This was a request so let’s get this shit in the books faster than Mike Pence ejaculating when his wife has football pads on.
At this point in my life I’m burnt out on rock. What was once rebellious and innovative in one era is now something that gets advertised through t-shirts at Wal-Mart. Nothing in the genre feels fresh or an any way thrilling. It’s hard to listen to rock music and not picture a dude angrily telling you why anybody who isn’t Led Zeppelin or Metallica isn’t worth shit or some worn out tired dive bar musician constantly asking with jealousy why people care about rappers who hold their crotch instead of an instrument.
Guitar Hero was one of many nails into this generic genre’s coffin.
Besides having a fanbase as cringeworthy as people making a religion out of hating The Last Jedi, who knows where my disgust for this genre comes from. One example has to be me not being a horny teenager anymore. It’s odd how rock musicians will rag on rappers for not playing “real” instruments while some areas of rap have certainly evolved past the majority of rock bands who provided background material for a wet t-shirt contest at Hooters. Bottom line, what makes me groan whenever I think about rock is the lack of authenticity while trying to pass themselves off as the most authentic form of music. For years rock has been bubblegum pop in a jean jacket.
One of the final authentic moments in rock was when Guns N’ Roses broke into the mainstream with Appetite For Destruction. They possessed a blend of being able to be accepted into the sleazy but sanitized Sunset Strip scene while having a much needed rougher edge to their music. While having lame bubblegum tracks such as Paradise City and the ballad necessary to pull in a fresh crop of girls who didn’t have Tommy Lee’s cum drying on the inside of their thigh, Sweet Child O’ Mine, they also had Welcome To The Jungle, a song that took you through the alleyways of Tinseltown and Mr. Brownstone, a song written by two members annoyed with their heroin addiction. With the abandonment of trendy glam metal attire while offering a harder sound that appealed to genre fans burned out on Metal Health, Guns N’ Roses had one foot into what was trendy and another into a future that would only get grittier once Kurt Cobain ushered in a new trendy sub-genre.
In 1991 Guns N’ Roses released TWO DOUBLE SIDED albums. I have to assume they looked around a room covered in pussy and drugs and realized they could only tolerate one another for so long and busted their fucking ass in the time they had left. In the 4 years since Appetite for Destruction came out I have to assume they were touring their asses off, exhausted from all that and what do they do in their downtime? Crank out two double sided albums that end up becoming certified platinum 7x over. It’s fucking insane how much illegal downloading, YouTube, Spotify and everything else have demolished the music industry because even mainstream acts like Taylor Swift and Ariana Grande can’t pull in those numbers. Nobody possesses the power and influence Guns N’Roses had in 1991, which is fucking depressing because that just means we’ll continue blowing off the dust from some scratched up record instead of finding a new group with a level of energy that can be fulfilling for a new generation.
One of thirty tracks in the Use Your Illusion saga is November Rain, a long ballad that is on a legendary level comparable to Stairway to Heaven and Freebird regarding how iconic and overplayed they’ve been on 3rd rate WKRP in Cincinnati stations. Side note, is there any dragged out ballads that have bombed from failure? We all know the good ones, there has to be some 7-10 minute slow track a rock band thought was gonna be the next Stairway and nobody gave a fuck.
Like a lot of rock, November Rain is a song I could find myself appreciating if it wasn’t as overplayed as Sweet Child O’Mine. Liberace used to say, “Too much of a good thing is wonderful.” That’s bullshit. The first time you hear something like November Rain it melts your goddamn brain from awesomeness and you probably do air guitars with whoever the fuck is Bill or Ted in your life. Cut to years later as it’s about to come up on YouTube or Pandora and you cry out GOD DAMMIT NO like it’s Toto’s Africa. Great track but radio DJs have abused it like Steven Adler’s abused his liver.
The music video if I’m being honest is so fucking lame and cheesy. It’s so bad I look at other lame and cheesy music videos from this same time period and think to myself, “Well at least Warrant had Bobbie Brown in short shorts on roller skates.” Anything that is this melodramatic and takes itself this fucking seriously always feels like a complete waste of time. People in the real world take themselves too goddamn seriously, I don’t need my entertainment to also be this fucking pretentious. The person who requested this specified that I watch the music video. Karen I swear to god you better have a revolving door of nudes to supply me with for this one.
This video costed $1 million and the dude who did cinematography on multiple Air Bud movies directed it. Obviously it paid off because I’m gonna imagine it was in heavy rotation on MTV and it’s the first music video made before the creation of YouTube to cross a BILLION views on the site. I don’t feel any sort of rush of endorphins while listening to Guns N’ Roses anymore but holy fuck their numbers are just insane to take in. I think they only existed together as a group in the public eye for maybe 5 years give or take and they left this insane impact that is fucking ridiculous.
November Rain is a track I respect but like every other 10 minute, put this on so the DJ can piss and have a smoke track, I could go the rest of my life without ever having to hear it again.
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