I saw Slash open for Ozzy Osbourne earlier this year and he’s definitely anything BUT pathetic, bloated, or stumbling.
Axl, on the other hand…
Estranged was the third (and longest at 10 minutes) of the Use Your Illusion Stephanie Seymore video-movies.
Oil tanker
its one of my fave gnr songs. love it! better than november rain
As it was the first single and they were putting out effectively two albums simultaneously, they didn’t want to skew all of the initial sales to one or the other so they just put it on both. It was a brilliant marketing move on their part.
An overlooked song of theirs and one of my favorites is “Locomotive,” a very strange and epic funk-metal tune with densely layered guitar parts and some of Slash’s best solo work.
Also interesting about the “classic” G’n’R sound is Mike Clink’s production, particularly his mixing of the guitar parts. If you listen on headphones on most songs you can hear that he’s panned Slash’s and Izzy’s/Gilby Clarke’s rhythm parts to one side or the other, so if you dial the balance all the way to one side you’ll hear how different their parts were. Makes for an interesting listen and can really change the sound of the music.
Locomotive is indeed another one of those great guitar part songs.
You’re totally right about the panning of the guitars. It’s even more obvious on Appetite. That’s what made the Izzy/Slash combo so great. They could be playing the same guitar line yet using different methods, giving a very unique sound.
Or opposing lines that somehow gelled together 
I always felt it was even more obvious on Appetite (maybe because the songs are more straight forward and has less overdubs?) with songs like Anything goes and Think about you.
Don’t Cry- I’ve always liked the alternative lyrics better. Seems to be darker. But Don’t Cry wouldn’t be as good without Shannon Hoon’s vocal lines. Those are what makes the song special imo.
I read Slash’s autobiography (yes, well, but it’s actually pretty interesting as a depiction of everything rock in L.A. in the '80s-'90s), and one of his big complaints about GNR post-Izzy and his post GNR career is that he could never find a rhythm guitarist who would do anything other than play exactly the same line as him, only slightly less loud, which was not exactly what he was looking for.
I put UYI II on about twenty minutes now and just segued into Estranged. Pretty solid album, no two ways about it.
I hate myself right now for calling it “Locomotion” instead of “Locomotive” in post #20. :smack:
Were I to really distill it down to the must-include songs:[ol]
[li]Dust N’ Bones[/li][li]Don’t Cry[/li][li]Perfect Crime[/li][li]Double Talkin’ Jive[/li][li]November Rain[/li][li]Don’t Damn Me[/li][li]Coma[/li][li]Civil War[/li][li]Pretty Tied Up[/li][li]Locomotive[/li][li]Estranged[/li][/ol]would be a pretty killer single album. No covers, no filler (sorry “You Ain’t the First” even though I love you), no crappy Duff songs (So Fine), no guest musicians (Bad Obsession, The Garden), just straight-ahead G’n’R.
Thanks for the responses, everyone. Now I feel like I gotta buy the other Use Your Illusion album, despite having had the other in my collection for years and years without every really appreciating it.
I really like finding these hidden gems in my collection. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen so often now that music is so easily purchased by the track, versus getting an album and maybe not listening to all the songs, then forgetting, then, years later, finally listening through. Although, I bet that happens now more with digital players that allow you to carry an entire collection with you.
It was the third of the videos, but sans Seymore. She’d broken up with Axl by that point.
Of course you do.
Hey, what about “Breakdown”? Breakdown rocks.
WooHoo!
Helping the economy in my own little way!
ONE TWO!
One of my favorite songs ever. Reminds me of 1993 everytime I hear it. The video was on MTV constantly, despite being nearly 15 minutes long. It was the most expensive music video ever made at the time.
Here’s a recent version, pretty good-ish, with the new lineup that’ll be touring the U.S.
Pay no attention to the enormous man who seems to have swallowed Axl Rose.