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ishyfaceIn the last year or so I've revised my position on several bands I thought I'd hate forever.
See, I tend to hold a certain... distaste for The Greatest Bands In The World. This is 35% due to how much it pisses me off when people say that music since [insert decade, usually the seventies, here] has universally blown. I figure that if people are too lazy to look for decent modern music and choose to hide in their basements masturbating to Neil Young instead, well, that's their problem.
65% of it, of course, is just me being a contrary douchewad.
However, I've begun to relent. I actually enjoy the Beatles now, for example. A whole lot. And when people mention Pink Floyd my mouth no longer automatically curls in a dramatic sneer. ("Wish You Were Here" is actually quite a lovely song. I'm not sure if I really like any of their other stuff, but I no longer actively hate it.) And, although I still think that Led Zeppelin is the most massively overrated band in the history of massively overrated bands (seriously, guys, guitar solos should be UNDER THREE MINUTES, ditto drum solos), I can freely admit that "Whole Lotta Love" is a very sexy song. Even if it does have vaguely misogynistic undertones.
But there is one band on which my opinion has not changed, and- touch wood- never will.
That band, my amphibious friends, is Guns'N'Roses.
My unbridled hatred of Guns'N'Roses is due, largely, to Axl Rose. Without him, the band just annoys me a little- in fact, rearranged and with a different singer, a la Velvet Revolver, I can even enjoy them. The problem, of course, is that you can't have Guns'N'Roses without Axl Rose, and Axl Rose is... well, Axl Rose.
Can anyone, anywhere, say anything good about Axl Rose? Seriously: not only is the man, by all accounts, a racist, homophobic wife-beater with an ego struggling to compensate for his tiny, tiny penis, but he sounds like a pig being sloooooowly strangled to death.
Usually, when I hate a band, there'll still be one or two songs by them which I really, really like. Metallica, for example. Hate the band so much it makes me throw up in my mouth a little, but I've burned "Whiskey In The Jar" onto at least three mix tapes and will sing along to it when and if it comes on the radio. Loudly. This is not the case with Guns'N'Roses. I can just about tolerate "Paradise City", when I'm in a really good mood, but that's about it. "Welcome To The Jungle"? "Rocket Queen"? Please. If I wanted to hear the sweet strains of the mating wild boar I'd watch the Discovery Channel. And then sign myself up for lots of therapy because if I ever get to the point where I want to listen to mating pigs I will probably need lots of it.
And if I hear one more person talk about how "Sweet Child O' Mine" is such a beautiful love song I may hurl. He refers to her as his CHILD. What is so damn sexy or romantic about that?
It kind of reminds me of when I was younger and used to listen to that Gilbert O'Sullivan song, "Clair,"and thought that it was really sweet, and then I found out that the singer is in love with his underage niece. (Then again, this is the same guy who sang about how a woman's place is in the home, so I really shouldn't have been surprised, I guess.)
...
I kind of lost track of where I was going with this. Suffice to say, I really, really hate Guns'N'Roses.
I'm gonna go drink some chocolate milk.
See, I tend to hold a certain... distaste for The Greatest Bands In The World. This is 35% due to how much it pisses me off when people say that music since [insert decade, usually the seventies, here] has universally blown. I figure that if people are too lazy to look for decent modern music and choose to hide in their basements masturbating to Neil Young instead, well, that's their problem.
65% of it, of course, is just me being a contrary douchewad.
However, I've begun to relent. I actually enjoy the Beatles now, for example. A whole lot. And when people mention Pink Floyd my mouth no longer automatically curls in a dramatic sneer. ("Wish You Were Here" is actually quite a lovely song. I'm not sure if I really like any of their other stuff, but I no longer actively hate it.) And, although I still think that Led Zeppelin is the most massively overrated band in the history of massively overrated bands (seriously, guys, guitar solos should be UNDER THREE MINUTES, ditto drum solos), I can freely admit that "Whole Lotta Love" is a very sexy song. Even if it does have vaguely misogynistic undertones.
But there is one band on which my opinion has not changed, and- touch wood- never will.
That band, my amphibious friends, is Guns'N'Roses.
My unbridled hatred of Guns'N'Roses is due, largely, to Axl Rose. Without him, the band just annoys me a little- in fact, rearranged and with a different singer, a la Velvet Revolver, I can even enjoy them. The problem, of course, is that you can't have Guns'N'Roses without Axl Rose, and Axl Rose is... well, Axl Rose.
Can anyone, anywhere, say anything good about Axl Rose? Seriously: not only is the man, by all accounts, a racist, homophobic wife-beater with an ego struggling to compensate for his tiny, tiny penis, but he sounds like a pig being sloooooowly strangled to death.
Usually, when I hate a band, there'll still be one or two songs by them which I really, really like. Metallica, for example. Hate the band so much it makes me throw up in my mouth a little, but I've burned "Whiskey In The Jar" onto at least three mix tapes and will sing along to it when and if it comes on the radio. Loudly. This is not the case with Guns'N'Roses. I can just about tolerate "Paradise City", when I'm in a really good mood, but that's about it. "Welcome To The Jungle"? "Rocket Queen"? Please. If I wanted to hear the sweet strains of the mating wild boar I'd watch the Discovery Channel. And then sign myself up for lots of therapy because if I ever get to the point where I want to listen to mating pigs I will probably need lots of it.
And if I hear one more person talk about how "Sweet Child O' Mine" is such a beautiful love song I may hurl. He refers to her as his CHILD. What is so damn sexy or romantic about that?
It kind of reminds me of when I was younger and used to listen to that Gilbert O'Sullivan song, "Clair,"and thought that it was really sweet, and then I found out that the singer is in love with his underage niece. (Then again, this is the same guy who sang about how a woman's place is in the home, so I really shouldn't have been surprised, I guess.)
...
I kind of lost track of where I was going with this. Suffice to say, I really, really hate Guns'N'Roses.
I'm gonna go drink some chocolate milk.