All posts tagged: Guns n’ Roses

Friday Night Videos!: The Hits of 1992

Published by Popdose Staff

In the ever-evolving column we call Friday Night Videos!, there’s always room for expansion. This week, with Thanksgiving vittles solidly out of our systems (and it took a whole two weeks, and one round of Mellowmas to do it!), and holiday parties with loads of “comfort food” increasing the vast waistband of pop culture, expansion continues. When we began the staff tabulation, the obvious (to all but me) inclusion would be the percentile ranking. This week, you’ll find out how the videos did in our ever-so-democratic voting process. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll sing “Last Christmas” like it was going out of style (and, oddly enough, we thought it had). Ready to play the Match Game? “The Popdose Reader took a look at the videos from 1992 and cried, these are all BLANK…” Mit der Six Votes! Baby Got Back – Sir Mix-A-Lot: A video asstacular of enormous proportions. One – U2: The last temptation of St. Bono. Five Golden Votes! My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It) – En Vogue: The concept of this …

Friday Night Videos!: The Hits of 1988

Published by Popdose Staff

If you’re holding your breath for the day MTV starts playing music videos, let it go. It’s never going to happen, not while there’s still a young, rich nobody out there with loose morals, no chastity belt and a script for an “unscripted” reality program to be read – Shhhh!! Keep a secret!! But who needs MTV in the digital age? We’re here, the time’s right, and the videos are waiting for us. Even better; this week’s list was democratically determined by the Popdose Staff in honor of election week across the U.S. The terms were simple. The songs that get the most votes get the spots, except for the #1 of the year. And because this is a retroactive deal, you won’t have to vote again in four years to throw these bums out. So set the way-way-back machine for 1988, strap on your shoulder pads, poof up that hair and layer those jackets. It’s time to rock. Guns And Roses – Welcome To The Jungle: For many, this is how the G’nR train …

Unsolicited Career Advice for… Scott Weiland

Published by Rob Smith

Uncle Donnie gets pissed very rarely, but when he does he can certainly lay into you. I wonder what Scott Weiland thought when he got this. —RS TO: Scott Weiland FROM: Don Skwatzenschitz RE: Career advice I get mad at you, Scott Weiland, and I don’t get mad at many people. There you are, genius songwriter, rock god, wearer of mascara, and the same hair dye my wife, Mitzi, swears by. Yet you constantly, constantly sabotage yourself. Stone Temple Pilots could have been the biggest band in the world, but you wanted to get high instead. So you break up. You clean up. You work with Daniel Lanois. You practically join Guns n’ Roses. Contraband: best hard rock record of the decade. Libertad: not so much. You get yourself fired from Velvet Revolver, you rejoin STP, you put on some really good shows. Then you put on some really bad shows, stumbling around, ranting and raving. What’s wrong, Scott? I’m worried about you. Remember the cookout we had up in Kennebunkport back in ’94, when …

Bottom Feeders: The Ass End of the ’80s, Part 37

Published by Dave Steed

This week we have a ginormous, gigantic, gargantuan post, as we finish up with the letter G on our trek through the bottom of Billboard‘s Hot 100 charts during the ’80s. Michael Gore “Theme From ‘Terms of Endearment’” — 1984, #84 (download) You know, it feels like every week here at Bottom Feeders starts with something completely bland or just plain douche-a-rific now. I guess if you’re listening to everything from top to bottom you can consider this your intro song. Or if you’re putting together a nice light-rock CD for grandma, you can make this your centerpiece. That’s it — grandma music. Go West “We Close Our Eyes” — 1985, #41 (download) “Call Me” — 1985, #54 (download) “Eye to Eye” — 1985, #73 (download) If I didn’t collect ‘80s music I most certainly would have missed out on these gems and thought that “King of Wishful Thinking” (1990) was Go West’s first single and Indian Summer (1992) their first album. If you ever wanted to get into Go West for some reason, that …

Listening Booth: Guns n’ Roses, “Chinese Democracy” — A Second Opinion

Published by Dw. Dunphy

It’s the curse of the debut album: the artist, unsure of who he/she is or what he/she ought to sound like strikes out in all directions — a power ballad here, a blues grinder there, a piano pop-tune way over yonder. The artist can be forgiven for their somewhat schizoid aim since the label has put all the weight of the company, as well as one’s own career path, down on their freshman shoulders. With that in mind, W. Axl Rose is the oldest freshman in the history of music, as his magnum opus Chinese Democracy has finally seen the light of day. The good news is that it isn’t the unmitigated failure we expected, yet it is far from the triumphant return from exodus his handlers would like you to believe. It is the equivalent of time travel wrapped in aluminum, or vinyl if you so desire, as songs that gestated through the 15-year span in between it and the previous covers album The Spaghetti Incident? (1993) have not been updated to any semblance …

