Welcome to “Question of the Week,” a (not really at all) weekly debate amongst the MetalSucks staff regarding a recent hot button issue.
We haven’t done one one of these all summer, but we came up with a fun one for this week:
IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME AND PLAY ANY METAL BAND/MUSICIAN SOME OF THEIR MUSIC AND/OR SHOW THEM PHOTOS/VIDEOS OF THEMSELVES FROM THEIR FUTURE (OUR PRESENT), WHO WOULD IT BE AND WHY?
Monday, February 7th, 2011 at 10:30am by Axl Rosenberg
In 1987, $lash wrote the main riff for “Sweet Child O’ Mine” as a joke during warm-up for band practice, and after Izzy Stradlin and Axl Rose recognized its potential and turned it into an actual song, The World’s Best Jew ‘Fro argued against its inclusion on Appetite for Destruction, thinking it was too ballad-y for a hard rock album. Now, twenty-four years later, $lash has finally taken his revenge on the song that gave him his career: wearing a variation of his signature top hat that was apparently fashioned from some old clothes Rob Halford recently donated to the Salvation Army, $lash appeared on the Super Bowl half-time show with The Black Eyed Peas to assist Fergie in what Vince rightly referred to as a “mutilation” of the song.
Wednesday, October 27th, 2010 at 10:00am by Axl Rosenberg
I guess it was inevitable that “Beautiful Dangerous,” Slash’s collaboration with Fergie from The Black Eyed Peas, would be released as a single and get a video; Fergie appeals to a large audience that isn’t necessarily Slash’s core fan base, so theoretically it could be a chance to earn some new fans, like when Santana released that song with the guy from Matchbox 20.
The video is actually pretty funny. In it, Fergie plays a woman so obsessed with Slash that she masturbates while thinking about him, then seeks him out at a strip club where he mysteriously is hanging out with no entourage or security of any kind, then drugs and kidnaps him (and no one seems to notice her dragging out one of the world’s most recognizable rock stars I guess), then takes him back to her motel, grinds up against him, and kills him.
Oh, yeah. Spoiler alert.
ANYWAY, there’s nudity and Fergie doing all kinds of suggestive things in this video, so I guess it’s “dangerous” to watch at work. On the other hand, there’s also a shot of Slash enjoying some Monster energy drink, with the carefully label turned towards the camera, so it’s not really that dangerous at all. ‘Cause remember kids: product placement ain’t rock. Sorry.
Also, Fergie’s in the video, so it’s not “beautiful,” either. Just sayin’.
Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 at 12:30pm by Axl Rosenberg
Slash allegedly plays on the new Rihanna single, “Rockstar 101.” I say “allegedly” because there’s barely any guitar in the damn song, and what guitar there is sounds like it could have been played by just about anyone with fingers and five free minutes to spend in the studio. But apparently the guitars are by Slash, and he was supposed to be in the video, too, but couldn’t make it ’cause I guess he afraid he was gonna make Fergie jealous. So Rihanna decided she was just gonna dress-up as Slash, which is, uh, an interesting solution.
Meanwhile, Nuno Bettencourt is part of Rihanna’s band now, and he’s in the video, but he never gets a close-up. In fact, most of the time he’s either in the background or out-of-focus.
So, to review: Rihanna would rather have a fake Slash in her video than a real Nuno.
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010 at 10:30am by Axl Rosenberg
Ever seen Woody Allen’s Zelig? It’s a pseudo-documentary about a guy who immediately assumes the traits of whomever he’s with at the moment; put him in a room full of Chinese people and he’ll turn into a Chinese man, move him to a room full of Hasidim and he’ll suddenly appear to be Hasidic, and so on and so forth. It’s a(n obvious but still pretty funny) metaphor for a guy with no personality of his own.
