#gnrweek

Let’s close today with the album cut from GNR’s classic debut album Appetite for Destruction: Mr. Brownstone. Long a fan favorite, this song checks off all the key GNR characteristics: 

#1wah pedal guitar solo

Axl’s yowl

(very thinly) veiled drug & alcohol references (didja catch today’s?)

heavy metal guitar riffs delivered with a smile. 

And for anyone (like myself) who may have come down with a serious case of the Mondays..... this one’s for you. Mr. Brownstone begins the song as an average working stiff: “I get up around 7.... get outta bed around 9″..... but by song’s end has a significantly less employment friendly perspective:  “now I get up around whenever.... used to get up on time.” Hopefully those words will help you make it through the week......

Ok- stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Five teenage boys from different corners of the country pack up and move to the big city to follow their rock n roll dreams. So what do they do? Well first, they literally write a song called “Move to the City.” Now what?

Let’s start with a tale of two “Jumpin Jack Flashes.” In 1986, two bands, Guns n Roses and The Replacements, were on parallel paths to make rock n roll history. (Sorry ‘Mats fans, this will not be the last time the two groups cross paths.) On the one hand you have GNR (a bunch of Californians nee Hoosiers), who deliver a sleek version gleaming with LA studio sheen. On the other hand, you have The Mats, too indifferent to actually follow their dreams to LA, and too bored to actually rehearse.

GnR’s ’86 cover of “Flash” points at the various pressures already pulling at the band early in their career.  For all their desire to be The Stooges or The Misfits, GnR couldn’t shake their classic rock influences; their version of  “Jack” is a note for note cover- turned up to 11.  Even as early as 1986, this cover hints at the east with which GnR would soon step into classic rock-dom.

Ok- apologies to John Cusack. But now that you’ve been officially Welcomed to the Jungle let’s stop for a breather. Thank you for joining us for One Week One Band’s celebration of the music of Guns n Roses. When I first pitched GnR to blogmaster-in-chief Hendrik he sent me an intriguing response: “I've always thought that GnR is one of *the* big holes in the site's catalogue, just because there is so much rock and roll mythology tied to this band.” That got me thinking: how to approach a band that is simultaneously so culturally ubiquitous but largely ignored by today’s music tastemakers? So before we dive back into the music, bear with me as I lay out the game plan.

My goal this week is to show that Guns N Roses is so much more then just the hit trifecta that anyone who has ever been in to a professional sports game knows by heart. In fact, let’s just get them out of the way now. Not only is Welcome to the Jungle one of the greatest Side One, Track Ones of all time, its one better: a member of the mythical Side One Track Ones off a debut album club. Sweet Child o’ Mine is the greatest hair metal song of all time, and its not close. And Paradise City has rightly achieved its place alongside We Will Rock You and Seven Nation Army as perennial locker room anthems.

There, I did it. Obviously, no exploration of GnR would be complete without those three songs. But we will speak of them no more- now we can move on to the juicy stuff. This week we’ll go deep into the mythology of Guns N Roses- we’ll study the fascinating personalities that composed the group, and consider the baffling missteps that nearly led to the band’s destruction time and time again. Most of all- we’ll think about how Guns N Roses was a product of rock n roll mythmaking- one of the last superstar bands and a leftover relic from when gods walked the earth.