Listening Booth: Guns n’ Roses, “Chinese Democracy”

Published by Jeff Vrabel

Guns n’ Roses – Chinese Democracy (Geffen, 2008) purchase this album (Best Buy) Unless you’ve spent a lot of time in the company of William Shatner, Chinese Democracy will likely be one of the most ridiculous audio recordings you ever come across. It is sprawling and stupid and ludicrous and hilarious and will make you shoot milk out of your nose and cringe and it is not very good and sometimes extremely terrible, and just when you think things cannot possibly get any more extraordinarily strange, that’s when Axl Rose drops the MLK sample on you. Originally slated for release in 1948, Chinese Democracy comes out Sunday exclusively for people shopping for Black Friday-sale plasmas at Best Buy, a wise promotional stunt and kind of an all-in proposition — if putting this record out this week doesn’t create interest or move units, nothing will. Because one thing is sure: the songs won’t sell it. The final, finished, ostensibly archival version of Chinese Democracy is a fucking mess, a haphazard, stop-and-go Transformer of rap-metal parts, ideas, …

Hooks ‘N’ You: Kyle Vincent, “Wow & Flutter”

Published by Will Harris

When Kyle Vincent released his eponymous album on Hollywood Records in 1997, it looked for all the world that, after spending over a decade on a quest to earn himself a Billboard Top 100 hit, he was about to bring a dream to fruition. Unfortunately, that did not prove to be the case, but he made enough of an impact with the album’s single, “Wake Me Up (When The World’s Worth Waking Up For),” to show up on the radar of quite a few pop fans…including me. (Like you didn’t see that revelation coming up Main Street.) Although Vincent’s stint on Hollywood Records only lasted for that one record, he didn’t let any moss grow under his feet. Indeed, he’d returned to the studio even before Hollywood went through the corporate restructuring that would cost both he and virtually every other artist on the label their deals. In the end, he released the follow-up to Kyle Vincent on his own label, SongTree Records, but it featured just as much gloss and sparkle as anything released …

Mix Six: “Songs in the Key of Autumn”

Published by Ted Asregadoo

DOWNLOAD THE FULL MIX HERE Booyakisha!  This week’s mix is about a season that seems to get very little love in the world of song.  And before you run to the comment section and say: “Hey Ted, don’t you know that autumn started last month?” I should remind you that yours truly lives in the Golden State of California, and we get days that top out in the 90-100 degree range right up until the end of October.  But sometimes the weather turns to autumn early (like it did last week) where the leaves fall, the air feels a bit different (in California it’s a very subtle difference), and the smell of fires burning in the fireplace is prevalent. Okay, are you in an autumn mood? Then let’s get going with this week’s mix! “September in Seattle,” Shawn Mullins (Download) Full disclosure: I have a tough time warming up to artists whose songs I used to play over and over when I was working in radio.  Mullins’ “Lullaby” was one of those songs that never …

Bottom Feeders: The Ass End of the ’80s, Part 13

Published by Dave Steed

This past week I was like a pig in shit. Nine tracks from Chinese Democracy were leaked and I couldn’t be happier. See, Guns n’ Roses are my Led Zeppelin. They’re my Black Sabbath. Appetite for Destruction came out in 1987 when I was 11 and they were pretty much the first hard rock band I had ever really come in contact with. I’m not sure what music my dad liked. I mean, he gave me money to buy records, but I don’t really ever remember him buying anything for himself, so maybe he just liked me enjoying it. I know my mom liked The Moody Blues and Queen, so Queen was probably my first exposure to rock music — but GNR was the first hard rock that I can remember. Thinking about it right now, it was probably pretty cool of my mom to let a preteen listen to Appetite. I’ve mentioned before how I don’t remember actually listening to much in the ‘80s. But there are two things I remember vividly. The first …

Songs for the Dumped: Volume One

Published by Jeff Vrabel

Everything is worse in high school: your hair, your taste in music, your grasp of how bad you have it, your ability to have a meaningful conversation with a girl that does not revolve around how awesome Nine Inch Nails are. But especially worse is your ability to maintain a relationship of any kind, which is why most high school romances end in whatever is the emotional equivalent of watching a bus full of orphan blind baby koalas go over a cliff in a bus on fire. Let’s go back to school now with, uh, me: “I’m A Cold Heartbreaker Fit To Burn And I’ll Rip Your Heart In Two” By Jeff Vrabel In spite of an unfortunate decision by my parents to hold off on getting me braces until late in high school, and a general disposition that led to a running joke involving my similarity to Paul Pfeiffer on The Wonder Years, I actually had a girlfriend for the better part of my senior year, though I had absolutely no idea what was …