Axl Rose breaks down his favourite albums of all time
There’s a good chance that no one was ready for Guns N’ Roses when they first arrived on the Sunset Strip. While they may have played the same clubs as the glam bands before them, there was nothing pretty about what they brought across, playing the same kind of gnarly rock and roll that came out of acts like Aerosmith and The Rolling Stones. While Axl Rose was the superstar frontman looking to destroy everything in his path, his taste in music was far more eclectic than just hard rock.
Before becoming one of the biggest rock stars in the world, Rose was initially cutting his teeth in bands in his native Indiana, only to move to Los Angeles alongside his childhood friend Izzy Stradlin. While he was a part of the hair metal upstarts LA Guns, meeting with musicians like Slash and Steven Adler from the band Hollywood Rose led to him and Stradlin combining both projects under the name Guns N’ Roses.
When talking about his taste in music, though, Rose gravitated toward every kind of music that suited his fancy. Talking to Rolling Stone, Rose would discuss getting infatuated with Queen for the first time, recalling, “Whenever their newest record would come out and have all these other kinds of music on it, at first I’d only like this song or that song. But after a period of time listening to it, it would open my mind up to so many different styles. I really appreciate them for that. That’s something I’ve always wanted to be able to achieve. It’s important to show people all forms of music, basically try to give people a broader point of view”.
With that in mind, most of Rose’s heroes put lavish arrangements behind their songs. When discussing his favourite records, Rose cited Queen II among the best in his record collection alongside Todd Rundgren’s Something/Anything. Although those influences have made a clear impact on the GNR sound, no one hit a sharper nerve than Elton John, who would play a critical role in the writing of ‘November Rain’.
Outside of the sounds of soft rock, Rose was transformed when he began listening to hard rock, counting Sex Pistols’s Nevermind the Bollocks among the best albums he has ever heard. Even though Guns N’ Roses may have been able to put a fair bit of technical finesse into their music, that punk sensibility bled through nearly every song they played, like the gutter-punk sounds of ‘It’s So Easy’ to their slew of punk covers on “The Spaghetti Incident?”.
Rose was also keeping his ear to the ground regarding what the new school of bands would be at the time. Even though Guns N’ Roses may have been known as the most dangerous thing to come out of California, Rose had a particular affinity for what NWA were doing around the same time with the release of Straight Outta Compton, which showcased the darker side of life on the violent side of town.
At the time, though, Rose would also voice his opinion for up-and-coming bands from up north like Soundgarden. Little did he know that the grunge bandwagon would want nothing to do with him, which led to one of the biggest blowups in rock history when Rose began a rivalry with Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain.
Those records are only scratching the surface, though, with Rose singing the praises of everyone from Patti Smith to Thin Lizzy to Jane’s Addiction among his favourites. While Rose might have had a particular noise that he was going after in Guns N’ Roses, no one could blame him for not having broad tastes in his record collection.
Axl Rose’s favourite records of all time
- Something/Anything – Todd Rundgren
- Queen II – Queen
- Nevermind the Bollocks – Sex Pistols
