What the **** Is so Great about Axl Rose?
 

He seems to be one of the most beloved frontmen in all of rock music, and I just don't get it. I can't say anything about is stage presence, since I've never seen Guns N' Roses live, but I just never got the appeal. I suppose I can see liking him better than Bret Michaels, if for no other reason than he has a bit more personality to him, but if nobody had ever told me he was supposed to be special then I would have just considered him a slightly-above-average glam metal singer and moved on. If I had two main issues with him...

1.) I say this as a moderate lover of hair bands---with some especial love for Vince Neil, Blackie Lawless, and the guy from Faster Pussycat---but I find his voice ever-so-slightly grating. I suppose it's supposed to sound sleazy, but I just don't see anything special about his take on sleaze. He just comes off like another in a long line of guys who just aren't as good as Steven Tyler.

2.) When he's not doing the raspy sleaze thing he likes to drop his voice low (e.g. "Mr. Brownstone"), which I just find to be even more annoying than his normal singing voice.

P.S. And what's the thing with people who try to describe GNR as a punk band, or I guess a punk band that plays glam? Don't just about all of the not-as-derivative-as-Poison have a heavy punk influence? Wasn't that half the point of the New York Dolls worship? It just comes across as whiny tools who don't want their favorite band thrown in with the likes of Warrant.

GNR did have some Punk tendencies actually. But they were not at all Punk. Just your usual hair band from the 80's glory days. But I still think they had some good music. I can't listen to it too often anymore though, kind of get annoyed with it...not sure why.

Axl actually is a pretty talented frontman. He's an *******. But he's talented. I agree that sometimes how he sings can be annoying. But he uses his voice, and he has some good range.

And I agree that Steven Tyler is far better.

Well, he made some great music at one time. That's what it is for me. GnR made two fantastic albums that I love from beginning to end (Appetite for Destruction and Use Your Illusion II) while literally no other glam band I've listened to ever produced an album I could even sit through the whole way without skipping tracks, let alone one I'd ever describe as "great".

I honestly have not heard anybody say anything good about him since about 1991.

Punk influenced.
Like a lot of early 80s glam bands were.

Whether or not he is a good songwriter has no bearing on his quality as a singer. Even though I'm not the biggest GNR fan, I still have some appreciation for them, but I often merely tolerate Rose's vocals.

Of course, but I've heard multiple times from people who try to call them a punk band as opposed to a glam band. I think they were trying to imply they were a punk band at heart, or something like that, in a way that other bands weren't. I've never heard anyone try to say the same thing about any of their contemporaries, just them.

You goal post mover, you. What do you want to talk about? Just the quality of his singing voice? His abilities as a frontman? I would say he beats the ass off someone like Vince Neil on both those counts. He had more range than most glam singers, and sang with more emotion and had a hell of a lot more personality than any that I can think of.

I guess the name of the thread was open-ended, but I guess I was thinking of his singing rather than his song-writing abilities. How much did he actually write anyway? I looked on the 'Pedia and saw that at least on the debut he had credits on all but two songs. Just about the whole band had multiple credits though, so it's hard to tell if they gave credit freely or it was really a band effort. Either way, I can't tell just how much he was responsible for the actual music.

Nevermind. This is too dark. :(

I think he played a pretty big role in writing the actual music. I'm not really sure what their writing process was, but he played keyboard or piano in a lot of their music and has sole songwriting credit on quite a few tracks on the Use Your Illusion albums.

Axl Rose was someone that was to make his voice distinctive from others during the early 1990s.

Never liked him. And I find it annoying that he never shuts up. When he is not singing in that awful voice, he is whistling, or doing that "Aye, aye, aye" thing that I find unbearable. And if anything they had 1 good album. Use your illusion (both) blow ass.

Haven't heard anything good about Axl Rose for the past couple of decades or so.
He made his contribution with Guns n Roses, but he is more or less, insignificant these days.

Dude sounds like a large mosquito. Night Train is the ONLY song I can stand out of their entire catalog, and it's mostly due to Slash's solo at the end. I was excited to hear Buckethead was to play on the Chinese Dem, but that album was such a let down. I think he bailed when he heard it, and Bumblefoot stepped in.

Well, he has pretty dang good vocal range and honestly I've never thought of his style as annoying. I've just always thought that he had one of the most ideal voices for being the lead singer in a rock band.

Ja, I agree that he's pretty overrated. Slash is as well. Range doesn't mean **** when your style is obnoxious.

To get into Axl Rose, where should I start?

About 1988

This.. I can't listen to more than one GnR song in a row, I hate his voice and the general sound of the music they create.

Axl Rose falls into a long list of white rockers who have really squeaky voices (Neil Young, Tom Petty, John Lydon ect) it must drive black people nuts to have to listen to it, lol.

