight Rock"), and Carl Perkins ("Dad Let Me Borrow the Car"), just to mention a few, took over the world long before the Beatles made their debut on Ed Sullivan.

So how did we get from there to here? When was the last time rock & roll vibrated with the kind of hedonism that not only threatened parents and authority figures, but brought sheer unfiltered joy to the listener?

The answer is easier than it appears. One can find the themes of early rock running through the decades all the way to the 1980s, those glory days when MTV played videos night and day and radio was still entrenched in "classic rock" but was slowly giving way because records were selling like crazy. That golden decade brought us the — perhaps unwitting — bannermen and women of rock & roll's birthright hedonism. Acts like Cinderella, Ratt, Poison, the Beastie Boys, Poison, Bon Jovi, Joan Jett, Warrant, Dokken, Mötley Crüe, Whitesnake, Lita Ford, Van Halen (and later David Lee Roth solo), Def Leppard, Winger, Faster Pussycat, Twisted Sister, Quiet Riot, Vixen, Britny Fox, the Scorpions, and more.

In general, '80s rock expressed itself openly, as early rock & roll did not so much musically but thematically. They both engaged the "breakout" theory: "let's forget about the humdrum of our lives — work, school, parents, broken hearts, etc. — and have a good time together.

Take Cinderella's debut album — recorded after having been discovered by Bon Jovi — Night Songs, which reached number three on the Billboard charts. Listen to "Shake Me," "Push Push," and the awesome power ballad "Somebody Save Me" for evidence of its riotous call for free living no matter the consequences of the next day. Another smash was Ratt's debut album, Out of the Cellar; it sold three million copies, largely because the video of the first single, "Round and Round," was in such heavy rotation on MTV, radio had to respond. Mötley Crüe's Shout at the Devil from 1982 reached number 17 on the Billboard charts, and their 1987 album, Girls Girls Girls went quadruple platinum as the title track — again largely because of MTV — became a Top 20 single. David Lee Roth connected to the early rock & roll sounds of the Beach Boys when he released his solo EP — while still a member of Van Halen — Crazy from the Heat. The collection, which included the smash cover of the Beach Boys' "California Girls," was an instant hit both on MTV (with its hilarious video) and radio.

No one can forget the Beastie Boys' rousing anthem "Fight for Your Right (To Party)," arguably along with Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer," the Aerosmith/Run DMC collaboration on the former's "Walk This Way," and Poison's "I Want Action," all of which were released in 1986, and all received heavy play from MTV. (All of these songs can still be heard at college parties where the alcohol flows freely; entire choruses of students will chant the refrains while laughing in unison.)

The point is, that no matter the genre — rap, hair and glam metal, hard rock, mainstream rock & roll, and urban R&B (à la Prince's "Purple Rain," "1999," or "Little Red Corvette" and Michael Jackson's "Bad" and "The Way You Make Me Feel") — the music of the early to mid-'80s resembled thematically the same kinds of irritation, rebellion, and boredom that kids in the mid- to late '50s experienced. The music of both eras spoke boldly that kids were going to be kids. They were going to work and college, sure, but they also wanted what was outside the socioeconomic circle: they were going to make love; drink, drug, and party; drive fast; and escape the increasingly restrictive social mores introduced by the new conservatism of the Reagan era. There is something at work in the aforementioned singles and their videos: they celebrated life as excess, almost to a fault. 1986 was the crowning year despite the fact there would be other records that would carry hedonism and the ecstatic joy of life into the late '80s: the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Good Time Boys" and their crazy cover of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground" with its romping video come immediately to mind.

In the 1980s, something happened that had never occurred before: radio looked to video as its arbiter for programming — not the other way around — and, indeed, video did nearly kill the radio star. Heavy rotation on MTV almost always guaranteed a hit and radio play, and the list of bands broken by the channel is nearly endless. (One can only wonder what might have taken place if MTV existed in the 1950s and the aforementioned artists got the same opportunity.)

