Neil Young on why Guns N’ Roses typified rock and roll in 1990
While he might have helped institute some of its most important and recognisable features, Neil Young has seen rock music change immensely over the years. From the formative rock ‘n’ roll swells of his childhood to the innovation of the 1960s and onto the alternative environment he played a key role in shaping, the constant metamorphosis of guitar music that the Canadians and others of his generation have witnessed has been quite extraordinary.
Today, rock music is one of the most multifaceted sonic realms available. From bluesy-traditionalists to the fury of punk and the niche, rock has more sub-genres, categories and crossovers than any other and continues to stay at the forefront of culture due to such dynamism, even when electronic sounds and the digital age impress themselves upon life increasingly deeper.
Regardless of rock music being a cultural force like no other, there have been periods when the genre has been seriously questioned and even derided. Still, it has always returned with a vengeance and reasserted its worth. No matter what you might think of him, Alex Turner’s infamous mic-drop moment at the Brit Awards in 2014, wherein he asserted that rock ‘n’ roll “will never die”, does seem to contain a strong dose of truth. Since it first burst onto the scene in the 1950s, rock has been impervious to the passage of time.
This constantly evolving nature is something Young is acutely aware of. When speaking to Vox in 1990, he reflected on the era’s cliché that the 1980s had changed the entire context of rock and dramatically lessened its impact in doing so. For Young, this claim was correct, and in his mind, MTV changed the context of rock music by bringing videos to the masses. Now, consumers don’t need to use their imagination when listening to music; it is done for them.
Young explained: “Well, the context changed because of MTV and the rock video. That’s really it. Because by MTV trying to visualise the music they automatically stripped it of most of its natural mystery and depth. Before rock video, when people where confronted with the music, they had to rely on their own natural ability to utilise their imagination…if they weren’t also opting for some kind of state of enhancement via some drug or other.”
Reflecting on the epitome of this new and bombastic version of rock in 1990, Young maintained that it was Guns N’ Roses who typified the sea change. In his typically balanced way, he also preferred not to criticise the polarising Los Angeles band. Instead, he maintained that they were just a group of kids when they broke out and that, more importantly, the legions of young, MTV-watching fans of their generation made them what they became, not the other way around. They were a product of their environment.
He said: “Today in America for better or worse rock ‘n’ roll is Guns N’ Roses. People call them evil but they’re just kids. At least they were. You’ve got to remember it’s the kids that made Guns N’ Roses what they are, not Guns N’ Roses making the kids what they are today.”
Whether Young correctly described Axl Rose, Slash and the rest of Guns N’ Roses as the epitome of rock in 1990, there’s a great irony in his choosing them. Just a year later, their antithesis, Nirvana, the grunge pioneers who sent MTV culture into a meltdown with their Generation X anthems and punk ethos, would blow the ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ group and associated ones out of the water. The trio reset popular culture and rock music’s course, wherein commercialism would be pushed to its limits and subverted in myriad ways.
