I Must Be Getting Old

I'm currently listening to Guns N' Roses' "Appetite for Destruction", an album that I've never been particularly fond of (even though I've tried numerous times to listen to and appreciate it), and I'm sort of enjoying it.

I know it's an album that trillions of people love and adore (including rock critics and hipsters), and perhaps that's part of why I've never liked it. I remember seeing the video for "Welcome to the Jungle" for the first time over at my friend David's house on MTV when it was brand new. We were in like the 5th grade and were really into metal and thought that this was some badass stuff.

I was an avid reader of Hit Parader and I can remember David and I spending a rather large part of one class underlining all the foul words Axl and Slash said in an interview - we thought it was hi-larious. Then David bought a copy of it and when we listened to it, it just seemed so bad. Not bad like bad music, but bad like naughty. Seeing all of these painted freaks in Hit Parader posing like they were powerful warriors, hell bent on consuming every drug and every virgin known to mankind, was one thing, but when I was confronted with hearing Axl scream "It's so fuckin' easy!" on my friend's stereo, it was too much for my delicate system.

I spent the next few years trying to balance the Christian beliefs of my mom with the hedonistic urge to rock out (in the privacy of my room, of course, for I was too young and too timid to ever attempt to rock in public), and the abhorrence of bad language in music won out. Never mind that Vince Neil was singing incredibly idiotic things like, "Slide down my knees and taste my sword." It was when they said fuck or shit that I felt all nervous.

I think I felt guilty for liking the cursing and the boozing of those rock stars in Hit Parader, for I soon stopped buying that mag and went over to fanzines like "Heaven's Metal" and started listening to the Christian community's sad fabrications of current mainstream metal trends. There was eventually a Christian band called Traxter for Christ's sake! Anyway, I guess I told myself that I didn't like Axl's voice and that's what mainly kept me away from Guns N' Roses for all these years.

For some reason his voice doesn't bother me right now. The music is incredibly rockin' (I never had issue with the music) and skillfully played. Well, I guess after 22 years it's ok for my brain to like this. Too bad it's been ok for 22 years and I just didn't know it.