The late '80s also ushered in the turning to the dark side, and the celebration of all things young began to turn sour. While many would make the case for grunge as the changing force, the shift began in 1987 with Guns N' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle" and Jane's Addiction's "Jane Says." Metallica's breakthrough single "One" from And Justice for All — despite the fact that 1986's Master of Puppets went platinum after being ignored by radio and MTV — showed another side of melancholy and rage. The music — and the videos around them — no longer reflected the culture of young people as a group but reflected the alienation of the individual.

The 1990s unearthed an explosive reaction against the new "traditional family values" that were reflected in the hypocritical political circus of Washington, the religious right, and the Parents Music Resource Center headed by Tipper Gore. There was a reason for excess and a reason for escape, and the story was told by Nirvana, Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, Tad, Pearl Jam, Tad, Ministry (check "Stigmata" from 1988 and "Burning Inside" from 1989), Nine Inch Nails (who can forget the anger and sinewy alienation in "Head Like a Hole" from 1989 or "Closer" from 1994?), and Alice in Chains. If Nirvana rallied young people around them with their anthemic "Smells Like Teen Spirit" — an openly critical and expository tune about the sham of living in society — then Alice in Chains defined it and then wrote it in stone on 1992's multi-platinum Dirt. Virtually every single hard rock band that has come down the pipe in America owes them a debt, for making bleak, angry pessimism and nihilism accessible and salable to young people.

After Alice in Chains there were the Stone Temple Pilots, Therapy?, Trouble, Tool, and on and on into the present era, when Korn's sarcastically titled Life Is Peachy reached the number three spot in 1996 and topped it in 1998 with Follow the Leader. David Fricke, in a Rolling Stone review of the album, titled the piece "Korn Feels the Skate Generation's Pain." And they did. That headline also sums up so much of what mainstream rock & roll is now about: feeling the pain and wallowing in it. It's about as far from the central pole of rock & roll's early escapism as one can get. Their followers — Linkin Park, Papa Roach, Nickelback, Limp Bizkit, Godsmack, Mother Earth — follow in their footsteps and dig deeper into pain as an end in itself as violence, suicide, and sheer personal implosion become the ends. Kids flock to the gigs, buy their records — or download them — and become a community of separates, wearing their iPods no less.

The individual becomes the central focus of the music and the first-person pronoun "I" becomes the sole means of expression. The explosion of teen rebellion as a manner of developing community and celebrating life has vanished. The "I" in the music of the late '50s and the early to mid-'80s was expressed simply as a reaching-out point for others to join the party. In the new dourist rockism, the first-person is singular, a diary chronicler of angst and pain who invites no one, though one is welcome to enter that world from one's own chronicle of loneliness, alienation, and rejection. In other words, there is no discernible line to draw between. There is no tie between Chuck Berry and Tool's Maynard Keenan, though there is one to be scratched out between the Chili Peppers' Anthony Keidis and Little Richard (the former's band is a lone survivor on the charts that holds to old-school communal hedonism as a celebration of life as a gas in spite of hardship, with the Darkness as a close second).

The dourist movement registers everywhere, and it's lasted almost 20 years if we trace if from "Welcome to the Jungle." One has to wonder if everything in rock does indeed cycle repeatedly, or if this time out the music merely collapses from the sheer exhaustion of expressing pain and other negative emotions ad nauseam. Let's hope so. In the meantime, pull out those Cinderella CDs and listen to Whitesnake's recent Gold double disc. Or better yet, pull out the Beastie Boys and Warrant, then go back to Chuck, Little Richard, Carl, Elvis, and Eddie, dig in, take off your shoes, and raise a toast to living for its own sake and listen to those two generations talk to each other with laughter. Long live rock.

Edited August 3, 2006 by neatd99

[Marky]

The guy wouldnt know Rock N Roll if Mick Jagger came and landed a big smacker on his cheek!

[rock chick]

The guy wouldnt know Rock N Roll if Mick Jagger came and landed a big smacker on his cheek!

agreed!!!!!!!!

[adnan]

It doesn't say Gn'R killed hard rock, it says Gn'R's dark lyrics and attitude paved the way for grunge, which then killed rock n' roll. That is true.

[neatd99]

The article says that the late '80s gave birth to "Dourist Rockism" and GNR was one of the main bands to contribute to this new form of rock (which grunge continued).

