The Guns N’ Roses album Slash never wanted to release: “We didn’t have anything to do with it”
Making a record tends to be the best and worst part of any band’s job. There will always be some egos surrounding what makes it on the record, but having to get four or five people to agree to release their musical baby on the world is like pulling teeth half the time. While most albums are a labour of love, some are just cheap money grabs, and Slash wanted absolutely no part in Guns N’ Roses releasing their greatest hits record.
Then again, there’s a good chance that this version of the hard rock icons is what got people into the band. Not everyone could have forked over the money to buy the mammoth Use Your Illusion double record, so getting an album that was nothing but the best from Appetite for Destruction and the highlights of their magnum opus did the trick, along with weeding out tracks that had no business being on records like ‘My World’.
In fact, Guns N’ Roses’ greatest hits album might be deserving of a spot next to similar compilations by acts like Queen and Elton John, where the compilation is about as well-received as any of their main albums. There’s hardly any new material on it, though, so Slash figured that the higher-ups were far too money-hungry to pass it up.
The original band had been split up for years by the time it came out, but Slash saw the record as one of the only times that he and Axl Rose saw eye-to-eye in a while, telling Q Magazine, “More than anything, it’s like having your kids raised by somebody else because we didn’t have anything to do with it. Axl tried to stop the record coming out, and we actually supported him – that’s the only time that we’ve agreed on anything in ten years.”
Greatest hits records are always meant to tell the story of a band, though, and GNR’s best-of collection actually tells a more accurate than any of them were willing to dish out. Outside of kicking the door down with songs like ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ and ‘Paradise City’, hearing the track listing immediately switch tone to pieces such as ‘November Rain’ tells you all you need to know about how Rose tried to grow up way too fast.
Even though Slash took offence to the inclusion of some of their cover tunes on the record, they do at least give you an idea of how ugly the final day of the group had gotten. Compared to the rough and tumble band of before, these guys were burnt the hell out, and when you listen to ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, you’re hearing the husk of what once was a band instead of the group they really were.
By the time it actually hit store shelves, Slash managed to get a major second wind for his career as a guitar god. Outside of being in the supergroup Velvet Revolver, Slash was becoming dangerously close to being a has-been of rock and roll before the Guns phenomenon got started all over again, leading to him becoming one of the coolest artists on the planet and getting major spots working with pop artists like Fergie and even being one of the first major celebrities featured in games like Guitar Hero.
Slash was a child of the 1970s and liked the idea of albums speaking for themselves, but the greatest hits wasn’t meant to cannibalise Guns N’ Roses. It was about celebrating their legacy, and even if there were some shoddy moments in the final product, the music told a better story than any bloated rock biopic ever could.
