Guns N' Roses
Appetite For Destruction

The year was 1987, and in the plasticky mainstream of that time, flashy things like hair metal, more or less phony electro pop, boy toys with thin, coquettish voices, colorful leg warmers, extravagant hairstyles, heavy makeup, and improbable jewelry were all the rage.

In a music scene of such (inferior) caliber, it could also happen that a guitarist like Tony Iommi would bust his ass to promote and advance his music, hiring extraordinary singers like Glenn Hughes and Tony Martin and recording albums of rare beauty, only to be ignobly snubbed, while five guys emerging from the underbelly of the city of angels recorded an album and became instant global mega-idols, rock stars famous on a planetary level, and, above all, the (worthy) icons of their era.

These five guys were Guns n' Roses, and they had everything it took to break through in those years: an à la mode look, a super cool street-smart attitude, a touch of brooding/bad-boy charm that never hurts and photographs well, and, last but not least, a musical style tough and raw enough to conquer the 15-25 market segment, yet reassuring enough, with that touch of essential sappiness to win over both the female 30-40 audience and the average user from three meters above the sky or thereabouts. That old fox David Geffen sniffed out the deal, signed the boy band, and launched with great fanfare the debut album: "Appetite For Destruction" by Guns n' Roses (guns, precisely to indicate their bolder side, and roses for the softer one, both equally trendy). The original cover was deemed too suggestive, unsuitable to breach the 30-40 market segment, and thus they opted for a nice tattoo-style cross with the five Big Guns represented as skulls on an elegant black background, which looks very macho.

The album, what can I say, 53 minutes and 50 seconds of hot and steaming dung well crafted and seasoned with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil (and the review could end here), with Axl Rose, the Bill Kaulitz of the '80s, who storms in with his wonderful voice, a cross between Gianna Nannini as an hysterical housewife and a turkey in heat (with all due respect to turkeys), well supported by the two guitarists, Slash and Izzy Stradlin' (all incredibly cool stage names) who copy and paste left and right everything they've heard, reheard, and even already heard, including the riff from that little masterpiece "Zero The Hero" by Black Sabbath, improperly stuck into the hideous "Paradise City." Our big guns would continue their career with "GN'R Lies," which I've already had the pleasure and honor of dealing with, the double "Use Your Illusion," practically identical to AFD, just a bit more sugary and radio-friendly, featuring respectable and admirable artists like Alice Cooper and Shannon Hoon (God forgive them...), and then the cover album "The Spaghetti Incident," primarily pseudo-punk with an added ballad (just to not disappoint the 30-40 target) and a final gem to make you laugh your ass off. Then nothing more, fashion had changed in the meantime, their music was no longer cool, and so they broke up; some of them had the chance to found new pseudo-groups, start pseudo-solo careers, much like Melanie B and Victoria Beckham did back then, and collaborate with people like our own Vasco Rossi (the series God makes them and then pairs them).

The ganserosian peace is abruptly shattered in 2008, when, after 15 years of commendable and praiseworthy silence, the old Axl returns in grand style with a pseudo-album announced since the times of Adam and Eve: thus, the new gansenrosis make their triumphant entrance, joining the company of Dimmu Borgir with their pentagrams and their cabrones, Metallica who decided to break their dull Hollywood billionaire existence with a magnetic discharge of borlotti beans, the overly long and hard candies of Miss Ciccone, the equestrian circus of Miss Spears, the bouffant hair of Tokio Hotel, the off-seasonal hits of Pausini and Rihanna, Vasco, Fabi Fibra, Amy Winehouse Jovanotti, Ligabue, Finley, Dari, Jonas Brothers, Mailyn Manson, Hanna Montana and various riff-raff.

Really, thank you so much Axl Rose for this magnificent return that we all felt the need for, this review is dedicated to you and to all those who, like you, made money at the expense of music. And from now on, I swear not to speak of Guns anymore, at least until the next, much-anticipated collaboration with Timbaland and Justin Timberlake (and it will come, you'll see it will...).

"and meanwhile the world rolls on, the sea always glistens, tomorrow is already Sunday, and maybe (maybe) it will snow..."