In other words, Guns N' Roses and grunge were in the same genre (dourist rockism). GNR may have paved the way for grunge, but in essence they were all part of the same movement.

[slash06]

He makes some good points about today's music. He is not stating that Rock is dead or that Guns killed it.

[artfromtex]

i agree with a lot of what he said. he did have a few dates and song titles wrong (the Cinderella ballad from "Night Songs" was "Nobody's Fool", not "Somebody Save Me"). his main point being that music has gone from rebellious and fun to dark and introspective. perhaps that's just a reflection of society. or does the music and the incredible role that pop culture plays in our lives dictate how we see ourselves? that's a chicken or the egg thing. who knows. i guess his arguement would be the latter. could be.

[neatd99]

I interpreted the article as bands like Guns N' Roses killed traditional, fun rock n' roll. Hard rock still exists, but it's not fun anymore.

[Rainman]

Source

Is Rock & Roll Really Dying? A Case Against Dourist Rockism

Listening to rock & roll radio has become a chore. It's not the ten minutes of commercials or the narrowing of formats. CD stores and online music retail sites have the same problem — though, truth be told, the offerings are more diverse.

The bands that rule the airwaves now are Korn, Nickelback, AFI, Tool, Godsmack, and their ilk. Rock & roll, that great music that celebrated freedom and exhilaration, has become repressively dour. The bright and wild colors of rock & roll have faded to a shade of dark gray.

When did this happen? Who is to blame? What has been lost? All are questions that come to mind when turning on a radio or finding music videos on TV these days. Can the halcyon days of rock & roll be that far gone?

Rock & roll music burst like a comet onto the airwaves and television screens with Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" in the early '50s. It scandalized America, and then the world, with Elvis Presley, and reverberated with a new energy, a new sexuality, teen freedom, and rebellion, as expressed in parking lot parties, malt shop dances, and even high school sock hops. The sounds of Chuck Berry ("School Days"), Little Richard ("Good Golly Miss Molly"), Jerry Lee Lewis ("Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin On"), Gene Vincent ("Blue Jean Bop"), Eddie Cochran ("Summertime Blues," "Twenty Flight Rock"), and Carl Perkins ("Dad Let Me Borrow the Car"), just to mention a few, took over the world long before the Beatles made their debut on Ed Sullivan.

So how did we get from there to here? When was the last time rock & roll vibrated with the kind of hedonism that not only threatened parents and authority figures, but brought sheer unfiltered joy to the listener?

The answer is easier than it appears. One can find the themes of early rock running through the decades all the way to the 1980s, those glory days when MTV played videos night and day and radio was still entrenched in "classic rock" but was slowly giving way because records were selling like crazy. That golden decade brought us the — perhaps unwitting — bannermen and women of rock & roll's birthright hedonism. Acts like Cinderella, Ratt, Poison, the Beastie Boys, Poison, Bon Jovi, Joan Jett, Warrant, Dokken, Mötley Crüe, Whitesnake, Lita Ford, Van Halen (and later David Lee Roth solo), Def Leppard, Winger, Faster Pussycat, Twisted Sister, Quiet Riot, Vixen, Britny Fox, the Scorpions, and more.

In general, '80s rock expressed itself openly, as early rock & roll did not so much musically but thematically. They both engaged the "breakout" theory: "let's forget about the humdrum of our lives — work, school, parents, broken hearts, etc. — and have a good time together.

Take Cinderella's debut album — recorded after having been discovered by Bon Jovi — Night Songs, which reached number three on the Billboard charts. Listen to "Shake Me," "Push Push," and the awesome power ballad "Somebody Save Me" for evidence of its riotous call for free living no matter the consequences of the next day. Another smash was Ratt's debut album, Out of the Cellar; it sold three million copies, largely because the video of the first single, "Round and Round," was in such heavy rotation on MTV, radio had to respond. Mötley Crüe's Shout at the Devil from 1982 reached number 17 on the Billboard charts, and their 1987 album, Girls Girls Girls went quadruple platinum as the title track — again largely because of MTV — became a Top 20 single. David Lee Roth connected to the early rock & roll sounds of the Beach Boys when he released his solo EP — while still a member of Van Halen — Crazy from the Heat. The collection, which included the smash cover of the Beach Boys' "California Girls," was an instant hit both on MTV (with its hilarious video) and radio.

