The Bear and Badger Musical Appreciation Society - The Bear and Badger

Facewon

Jesus christ.

Facewon

Fuck yeah

Facewon

I hammered use your illusion. Both albums. Have been back and kinda enjoyed a couple of times. But jesus, I was a teenager.

Moot_Geeza

I like to take my November Rain live, stretched out with additional ivory tinkling. I'm not ready to listen to it again, haven't been for years and probably won't be for a good while yet, but when I am in the mood I predict I'll love it.

Kow

I absolutely hate November Rain. All that went wrong with the band, condensed into one song.

Kow

That terrible coda...

Minnesänger

g.man wrote:

I was at the Donnington gig in 1988 where the two fans were crushed to death during the GnR set. In hindsight, the worst thing about that day was that two kids were crushed to death during the opening act, but the rest of the festival went ahead, with no announcement about the deaths made until after the festival was over.
It should probably be added that the tragedy was nothing to do with GnR (who stopped playing on several occasions to ask the crowd to move back), but was solely the fault of the promoters packing 107,000 people into a sloped field that heavy rain had turned into a mud bath, with absolutely zero crowd safety measures in place.

Pretty much every time I’ve seen dodgy shit at gigs or festivals it’s been dumb asshole promoters - to be expected, I suppose, as bands aren’t gonna sort that shit themselves. Venue owners, by comparison, if there’s someone else organising it, tend to be pretty cool - I think they know they’re the ones who’ll get shit when everything goes south.

But yeah, crowd management and security always seems to be the first thing missing.

poprock

Facewon wrote:

I hammered use your illusion. Both albums. Have been back and kinda enjoyed a couple of times. But jesus, I was a teenager.

Bingo. Same here. (As a teenager, I much preferred Illusion II out of the pair.)

Kow

I spent what was a lot of money for me at the time on the two Illusion albums the day they came out. So logically I made a big effort to like them. Wasn't happening though. It's two and a half hours of music too, which is always a bad idea.

Kow

Hah, a teenager just walked past me on the metro with a GnR Appetite t-shirt. Synchronicity!

Kow

Probaby never even heard of the band.

Tempy

l lollol i’ll lol When I was a lot younger less pals that were obsessed wi v th GnR and they became a gateway band into other stuff for them but it all sounded so tame to me. Appetite is a fun album but that’s as far as i’d go. They belong in that huge swathe of popular rock/metal that is bafflingly popular in my eyes.

Kow

They're one of those bands that you had to be the right age at the right time to fully appreciate. Modern analysis is pointless really.

Kow

I guess you could say that for most pop stuff.

Kow

I was just starting to really get into music when Appetite came out and it was like an explosion in my brain. If I had been ten years older it wouldn't have meant anything to me.

Tempy

I was just getting into music too, was probably about 15 or so. they just didn’t much of anything for me. Potentially being battered over the head by pals who wouldn’t shut up
for five minutes about Appetite when Limewire was in its heyday and we could literal find any music we wanted for the first time ever.

Always hesitant of the idea that you can’t appreciate stuff if it wasn’t “the right time” as there are plenty of bands that are decades old now that you can go back to and understand well in context I think.

Bob

1. Civil War
2. Dust N Bones
3. 14 Years
4. Pretty Tied Up
5. Perfect Crime
6. You Ain't The First
7. Bad Obsession
8. Back Off Bitch
9. Double Talkin' Jive
10. You Could be mine
11. Don't Cry
12. Coma.

There you go. Not a bad track, An epic to open and close and a ballad and nine slices of quality rock.

Bob

Oh and I is the better disc.. there's a couple of over long not quite epics on II.

poprock

Bob wrote:

Not a bad track, An epic to open and close and a ballad and nine slices of quality rock.

But only two hit singles out of the lot, and one of those a ballad. You’d never make that album a commercial success.

Bob

Yeah but they released Live and Let Die as a single and I left that off as it's a cover. and I left off November Rain cos Kow.

