This week I is mostly listening to

This is mostly this chap’s fault.
Appetite For Destruction and the two Use Your Illusion albums are regulars in my play list anyway but I have been inspired to listen to them in a different way, or should I say I have been inspired to actually listen to them.

Metal Marks first G'n'R related post was to create a super album out of Use Your Illusions I and II, I almost have my selected track list and just need to sort out the running order. I found it easier to ditch tracks than pick out the best. The initial rules I set myself for selecting the songs were ditched almost immediately (no covers, no soundtracks nothing over x amount of time) and instead I just went for what I liked and then I will decide (or try) what works together.

His second article came as a bit of a shock.
Appetite is twenty years old.
Ok so I didn’t come across it till a year later, but to think something I regard as an album of my time, something from my conscious listening period is twenty years old is very strange. Appetite for destruction has always been in my list of favoured records (or cds once I started updating), even though I have not always admitted it, there have been long periods when it was considered seriously uncool to be a Guns n’ Roses fan and I still haven’t forgiven them for that appalling cover of sympathy for the devil. I have my favourite songs from the album (rocket queen, welcome to the jungle) but to read through and then listen to it you realise that it is a superb work, it really does rock in a greater sense than just rock, and it’s very hard to find a fault with any of the songs.

The crying shame is the failure to produce anything good enough to follow it up, while Use Your Illusions I & II are very enjoyable and good in their own way they do not measure up to Appetite and what else have Guns n’ Roses done? I listened to the Spaghetti Incident once or twice and G’n’R lies was a cobbled together piece that has merit but was not really an album and the greatest hits doesn’t count.

There is still Chinese Democracy to look forward too (cough).