Pitchfork

In 1987, Guns N' Roses released two of the best rock anthems ever recorded, marking the end of an era that had totally exhausted itself, consumed in a cloud of CFC's and indistinguishable power ballads. "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Sweet Child O' Mine" substantially updated the arena rock model as defined in the 1970s, using the tighter, radio-ready metal guidelines of AC/DC and Judas Priest. Not that the world is dramatically worse for Cinderella or Faster Pussycat, but Back in Black and British Steel, both released in 1980, should have ended hair metal before it began. Instead, hundreds of bar band bozos lived out their childhood KISS fantasies, contributing only a handful of disposable verse/chorus/verse pep rally mainstays. In retrospect, it seems impossible that such dinosaurs reigned for so long. Anyone who lived through the late-80s won't consider it a coincidence Guns N' Roses' Greatest Hits and the Schindler's List DVD were issued the same week. We must never forget.

Today, pop metal serves as bacchanalia, irony, and imaginary nostalgia. MTV sells the 80s as a kitschy, decadent daydream, dodging their complicity in creating the pop culture divide that made Britny Fox possible. By the time of Guns N' Roses, thanks in large part to the network's conservatism, there was a cultural civil war going on, and those who threw down pop metal's chalice had to dress the part to find each other in the crowd. And I'm not saying our lives were harder-- we didn't walk two miles in the snow to buy Cure records-- but pop culture was stuck in a 1970s frame of mind. Everything had to be so much more obvious to be understood-- including alternative music-- which is why it all looks like a dayglo renaissance faire in retrospect. But prior to the information age, you couldn't chart your own roadmap. You needed big, flashing signs pointing the way.

Think about the signs GN'R fans had to ignore. Forget the bloated, overproduced Aerosmith knockoffs, the bandanas, elfin leggings and abject misogyny: Slash wore a fucking top hat, and humorlessly. That's all you needed to know to figure it out, but millions of sheep the world over couldn't stand up and point the finger at their emperor's ridiculous wardrobe, banging their heads to "Paradise City", the most grandiose self-parody of stadium rock imaginable. After milking its admittedly superb guitar lead for nearly two minutes, a fucking whistle blows to let the herd know it's time to Rock. Not even Peter Pan could save these idiots.

Oh well, whatever. Nevermind.

Unlike the vast majority of their ridiculous fans and even more ridiculous peers, GN'R still matter, despite their hackneyed glam image; they weren't fluff, and though much of their "edge" owed to repellent sexism, self-absorbed drug abuse and unchecked homophobia, their best songs still resonate a decade later. The problem, relative to this collection, is that many of them aren't here.

What Axl Rose and Guns N' Roses stood for, and where they spoke from, is outlined in their album tracks, in the paranoiac "Out Ta Get Me", in "Used to Love Her", and in their most controversial recording, "One in a Million". Because Greatest Hits is limited to officially released singles, none of them appear here. "One in a Million" put GN'R in the parental advisory spotlight, and sparked major national debates on free speech: Millions of teenage fans, drawn to GN'R Lies by its smash single-- the topically harmless and quite beautiful ballad "Patience"-- were exposed to the lyrics, "Police and niggers/ Get out of my way," and, "Immigrants and faggots/ They make no sense to me." The ridiculous red herring offered on the album's cover was laughed at, and after an educational ass-kicking by the press, Rose sheepishly apologized, first claiming it was written as a "comedy," then insisting he was singing "in character." Nobody bought Axl's shallow excuses, and an older, wiser Rose finally conceded the track should be deleted from future pressings. It's still there.

Once GN'R made it, Axl didn't have much to complain about, and found himself in the unenviable position of having to actually write songs. The last gasp of 1970s album rock excess, 1991's Use Your Illusion was an artistic disaster, full of six and seven-minute "epics," mostly identical in construction, and stocked with ham-fisted, explicitly staged guitar heroics. Apart from "Get in the Ring", the most embarrassing admission of one man's insecurity in rock history, the harder tracks never mustered convincing anger, merely confusion, and the set's ballads are almost adorable in their childish imitation of Elton John and Freddie Mercury.

Yet "November Rain" comes closer to "Stairway to Heaven" than anything recorded in almost thirty years of slavish imitation. Perhaps the best and certainly the most popular breakup anthem since the glory days of arena rock, "November Rain" is Axl Rose's legacy, a legitimate, significant artistic accomplishment from, in his own words, "a small town white boy just tryin' to make ends meet."

So yes, there are hits here, and they are certainly Guns N' Roses' most popular and potent. The major issue with this set-- and in all likelihood the reason the band, at Axl's urging, tried to block its release-- is that, of the 14 cuts on Greatest Hits, five are making other people money, and two of those can hardly be called hits. An overproduced, meandering version of the Skyliners' doo-wop classic "Since I Don't Have You" charted on name only, and nothing so blatantly revealed the falsity of its deplorable parent covers record The Spaghetti Incident? like the theatrical, retarded rendition of Rocket from the Tombs'/Dead Boys' "Ain't It Fun", featuring Hanoi Rocks frontman Michael Monroe on backing vocals.

Monroe, perhaps the most interesting character associated with hair metal, lived with the Dead Boys' Stiv Bators in the early 80s, and along with Slash, doubtless introduced Axl-- never known for his musical acumen-- to this, if not all of the punk material they butchered. Recorded during the spiraling Use Your Illusion sessions, The Spaghetti Incident? is undeniable evidence that even the band knew they were out of gas. Rose later said, "We wanted to call the record Pension Fund, because we're kind of helping some of these guys pay the rent." While Axl had a point insofar as you can't live on credibility, the opposite is also true: It's not for sale.

That much is clear in Guns N' Roses' idiotic rendition of the Dylan standard, "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", featuring a gospel choir (who would've thought) and a bizarre attempt at philosophy via an answering machine message during its clap-along breakdown. "Live and Let Die", on the other hand, ranks among the very best covers on record, and goes a long way to buttress this insubstantial compilation's appalling last act.

Greatest Hits is strictly chronological, to a fault. Nothing could serve to distort Guns N' Roses' importance so much as their last single, a calamitous run through "Sympathy for the Devil", unquestionably the low point of the GN'R catalog (which is really saying something if you've heard their versions of The Damned's "New Rose" or Misfits' "Attitude"). What makes "Sympathy" (from the Interview with a Vampire soundtrack) all the more embarrassing is the fact that Guns N' Roses' alt-rock doppelganger, Jane's Addiction, made their name on a drugged-out cover of it on their heavily polished "live" debut, released just two months after Appetite for Destruction. (Another fun fact: Use Your Illusion came out the same month as Nevermind).

Guns N' Roses earned a place in rock history as the hair metal band good enough to excuse their indulgent stupidity, and exposed the effeminate commerciality that had neutered rock music, extracting the dying medium's last breath. All of that was accomplished with Appetite for Destruction, the biggest-selling debut of the 1980s, to this day a venerable slab of obnoxious rock and roll. Aiming to promote their interests with this limp catalog sampler, Geffen have shamelessly betrayed the band's legacy and diluted their best material, associating it with some of Guns N' Roses' biggest flops, both in commercial ("Civil War", "Yesterdays") and artistic terms. Ammunition for their myriad enemies, Greatest Hits reminds us that, for the brilliance of their debut album, Guns N' Roses recorded nearly as many covers as originals, and in the wake of their success, faltered mightily.