No one can forget the Beastie Boys' rousing anthem "Fight for Your Right (To Party)," arguably along with Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer," the Aerosmith/Run DMC collaboration on the former's "Walk This Way," and Poison's "I Want Action," all of which were released in 1986, and all received heavy play from MTV. (All of these songs can still be heard at college parties where the alcohol flows freely; entire choruses of students will chant the refrains while laughing in unison.)

The point is, that no matter the genre — rap, hair and glam metal, hard rock, mainstream rock & roll, and urban R&B (à la Prince's "Purple Rain," "1999," or "Little Red Corvette" and Michael Jackson's "Bad" and "The Way You Make Me Feel") — the music of the early to mid-'80s resembled thematically the same kinds of irritation, rebellion, and boredom that kids in the mid- to late '50s experienced. The music of both eras spoke boldly that kids were going to be kids. They were going to work and college, sure, but they also wanted what was outside the socioeconomic circle: they were going to make love; drink, drug, and party; drive fast; and escape the increasingly restrictive social mores introduced by the new conservatism of the Reagan era. There is something at work in the aforementioned singles and their videos: they celebrated life as excess, almost to a fault. 1986 was the crowning year despite the fact there would be other records that would carry hedonism and the ecstatic joy of life into the late '80s: the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Good Time Boys" and their crazy cover of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground" with its romping video come immediately to mind.

In the 1980s, something happened that had never occurred before: radio looked to video as its arbiter for programming — not the other way around — and, indeed, video did nearly kill the radio star. Heavy rotation on MTV almost always guaranteed a hit and radio play, and the list of bands broken by the channel is nearly endless. (One can only wonder what might have taken place if MTV existed in the 1950s and the aforementioned artists got the same opportunity.)

The late '80s also ushered in the turning to the dark side, and the celebration of all things young began to turn sour. While many would make the case for grunge as the changing force, the shift began in 1987 with Guns N' Roses' "Welcome to the Jungle" and Jane's Addiction's "Jane Says." Metallica's breakthrough single "One" from And Justice for All — despite the fact that 1986's Master of Puppets went platinum after being ignored by radio and MTV — showed another side of melancholy and rage. The music — and the videos around them — no longer reflected the culture of young people as a group but reflected the alienation of the individual.

The 1990s unearthed an explosive reaction against the new "traditional family values" that were reflected in the hypocritical political circus of Washington, the religious right, and the Parents Music Resource Center headed by Tipper Gore. There was a reason for excess and a reason for escape, and the story was told by Nirvana, Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, Tad, Pearl Jam, Tad, Ministry (check "Stigmata" from 1988 and "Burning Inside" from 1989), Nine Inch Nails (who can forget the anger and sinewy alienation in "Head Like a Hole" from 1989 or "Closer" from 1994?), and Alice in Chains. If Nirvana rallied young people around them with their anthemic "Smells Like Teen Spirit" — an openly critical and expository tune about the sham of living in society — then Alice in Chains defined it and then wrote it in stone on 1992's multi-platinum Dirt. Virtually every single hard rock band that has come down the pipe in America owes them a debt, for making bleak, angry pessimism and nihilism accessible and salable to young people.

After Alice in Chains there were the Stone Temple Pilots, Therapy?, Trouble, Tool, and on and on into the present era, when Korn's sarcastically titled Life Is Peachy reached the number three spot in 1996 and topped it in 1998 with Follow the Leader. David Fricke, in a Rolling Stone review of the album, titled the piece "Korn Feels the Skate Generation's Pain." And they did. That headline also sums up so much of what mainstream rock & roll is now about: feeling the pain and wallowing in it. It's about as far from the central pole of rock & roll's early escapism as one can get. Their followers — Linkin Park, Papa Roach, Nickelback, Limp Bizkit, Godsmack, Mother Earth — follow in their footsteps and dig deeper into pain as an end in itself as violence, suicide, and sheer personal implosion become the ends. Kids flock to the gigs, buy their records — or download them — and become a community of separates, wearing their iPods no less.