I agree with everyone that Axl has a much wider range than Vince Neil, he is simply a better vocalist, that being said Vince Neil's voice does sound slightly less squeaky than Axl's, so I can see where your coming from.

To my regret I never saw GNR live, but I have heard that Axl is a phenomenal front man from countless people, and I believe it.

The whole punk thing largely comes from some of the band members influences, particularly Duff Mckagen who played in North West punk bands before joining GNR. That being said GNR's primary influence were bands like Aerosmith, the Rolling Stones & AC/DC ect, so I would say they are a hard rock band with some punk influence, but overall they have always been in the hardrock metal category.

I just think that a lot of people associate a horrible and scratchy voice like Axl Rose's with hard rock and therefore expect it. The fact is, that Axl Rose got his singing inspiration from Dan McCafferty of Nazareth but at least Dan knew how to holler and do it properly.

Tom Petty? I don't see how he fits into the squeaky voice thing. He has kind of a mumbly thing going on that I also associate with Bob Dylan and Beck.

Well Tom Petty is a mumbler in the Bob Dylan style and wouldn't compare him to AXl Rose either.

He had some reasonably impressive lung-power, passable improv skills for a rock artist, a touch more creativity than some rock/metal guys from his contemporaries among the mainstream...

But basically? He picked a kick-ass group to play with. Originally.

I'm a classical guitarist, with some flamenco and jazz influences, but even I recognize that Saul Hudson (Slash) was and is a fantastic guitar player.

I think Slash is good at what he does but he has no range whatsoever. I saw him with Slash's Snake Pit long after the GnR days and he was still rehashing the same old thing.

I think the realty of GnR is that during a certain period they were more than the sum of their parts. I have no interest in solo output from any of them, but together during a particular period of their lives, it worked. I think there are quite a few bands out there like that. Jane's Addiction comes to mind.

I'll try this again...

When I think of Axl Rose I think of Ethel Merban in Airplaine "There's So Business Like Show Business and Where Do We Go Now..."

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ZmZdqsCW8vM/hqdefault.jpg

Slash did some pretty juicy Neuvo Flamenco stuff years back...

That said, yeah, he's a one trick pony, but he's a DAMN GOOD one trick pony.

And, if we're going to go there, Sabicas, Paco de Lucia, Van Halen, Joe Satriani, some of the undisputed Guitar Notables; they're pretty much one-trick ponies too. Their trick is more complex and impressive, (And in some cases significantly less expressive), but it's still just one trick, really...

I get what you're saying but think Paco de Lucia, Eddie Van Halen and Joe Satriani all have a bit more variety than Slash.

I'm not familiar with Sabicas, but thank you for mentioning him. Literally yesterday I was googling around to trying to find some good flamenco to add to my collection. Any recommendations on albums? I'm not really a fan of flamenco vocals generally so instrumental albums would be my preference.

I love Appetite For Destruction, but Axl Rose is a huge *******.

Appetite and parts of Use your Illusion I.

Speaking of awful GnR, you guys ever here "My World" by Axl solo on the end of the UyI discs?

Holy crap. What the **** was that. I have listened to all his albums and I completely forgot that track because of how awful it is.

I actually like "My World". It's not my favorite or anything but it's kind of a quirky weird little departure to end the album with. You want to hear awful, listen to "Dust N' Bones", which sounds like a crappy bar band trying to write a song that sounds like Guns n Roses.

Axl reminds me of Dr Rockso cause to me they're both Rock n roll clowns.

I only had 2 albums from GNR and that was Use your illusion I & II and i liked them but i never liked Axl's prima donna attitude that has always been my main problem with him.. my 2nd problem with him is his raspy rock voice sometimes annoy the f*ck out of me.

I liked their first two albums, Appetite for Destruction in '87 and Lies in '88.

Well I suppose your right to some respects but I still find that he sings with a high pitched tenor sounding voice most of the time. I love Petty by the way.


I totally agree, I can't think of one Velvet Revolver or solo song that stands out for me. It looks like the punk influence went a long way for GNR, for Velvet Revolver has that horrible 90's commercial rock sound behind it, & Axl seems to think he's Elton John.

Fixed the first part for you and I'd sooner eat my dinner listening to Elton John than Axl Rose.

Or do you mean Scott Weiland? If you do then I'd take him everyday over both Axl and Elton.;)

Depending on the song I might actually agree with you in the case of Axl. I'm not the biggest Elton John fan, but he's generally fun. Of course I haven't dug into his non-single songs.

I didn't think he did anything other than hit single songs.

Now that I've mentioned that, I sure some smart ass will mention all the sophisticated prog rock and art rock songs that I never knew about.;)

No, I won't. ;)

One of the best songs with Axl Rose was "Welcome to the Jungle". That was a good song.

His voice is fine, but like Moss said, the fact that he makes all these strange noises during his singing is incredibly annoying.