Guns N' Roses - 'Greatest Hits' (Geffen)
5/5
By: Matt Tomiak
Every so often a record is bestowed upon a fatigued rock hack which will light up said scribe's jaded old eyes like an excitable seven-year-old on a Christmas morn. Such was the reaction when 'Guns N Roses: The Greatest Hits' found its way to rockfeedback towers. Whilst the prevailing contemporary image of Guns N' Roses is that of a very slightly unhinged, portly fellow in tracksuit trousers turning up late for gigs with a bunch of hastily-assembled journeymen, a compilation of fourteen of the best moments in the L.A. hellraisers' oeuvre can't disappoint.
First of, there isn't the usual whiff of cynical label cash-in here. There's not been a definitive G N'R 'best of' so far, and given the lengthy interim periods that occurred between the band's albums as well as the fact that there's been no new official recorded material in the last decade makes this a required collection. The Gunners' filthy rock and accompanying filthy lifestyles has become the stuff of legend; hair, riffs and excess have rarely come much more extravagant. Their dubious dress sense and even more dubious politics aside, the music of this most gloriously wasted group stands the test of time admirably. That scores of doltish 'nu-metal' acts have blunderingly attempted to usurp the G N'R dirty rawk n' rap template in recent times just makes the 'Greatest Hits' longevity all the more impressive.
Long before The Darkness, a provincial English town, in this case, Stoke-on-Trent, had provided planet rock had a heavy metal guitar hero. One Saul 'Slash' Hudson. In the shape of 'Sweet Child O' Mine', Slash had created one of rock's all-time finest riffs when Justin Hawkins - and indeed AC/DC's Angus Young (although that isn't saying much) - were still in short trousers.
The other representatives of 1987's legendary 'Appetite For Destruction'; the near-apocalyptic wail of 'Welcome to the Jungle' and the lavish 'Paradise City' - probably not, in fact, an ode to Slash's upbringing in the Potteries - are worth the asking-price alone. But of course there's far more justification than just that here. Worthy of special mention are the almost comically indulgent nine-minute power-ballad 'November Rain'- a track that featured on 1991's first 'Use Your Illusion' LPs'- and the rambunctious 'You Could Be Mine' from the second instalment. And in 'Live and Let Die', 'Knockin'' On Heaven's Door' and their apposite version of 'Sympathy For The Devil', they demonstrated that they knew to pick (and skew) their cover versions too.
The four-step program reads clear enough... Play loudly. Adopt air-guitar stance. Rock out. Then repeat.
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