The individual becomes the central focus of the music and the first-person pronoun "I" becomes the sole means of expression. The explosion of teen rebellion as a manner of developing community and celebrating life has vanished. The "I" in the music of the late '50s and the early to mid-'80s was expressed simply as a reaching-out point for others to join the party. In the new dourist rockism, the first-person is singular, a diary chronicler of angst and pain who invites no one, though one is welcome to enter that world from one's own chronicle of loneliness, alienation, and rejection. In other words, there is no discernible line to draw between. There is no tie between Chuck Berry and Tool's Maynard Keenan, though there is one to be scratched out between the Chili Peppers' Anthony Keidis and Little Richard (the former's band is a lone survivor on the charts that holds to old-school communal hedonism as a celebration of life as a gas in spite of hardship, with the Darkness as a close second).

The dourist movement registers everywhere, and it's lasted almost 20 years if we trace if from "Welcome to the Jungle." One has to wonder if everything in rock does indeed cycle repeatedly, or if this time out the music merely collapses from the sheer exhaustion of expressing pain and other negative emotions ad nauseam. Let's hope so. In the meantime, pull out those Cinderella CDs and listen to Whitesnake's recent Gold double disc. Or better yet, pull out the Beastie Boys and Warrant, then go back to Chuck, Little Richard, Carl, Elvis, and Eddie, dig in, take off your shoes, and raise a toast to living for its own sake and listen to those two generations talk to each other with laughter. Long live rock.

NIRVANA

[Axel1304]

GNR didn't help destroy rock they helped make it what it is

Well what it was whichever way you want to look at it

Edited August 3, 2006 by Axel1304

[moreblack]

It's time for some fun in rock again. I don't wanna hear songs about tax services...

Oh wait...

[Axel1304]

GNR didn't help destroy rock they helped make it what it is

Isn't that the same in a sense?

I mean...seriously, look criticaly at the state rock and roll is in right now?

Not to slag on guns because I obviously love them (or I wouldn't be here) but this guy does make certain points.

Aside from this I do still consider guns to be one of the last truely great rock bands, of not the last

Yeah i have to agree with you there you have a good point

[kaddisonmoore]

a good read non the less

[Big Boy Sixxx]

nope grunge killed rock n roll, fewer guitar solos and moanings about being famous making it 'uncool' to appear flakey like most rock n roll bands

[gnrfan4life3690]

you people say yea he does bring up some good points, but i don't see one. all this man was doing is bashing hard rock/metal. all this guy is is a pussy who can't take some metal. he also said metallica helped destroy rock, but that band paved the way for metal, gnr saved rock temperoraly (sp) from the hair metal bands. listen to GnR and listen to niravana, they sound NOTHING alike, which helps putting bands in the same genre. why dont we just say the misfits were hair metal because that comparsing is the same. not to mention this guy really didnt do any research it sounds like. he only mentioned bands that were in the mainstream. Slayer has lyrics about Nazis and Satan, very popular in the 80s. Also, Black Sabbath were singing about Satan, hell, drugs, nothing pleasent at all, but not even a single mention. this artcle was a waste of time. and to this guy

[moreblack]

It's time for some fun in rock again. I don't wanna hear songs about tax services...

Oh wait...

Actualy most rock today is about how bad life sucks.

Boo. Fucking. Hoo.

Either that or pure glorification of self.

Which is also disgusting.

That last bit also goes for the current state of commercial rap by the way.

And I fucking hate it.

Yeah I can't tell the difference between a Lloyd Banks, 50 Cent, Obie Trice or Nee Yo video it's all "bitchez and ho's, bling bling, mad cheddar and look how much of it I have"

And yeah since Nirvana, most rock has been introspective, serious, and self pitying, and it's getting old...

Somebody's gotta come around and make a good party rock song.

[gnrfan4life3690]

I WANNA ROCK ANDDD ROLLLLLLLLLLL ALL NIGHT........AND PARTY EVERYDAY!

