Born William Bailey on February 6, 1962 in Lafayette, Indiana, our Hoosier hero Axl Rose turns 42 today. Happy birthday.
He hasn't managed to make a record in ten years. Has he also acted like a big jerk? Arguably YES, above and beyond the call of duty even for a rock star.
Nonetheless, he formed Guns n Roses, and recorded several of the GREATEST albums in the history of modern popular music. Give or take The Spaghetti Incident covers album, you can't go wrong with GnR.
Even if he turned into Michael goddam Jackson in the future, he made
Sweet Child O Mine
Welcome to the Jungle
One in a Million
November Rain
You Could Be Mine
I Used to Love Her
Paradise City
Patience
and a whole bunch of other classics. You can't take that away from him.
Axl (and Slash, et al) earned a place in music history.
If you don't have Appetite for Destruction, Use Your Illusions I & II, and Lies in your collection, then you've got your priorities all screwed up.
Get with the program before Axl has to whip your ass.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Mark Saleski
ya know, i've never heard either of the Use Your Illusion records....maybe i should borrow 'em from somebody.
i started to get turned off when Axl started with that piano ballad crapola.
on the other hand, Appetite is a killer.
2 - visualsimplicity
What? That "piano ballad crapola" produced, arguably, their greatest masterpiece, "November Rain." It's definitely one of my favorite songs of all time.
Oh and you left out "Don't Cry" (the first of the trilogy video). Great song. "Estranged" (the last of the trilogy) was mediocre though.
3 - Nyx
My priorities may be all screwed up, but at least I don't have crap hair bands in my music collection.
Next you'll be telling us how great Poison is.
4 - JR
If you define bands by their hair, you definitely have your priorities screwed up.
5 - EJ
C'mon -- let's give credit where credit is due. Izzy was the driving force behind GnR.
6 - Al Barger
If you can't tell the difference between Guns n Roses versus Poison, then I can only question YOUR critical faculties. It would be like someone disliking crappy boy bands such as Hermans Hermits and the Beatles. I mean, what's the difference, right?
The piano ballad aspect of the Illusions albums was especially good, it represented a promising expansion of their artistic palette. In practice, it was the most mature sound they would achieve, as they were the last GnR albums.
They put out two albums in one day of mostly quite good material with a lot of promising avenues for future artistic growth. Then they fell apart, never made another album. Damned shame.
7 - Robert Brandt
The "Illusion" albums were huge for me. I remember someone at the high school telling me if I liked that stuff, wait until I hear Savatage, Queensryche, Fates Warning, Dream Theater, etc.
Thank you, GNR, for turning me into a complete prog-metal dork. :)
8 - One in a Million
Agreed that Axl Rose helped create what I would call a large body of '80s rock standards. However, he was poor to mediocre in live performances, and nearly always showed up late. You must give credit to the guys working the soundboard on the studio albums. Axl simply wan;t that good.
Dan
9 - Roger
OH NO!!! I forgot Axl's Birthday. Accept my apologies and my belated heart felt gift for a 1 month worth of visit to the Methadone clinic.
10 - BRICKLAYER
In honour of Mr. Rose's birthday, I shall: Drink a fifth of Jack Daniel's while wearing a head scarf. Wait, can't do that, what with my hiatal hernia and recent gout flare up. And I don't own a scarf. Except for the Black and Yellow Pittsburgh Penguins one, and I'm saving that for Little Brick. Okay then, I will mainline some smack and become familiar with some ladies of the night. Uh, can't do that one either, as I'm afraid of needles and ladies of the night. Well, lemme see...I will go the local rock and roll nightclub, and sing and dance the night away to the glorious strains of an eighties hard rock cover band. Um, no can do. Gotta get up early for work tomorrow. Okay, I got it. In celebration of Mr. Rose's birthday, I shall enjoy a cup of decaf and watch a videotape of this weeks episode of "American Chopper".
11 - Eric Olsen
Like most people I have wildly mixed feelings about Axl: great songs and band sound, but that fucking affected high-pitched whine on the early stuff just about kills me. As his singing became more natural the songs deteriorated - the cover album has his best singing.
And of course, he is an insufferable pud who has wasted the last ten years of his life doing nothing but being a fuck up.
Is it too late for a comeback? I don't know, but I'm not holding my breath.
12 - Pamela
I LOVE AXL ROSE
I WANT HIM!! Oh DADDY!
13 - susan knight
axl is the best performer in the world!He always gives it everything from start to finnis at all of his shows,he will always be number 1 in my book!
14 - susan knight
will axl be making a new band up and kick velvet revolver out of the way?!
15 - Chris Kent
I doubt seriously anyone, and most especially the bloated, balding, butt-ugly Axl Rose, will be kicking Velvet Revolver out of the way any time soon, if not ever. Velvet Revolver rocks baby.
Crawl Axl! Crawl!!!!
16 - Temple Stark
I'll wade in with my little thoughts seeing how this has been revived.
I completely respect 99.9 percent of all the music GnR released. Don't Cry was weak, however.
Axl being so late to shows is unforgivable. However the one time I saw them in the Kingdome in Seattle, they were on time. (Triple bill with Metallica and what was meant to be Faith No More but ended up being MotorHead.
They DID produce some almighty classics. It's amazing, awesome, layered music.
That the band hasn't produced anything in the last 10 years is heartbreaking to me. One of the late great lost opportunities.
I've heard a couple of Velvet Revolver songs - and they're different but it's all retro. I think people just enjoy it now, but only because it's so different from much of the rest of the pap that's out there.
Why Axl can't just get people excited and release a couple of songs on the internet I'll never know.
Sweet Child O' Mine was the first song I'd ever heard, in England at the time. I remember at first being disapointed as a 15/16 year old that the rest of the album wasn't like that.
17 - lj
i feel sorry for axl rose
18 - lj
i feel sorry for axl rose
19 - Jesse
Fuck everyone who doesnt like axl rose... Velvet revolver is fucking weak. Slash is still a God but still. GN'R for life!
20 - alice colburn
i feel sorry for axl rose because everyone say horrible thins about him but the thin g is i think the everyone should like him or i come after you for being so mean to the best rock star and best song writter axl rose is so cute and really sexy and i think he should be crowned sextest man in rock n roll from alice
21 - alice colburn
Happy bithday axl for febuary 6th i get picked on for liking you and no one seens to leave me alone and when will the new c.d come out i just ca't wailt till it comes out
Love Alice Colburn
P.S YOU ARE THEBEST
22 - JAMES COLBURN
AXL ROSE IS ONE OF THE BEST SINGERS NEXT TO JON BON JOVI RICHIE SAMBORA BRUCE DICKENSON AND SCOTT WEILAND OF VELVET REVOLVER BUT NOT IN THAT ORDER.
HEY FUCKERS SUCK ON GUNS N FUCKING ROSES PUNKS
23 - Polina
You are now 42 and you looks so sexy!I`m 14 years old!
24 - Eric Olsen
Alas Polina, you're too old
25 - robby c
axl rose is the greatest musical mind of since beethoven. my dream is to make music with the man even if im only sixteen. he plays piano, guitar,and he put on a great show i have all his dvd's and cds i think everything he did was great and original. with the exception of the remakes he did. axl is awesome he is my idol. axl you rock
robby