Now, consider Slash. Guns N’ Roses folklore tells us that Slash is not the best judge of his own material, and often wanted to scrap some of Guns’ best songs; and, unfortunately, evidence suggests that this folklore is fact, and that Slash is a pretty ho-hum songwriter. Axl Rose has his legitimate insanity and over-sized, not entirely comprehensible artistic vision, but all Slash really seems to have is a desire to be like his heroes in Aerosmith and AC/DC, which is to say, a legacy act and purveyor of catchy but fairly middle-of-the-road rock. Consequently, a lot of the pressure on Slash-penned songs in the post-GN’R era is not just on the guitar playing of the Artist Formerly Known as Saul Hudson, but on the performances of whatever singer he’s working with at any given moment. Slash songs can be like underwritten roles in movies that way; you need the best character actors available to give them some personality, or they risk becoming boring.
Slash has personality (or at least persona) to burn, and it’s no shock that on Slash, his first solo record, he keeps up his up his end of the bargain in the guitar solo department. Despite the fact that he was never a revolutionary musician, Slash was always a very distinctive musician; a lot of people play the way he does, but no one sounds quite like him. But it is kind of a shock that on this, the album which is supposed to be a distinct and unique artistic statement outside the confines of his collaborations with various bands, Slash has very much allowed himself, like Zelig, to blend in with whomever was in the room at the moment.
Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 at 10:00am by Axl Rosenberg
There are now six songs* available online from Slash’s Slash, his forthcoming sort-of-but-not-really solo debut (as though Slash’s Snakepit wasn’t a solo band) that I care far too much about. If you include bonus tracks, that’s actually more than a full third of the album; if you don’t include bonus track, it’s (obviously) even more.
So I now feel pretty confident in saying this album won’t be horrible, even if it’s obviously never going to live up to GN’R, and features appearances by Kid Rock, Fergie, and the girl from Maroon 5.
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 10:00am by Axl Rosenberg
So the Australian branch of iTunes has apparently uploaded thirty-second clips of all the songs from Slash’s forthcoming, self-titled solo album, and, of course, someone has uploaded all of those clips to YouTube. Gotta love the internet! So I thought we’d play one of our favorite games here at MetalSucks. It’s called “Let’s make premature judgments based on not very much actual music at all.” Listen to the clips in the video below, and then get my thoughts after the jump.
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 at 10:30am by Axl Rosenberg
Crazy/Beautiful is a 2001 teen soap opera movie in which you get to see the bottom of Kirsten Dunst’s rack; alas, “Beautiful Dangerous” is not a sequel in which she finally takes off the rest of her clothes. Instead, it’s a new Slash song that will feature vocals by Fergie, and which Slash debuted while guesting at a recent Black Eyed Peas performance.
Friday, November 20th, 2009 at 12:00pm by Gary Suarez
All this talk about Slash’s upcomingsoloalbum has got me playing “Fantasy Velvet Revolver” in my head once again. Though I still hold out hope that Axl’s idea of having Perry Farrell front the band comes to fruition, I know in my heart that there’s probably a better chance of Scott Weiland rejoining the band, which is admittedly a pretty remote possibility. Remote like Siberia.
So looking through the list of vocalists purportedly gracing the axeman’s new record, I see a number of qualified albeit unlikely candidates to fill Weiland’s still-vacant spot. Yeah, it would be a heavy music lover’s dream to have Ozzy Osbourne sing for the band, considering the craptastic nature of his last few solo albums. Realistically, that would be an unholy managerial nightmare with the potential capacity to yield a catastrophic clusterfuck to put the legal woes of Black Sabbath and Guns N’ Roses to shame. Dave Grohl’s too busy counting his money and playing geriatric rock with his idols to commit to yet another band. These days, Alice Cooper and Lemmy Kilmister have the commercial drawing power of, well, Alice Cooper and Lemmy Kilmister, and maybe would shift a few more units than a Velvet Revolver fronted by an unknown (anyone remember Eric Dover or Rod Jackson?) or that dude from Spacehog. Don’t even get me started on Fergie.