[goldfinger19]

This guy just used a bunch of facts to try to prove a poin t that doesn't exist. What is his primary arguement, that the theme's of popular music changed from Party, Party, Party, to lyrics about self loathing and being an emo kid because of Guns N' Roses and Metallica. He has no clue what he is talking about, especially in regards to the bands he dislikes, like Tool. He couldn't be farther from the truth while talking about Tool. The only thing he got bang on was how important Alice In Chains were and how every shit band like Nickelback today owes them a great deal. I dissagree with everything else.

[artfromtex]

Somebody's gotta come around and make a good party rock song.

[PUNKS NOT DEAD]

Somebody's gotta come around and make a good party rock song.

next...

[sweetness]

Somebody's gotta come around and make a good party rock song.

That song is crap

Anyway, Thom Jurek has some good points. Guns N' Roses, mainly the Use Your Illusion albums, had an influence on musicians to come who just didnt do a really good job. But I wouldnt place the blame on the greatest rock band ever, wich in my opinion is Guns N' Roses, blame the music industry for giving these fucks contracts and blame the artists for makeing shit music.

[chicagocoma13]

It's time for some fun in rock again. I don't wanna hear songs about tax services...

Oh wait...

Actualy most rock today is about how bad life sucks.

Boo. Fucking. Hoo.

Either that or pure glorification of self.

Which is also disgusting.

That last bit also goes for the current state of commercial rap by the way.

And I fucking hate it.

Yeah I can't tell the difference between a Lloyd Banks, 50 Cent, Obie Trice or Nee Yo video it's all "bitchez and ho's, bling bling, mad cheddar and look how much of it I have"

And yeah since Nirvana, most rock has been introspective, serious, and self pitying, and it's getting old...

Somebody's gotta come around and make a good party rock song.

Wolfmother writes great party/rock songs. Check out Colousel or White Unicorn. They do sound staight out of 1972 ---but that is not a bad thing for some

[moreblack]

Wolfmother writes great party/rock songs. Check out Colousel or White Unicorn. They do sound staight out of 1972 ---but that is not a bad thing for some

Hopefully it sticks and people turn around. Hopefully people want some good times with their rock once again...

Otherwise we're stuck with Staind for another 10 years...

[adnan]

Buckcherry has a lot of awesome party songs, so do L.A. Guns recently.

Just don't mention that evil piece of shit "Crazy Bitch" again.

Even Josh Todd doesn't like it all that much.

[Zeppelin]

Nope, sorry. We don't need anymore 1972 clones for rock songs. New rock blows and classic rock is classic for a reason. Rehashing it just brings classic rock into some kind of lower level. Guns N' Roses were popular because in that time, a lull of glam metal and hair bands with dance music dominated after bands in the 70s and early 80s showed how dirty rock could be.

Guns broke out with an album that was shoved in your face, and if you didn't like it, it was really too bad. Don't start telling me that bands like Buckcherry, Velvet Revolver, and Wolfmother are here to save rock, because it ain't happening. Songs like 'Woman' or 'Crazy Bitch' just don't do it for people who want a breath of fresh air. The constant attempt to clone classic rock is just annoying, and isn't working. People will just say, "Ooh, this sounds like Sabbath." Unfortunately, someone's music shouldn't have to be compared to better artists to call it good music. It should stand out on its own, and that's why AFD became so popular. No one had made a record like that in the past. Just no one.

These days, hard power chords are the result of rock taking a shit. It's the same with punk music. Punk music used to cause such an uproar that it was considered to be revolutionary music. Today, punk is such a whiny bitch genre, complaining about government to stay popular. Problem is, music isn't revolutionary anymore, it is the same bore after bore with every album. Yes, I listen to underground bands too, and they aren't great either, so I'm not just talking about mainstream.

Guns N' Roses wasn't the start of diminishing rock, it was the last gasp of fresh air for a genre that was about to go to the shitter, and it did, beginning in the mid 90s. I'm not saying there are no great bands or anything, but none of them, and I mean absolutely no bands these days, have an impact like Guns did in the late 80s.