This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.

Guns'N'Roses


"Appetite for Destruction"
BMI, 1987

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In this reviewer's opinion, judging by form alone, G'N'R was the best hard rock band of the late 1980s, maybe the whole 1980s if we exclude punk rock. It's a darned shame, because G'N'R was also so explicitly misogynist and willing to make the quick buck on white trash and lumpen fantasies about sex, booze and drugs.

The thing about G'N'R and all hard rock is that it is so thoroughly emphatic, but the question always comes down to emphatic about what. Since romance sells, it's not surprising that the songs are about something emphatic in romance. Then the question becomes, is the emphatic misogyny just the easiest way to make money matching the hard rock form or does the misogyny express itself as hard rock?

Some have suggested that hard rock simply has no legitimate outlet, because it can only be an expression of misogyny. However, MIM disagrees and points to Rage Against the Machine as the proof. Admittedly, G'N'R might make one question the truth, if G'N'R were the epitome of hard rock and the only evidence one way or another.

Interestingly enough, G'N'R did receive much criticism for its hatred of wimmin. One feminist we knew, took all her albums by this band and threw them out; even though she loved them. It's again something we point to as conquering subjectivism. Perhaps as a result of all the criticism, G'N'R attempted to write some political songs, about the civil war and ethnic cleansing in ex-Yugoslavia for instance.

We don't question that these songs deal with reality, a reality of hormone-driven sex and desire for alcohol and other drugs. The question is simply where does it all lead: "Ya get nothin' for nothin' /If that's what ya do/Turn around bitch I got a use for you/Besides you ain't got nothin' better to do/And I'm bored" is a stanza from the second song "It's So Easy."

In other albums, G'N'R gets downright insightful into male-female relations, in an aggressive and pointed way. This album is just what sells and it leads no where. The artistic form is grand, but the message is not empty, just rather ordinary.