March 1, 2021
March 1, 2021
March 1, 2021
March 1, 2021
February 28, 2021
Not sure I've ever seen this even though it came out in early 1994. It was the last appearance of Axl as we know him. He wouldn't appear anywhere again until 2001. Springsteen was the same as always. Paul Schaffer is recognizable in the back.
It's ok, the band is a little subtle which I don't care much for. Springsteen is fine. Not a huge fan but he's a trooper. Axl doesn't sound good at the start but gets a bit better. His performance style seems a bit out-of-date but at this point he was still the star he'd been for the previous six years.
At the moment, I don't have much else to say. I've decided that I will compare G'n'R to U2. I have several U2 albums and I do like them, but it must be getting close to two decades since I've ever tried to listen to them. Mainly I find most of their songs all sound the same which is fine but boring. Once in a while there's an exception - "One" being the most obvious - and I vaguely recall watching some video several years ago of them playing somewhere that sounded great. It was for some event like playing for Mick Jagger at the Super Bowl or something like that, I'm probably wrong on the specifics but they did show off as an actual rock band and not just blurring sounds together on computer.
Anyway, I looked up their catalogue and went through it. I'm honestly surprised that I recognized as many songs as I did. There's probably errors on counting every track for each album but I think I'm pretty close to a correct title. And yes, they also kick Axl Rose's ass as productive artists.
U2 formed in 1976 and it was three years before their first release, an EP. Their first album came out the following year, followed by three more before G'n'R formed. They were going up in the ranks, reaching the top-20 on the US charts, but they weren't huge hits yet.
In 1987, they released Joshua Tree, with 11 tracks, 7 non-album b-sides and 5 more unreleased songs added to the 30th anniversary version.
In 1988, they released Rattle and Hum, which had 3 live songs that weren't on previous U2 albums, 10 new studio songs and another 5 non-album b-sides.
In 1991, they released Achtung Baby, which had 12 songs, 9, non-album b-sides and 5 more tracks added to the anniversary release. Apparently that added the songs from Zooropa but I'm not enough of a U2 fan to keep track of all that. This is probably where my counting the totals is most-off.
Zooropa came out in 1993, 10 album tracks, 3 non-album b-sides. So far, they're keeping up with G'n'R, right?
In 1995, they added one song to the Batman Forever soundtrack. They also released Original Soundtracks 1, an album under the Passengers pseudonym. It seems kind of goofy but by then they were obviously at megastar level and that's not a bad idea, giving them something to do as a break from working on the next album, and giving their employees and record company something to work with as well. Another 14 songs with 9 non-album b-sides.
And if you've been keeping track and doing the math, at this point, in a mere eight years they'd recorded more music than Guns'n'Roses ever has, although obviously a number of tracks wouldn't be released until the anniversary versions of various albums. But they'd made it to G'n'R's level and it was still the 20th century.
One thing I do respect about U2 is that, to this day, they still have the same members they started with. Off the top of my head, only Aerosmith and ZZ Top reach that level and at least ZZ Top never had that much success. This was around the time where Slash and Duff were leaving G'n'R for a couple decades. [Obviously some exceptions should be made, the five members of Aerosmith didn't found the band in the first place and two members did leave for a few years, but for all intents and purposes, once the recording career started, the band remained the same. That's a good thing.]
In 1997, U2 released Pop. 12 more songs, 7 more non-album b-sides.
In 2000, they released All That You Can't Leave Behind, 11 more songs, 4 more non-album b-sides, 5 more bonus tracks that would eventually be released in some capacity. I think this was the last I had any real interest in the band. I probably have this album but have no idea and don't care.
In 2002, they released a greatest hits album which included two new songs.
In 2004, they released How To Disassemble an Atomic Bomb, 11 more songs, 4 non-album b-sides and two extra songs available somewhere.
In 2006, there was another greatest hits album, another 2 new songs, another 1 non-album b-side.
In 2009, they released No Line Over the Horizon, 11 songs, 1 non-album b-side, 2 more bonus tracks.
In 2013, they released a single for Nelson Mandela. You didn't find Axl Rose doing that. He was too busy working day-in and day-out on the Chinese Democracy follow-up. "Soon is the word."
In 2014, U2 released Songs of Innocence. 12 songs, 1 more either as a b-side or an internet release, I'm not really sure. I noticed they'd basically dropped the non-album tracks once they got into this new-fangled internet.
And in 2017, they released Songs of Experience, 13 songs, 1 bonus track. By my count, that's 200 songs released since G'n'R started putting out music.
Obviously my interest in this band is long gone, I have no idea how long it's been since I've even heard a single song from their long history, much less a new ditty, but they keep making music for people to hear. That's what the job entails and they've succeeded at it. Their last tour involved playing a few more songs from Joshua Tree than Axl does of Appetite For Destruction, but the point of the tour was to celebrate the album's 30th anniversary. Looking up their setlist, they still included songs from records that aren't Joshua Tree, even four albums that were released in the 21st Century. They're too old and too rich to bother working so hard on what got them this far, but at least they're still working.
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