One other name on that list, however, actually makes sense…
Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 3:30pm by Axl Rosenberg
“Make love not war sounds so absurd to me.” But not as absurd as the idea of Extreme’s Nuno Bettencourt touring with Rihanna, and trying to pass it off as “a high-energy experience” that really fits “‘my’ style.” Because “Umbrella-ella-ella” really requires someone who can shred. I’d almost have more respect for him if he just said “The Extreme reunion tour didn’t pay as well as I hoped and I got rent to pay.”
The announcement follows Bettencourt’s cameo on How I Met Your Mother, which is being called “the best show on television” by people who can’t find their remote and are too lazy to change the channel manually.
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 3:30pm by Axl Rosenberg
I know that opinions about Slash are decidedly mixed. Some people never liked Guns N’ Roses, or hate Slash’s Snakepit, or hate Velvet Revolver, or whatever – I bet that of the five people who remember what the fuck Slash’s Blues Ball was, at least two or three of them hate that, too.
But nothing – and I mean absolutely, unarguably NOTHING – that Slash has ever done has been as bad as this re-recording of “Paradise City” with Cypress Hill and Fergie Methfacerson:
HOLY FUCKING SHIT, DID ANYONE REALLY THINK IT WAS OKAY TO BEGIN ANY VERSION OF “PARADISE CITY” WITH A RAPPER SAYING “YES YES Y’ALL?” IS THIS ONE OF THE BEST HARD ROCK ANTHEMS EVER, OR A FUCKING LIMP BIZKIT SONG?!?! HOW THE FUCK DID FERGIE END UP NOT BEING THE WORST PART OF THIS?!?!
If I was Duff McKagan – who actually wrote the main riff for “Paradise City” – I would kick Slash in the nuts. And then, when he was doing on the ground clutching his bruised testicles, I’d kick him again, and demand that this recording can only be released if done so under the title “Paradise Shitty.”
This re-recording, which makes me wish I was a fan of Disturbed or Drowning Pool so that I’d feel a little more dignified than I do for supporting Slash, comes from a two-song CD single that was released in Japan this week. After the jump is the other song from the single, “Sahara,” which features some Japanese vocalist I’ve never heard it. It’s also a terrible song, but at least it a) doesn’t rape any of my childhood memories and leave them weeping on the cold tile floor and b) has a guitar solo that sounds like every other Slash guitar solo, which is okay because I love Slash guitar solos.
Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 2:00pm by Axl Rosenberg
With Velvet Revolver on what is starting to look like a permanent hiatus, Slash has been off recording a Santana-style all-star solo album with lots and lots of famous collaborators. It’s actually kind of a brilliant idea, and you wonder why he didn’t do that instead of Slash’s Snakepit Mach 2, a fun band that was really never gonna pay off for him.
Now Slash has announced his first solo offering: a two-track Japanese (and thus “internet,” whether Saul Hudson likes it or not) single called Sahara, which will offer both that song, with some Japanese dude I’ve never heard of on vocals, and… a re-recording of “Paradise City” with vocals by Cypress Hill and Fergie.
You may remember that Trent Reznor took a shot at Cornell over Twitter last month. Not content to leave “Fuck You” enough alone, Reznor has now launched what is pretty much the funniest, if not most convincing, April Fool’s prank of the year, offering an alleged download of a new album, The Strobe, on the NIN website. Here’s a description of the album:
To download NIN’s new full-length album Strobe Light, PRODUCED BY TIMBALAND, enter a valid email address in the fields below. A download link will be sent to you immediately. Your credit card will be charged $18.98 plus a $10 digital delivery convenience fee. Your files will arrive as windows media files playable on quite a few players with your name embedded all over them just in case you lose them. You will also receive an exclusive photo and a free email account with our partner Google’s Gmail service.
Your email will be kept confidential and will not be used for spam, unless we can make some money selling it.
At the risk of sounding like an overzealous Pantera fan, $lash performing “Sweet Child O’Mine” with that scary looking manimal (I refused to believe it’s a woman) from the Black Eyed Peas is where I draw the line. Unless he saw a freak that bore some vague resemblance to a white lady and thought he was doing another gig with Michael Jackson. I guess that’s forgivable.
Speaking of 