So if I made it a 14 track album there's four hit singles for you.. sell by the bucket (head) load.

tin_robot

Moot_Geeza wrote:

@tin_robot, I assume you know about this. I didn't though, just recognised the voice on a playlist Tidal made for me and sat there scratching my head for a couple of minutes trying to place it.

I was aware it existed, but hadn't got round to having a proper listen (then promptly forgot) - will get on it now - thanks!

poprock

@Bob

I meant to say – not slagging off your enjoyment of G’n’R with all this chat, by the way. Everyone gets pleasure from different music for different reasons. I just think taking that apart and examining it can make for interesting stuff.

If you prefer the filler tracks from G’n’R’s bloated superstar phase, that’s all good. Knock yourself out.

poprock

Personally, I think Appetite for Destruction is unbeatable. It’s a perfect album. Not one track out of place. Literally all killer, no filler.

G’n’R Lies was awful, only Patience is worth saving from that dumpster fire.

I’d only take Don’t Cry and November Rain from Illusion one.

Illusion two was stronger, for me, with Estranged, Pretty Tied Up and You Could be Mine all solid. And Knocking’ on Heaven’s Door was a good stab at covering Dylan.

But look at the pattern there. Pretty Tied Up and You Could be Mine aside, everything I found worthwhile post-Appetite was a ballad. G’n’R had lost their ability to write fast and dirty pop rock. It’s as though they could only do that back when they were new and hungry.

Diluted Dante

I like Guns n Roses. I don't like that we're getting towards the Chinese Democracy tipping point though.

poprock

I’m blanking everything after Use Your Illusion. Best to just quit while you’re ahead, y’know?

Kow

Tempy wrote:

I was just getting into music too, was probably about 15 or so. they just didn’t much of anything for me. Potentially being battered over the head by pals who wouldn’t shut up
for five minutes about Appetite when Limewire was in its heyday and we could literal find any music we wanted for the first time ever.

Always hesitant of the idea that you can’t appreciate stuff if it wasn’t “the right time” as there are plenty of bands that are decades old now that you can go back to and understand well in context I think.

The right time is relevant for lots of stuff. You can't ever go back to being fifteen when a new music nobody has ever heard before bursts onto the scene. Sure you can enjoy it but I don't think it can have the same meaning. Even a revival is a different, but no less valid, feeling. The feeling of being a punk in 77 or a raver in the late 80s can't be felt again really. Society has moved on. You can go back and understand, but I don't think you can feel it.

poprock

Bingo. An artist or a style or even a movement can definitely be new to you – and you can get the rush of discovery, for sure. But you only get the context at an intellectual remove. You can’t experience the societal side. The camaraderie of a scene. The genuine shock of the new, etc.

It’s not lesser, but it’s different.

Tempy

I mostly agree with that sentiment but I guess I just struggle to see GnR in that light, given out of about 10 people I knew I was the only one that did the Partridge shrug as battered Appetite CDs got traded around between us.

Was generally just hesitant about the “oh you had to be there” mentality as a way to hand wave things. I’d say scenes basically stopped existing in the mid 2000s, they migrated online and are more fragmentary, which I guess is why everyone whines about new music being rubbish. What they probably mean is there’s no vital feeling there, no physical camaraderie, the potential to stumble upon a band but have no one know who they are and just be left feeling like they’re an oddity.

Anyway GnR are still boring byyyeeee

Kow

Appetite for Destruction in 1987 spoke to a lot of teenagers like nothing else did in that moment. I don't think there's any in depth analysis of that really. It was a feeling of the new and exciting.

Bob

poprock wrote:

@Bob I meant to say – not slagging off your enjoyment of G’n’R with all this chat, by the way. Everyone gets pleasure from different music for different reasons. I just think taking that apart and examining it can make for interesting stuff. If you prefer the filler tracks from G’n’R’s bloated superstar phase, that’s all good. Knock yourself out.

It's not to say I prefer illusions to Appetite.

Just that cos there's quite a lot of material I think they're unfairly thought of.

In hindsight what with them pretty much splitting after that I'm glad they released it all. There's a lot of good stuff in there.

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