"Guns N 'Roses'" semi-acoustic and semi-scandalous album "G N' R Lies" was released on November 29, 1988.
Although this album was created out of a commercial motive and in order to take advantage of the insane success of the band's debut album "Appetite For Destruction", it brought a number of immortal, moving but also scandalous songs.
So a year after the debut album, the record company pushed the band to release another album in order to squeeze a little more cash out of this meteor they have in their hands.
Guns' had just finished their debut album tour and were worn out, so to fulfill their duty they took their first EP "Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide" released a year before Apetite', added four more songs in acoustic performances, and released it on a CD. (We must point out that as those who were present at their first concert in Israel, the combination of the words, acoustic, and in order to fulfill their duty makes us physically ill !!)
The first part...
The EP we mentioned included four songs, "Reckless Life" a song by Slash and Axl previous band "Hollywood Rose", the song "Nice Boys" which is a cover of an Australian rock band song called "Rose Tattoo", the track "Move to the City" which is an original song by Guns' and "Mama Kin" which is a cover of an "Aerosmith" song.
This is without a doubt a powerful business card that came out before Appetite', it introduces the world to the unique sound of Slash and the special and unique voice of Axl. An EP that shows the band's abilities alongside the bands from which they were influenced.
The second part...
That is the interesting part...
Four acoustic songs which start with the immortal, the first and only single released from the album, which beyond its non-stop broadcast on MTV was played for hours on various radio stations, "Patience". This song is so awesome that its cover version performed by Chris Cornell was only released in 2020, a few years after his death. This song gives a taste of what Guns' are becoming on the double album "Use Your Illusion I & II".
The next song is "Used to Love Her", Izzy said it was written about an annoying song he heard on the radio about a guy crying over a girl and Slash said it was a song about Axl's dog. It is not known what is true but this slightly creepy country song shows the non-existence barriers of the band.
The next song "You're Crazy" appeared in Appetite' in its electric version, here it gets its different version, or maybe the original one, completely abstracted from the distortions and bringing a much slower pace that makes us think what the other songs in Appetite' in their original version would have sounded like.
If we mentioned barriers and scandals before, then the song that closes the album "One in a Million" created a massive scandal, it is doubtful if it would have survived in today's times, but also makes us think about where the line between creative freedom of expression and harm to another passes. In this song, Axl uses racist, chauvinistic and homophobic expressions. He tried to get out of it in all sorts of ways while he did not really apologize or provide an acceptable explanation but he created a lot of noise and criticism towards the band following this song. Even the album itself has an apology but it sounds pretty laconic.
The album cover is designed in the style of a cover page of a "Tabloid" with the caption showing the names of the songs with a short description, imaginary articles, and photos of the band members.
Listen to the album on: Spotify, Apple Music