In the early 1990s, Guns N’ Roses was one of the biggest bands in the world. It’s hard to believe that a scrappy band that was equally influenced by heavy metal as they were The Rolling Stones (during the Appetite for Destruction era) would eventually morph into this wild amalgam of hard rock and progressive rock with obvious nods to Queen and Elton John by putting out two bloated albums: Use Your Illusion I and Use Your Illusion II. Even more amazing is that those weird overblown records would actually make them more popular than ever. The albums sold over 7 million copies each!
Part of the change in sound was attributed to Axl Rose’s iron grip on their overall sound and aesthetic. But it was also because of new band membership. Original drummer Steven Adler was fired because he couldn’t record the song “Civil War” with any kind of precision. He was replaced by Matt Sorum. Additionally, Dizzy Reed joined as a full-time keyboard player, expanding their sound. Guitarist Izzy Stradlin wanted to keep things more traditional and basic and as their sound got more flamboyant he eventually quit (butting heads with Axl didn’t help). He was replaced by Gilby Clarke.
Through it all, Guns N’ Roses put out three music videos that told a continuing story: “Don’t Cry”, “November Rain” and “Estranged”. Individually each video was some of the most expensive music videos ever made. Combined they certainly were the most money spent on music videos for a single album by a single record label. “Don’t Cry”: $ 1 million. “November Rain”: $ 1.5 million. “Estranged”: A staggering $5 million dollars. I guess it all still pays off today because “November Rain” was the first video on YouTube to reach 1 billion views. Here are the videos in all their glory:
What did Guns N’ Roses do to follow this up? Naturally, they decided to release a covers album of obscure punk rock covers! That album is “The Spaghetti Incident?” which is today’s pick!
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The band didn’t go with any safe picks for their selection of covers. Especially in the pre-internet days of 1993 when it wasn’t easy to just go to Wikipedia and read about Dead Boys, U.K. Subs or The Damned. When I bought this album the week it came out it was actually my first exposure to many of those bands. This was probably the case for most of the Guns N’ Roses fanbase. The group jokingly was originally going to call the record Pension Fund in reference to the royalty checks the original bands would receive. I’m not gonna lie: I think thats a better album title, but c’est la vie.
The Spaghetti Incident? did its job in my case: I sought out the original records. However, for less hardcore music fanatics the songs didn’t resonate The Spaghetti Incident? only sold about 1 million records (A huge disappointment for the band and the label) and basically ended up breaking up the group and causing Axl Rose to labor over the follow up album Chinese Democracy for 15 years with innumerable membership changes in the band.
This is a shame, because the album is an incredible slab of classic punk rock. It’s also the only Guns N’ Roses studio album in which Gilby Clarke appears.
Not all of the songs are punk rock though. Strangely enough, the album opens with a cover of the doo-wop group The Skyliners: their 1959 hit “Since I Don’t Have You”. A pretty bold way to start the record. It was also the only song on the album that they made a music video for, starring Gary Oldman:
They also released the Dead Boys cover “Ain’t It Fun”, but I don’t believe they made a music video for it. I still have my cassingle of it though:
One of my favorite songs on the album is the Nazareth cover “Hair of the Dog”. A pretty rockin’ version of the song. You can tell the band was having fun because Slash throws in the riff from The Beatles “Day Tripper” at the end to the amusement of other people in the studio:
Another highlight is the New York Dolls song “Human Being” which is actually an epic clocking in at nearly 7 minutes. I bought Too Much Too Soon because of this song. It was a wise purchase.
Even for bands that were more well known on the record, Guns N’ Roses chose obscure songs. For example, “Attitude” by The Misfits at the time was only on the extremely out of print “Beware” EP (It was eventually re-released on the compilation Collection II in 1995):
“New Rose”, originally by The Damned, is also a great punk rock song that I heard for the first time on The Spaghetti Incident?. It took me a long time to track down Damned Damned Damned but it was worth the effort:
Of course, Guns N’ Roses are seemingly incapable of putting out an album without a controversy and The Spaghetti Incident? is no exception. At the end of the album they tacked on a Charles Manson song “Look At Your Game, Girl”. People complained that Manson would get royalties for the song but they ended up being donated to the son of one of Manson’s victims.
It’s really not a good tune, but Axl was for some reason infatuated with it. It follows an absolutely raging version of Fear’s “I Don’t Care About You”:
Overall The Spaghetti Incident? deserves a modern reassessment. A refreshingly fun record from a band that more often than not took themselves way too seriously in the studio. It’s probably not accurate to say any Guns N’ Roses album is obscure, but it has kind of fallen through the cracks nowadays with most people pointing to Appetite for Destruction and the Use Your Illusion records for prime Guns N’ Roses. I’d wager to say it ranks right up there with those classics. Drop your skepticism and press play on this one and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised…especially if you’ve never heard it before.
