Published on Mar 19, 1998
It was bad enough that heavy metal bad boys Guns N’ Roses took
more time between albums than it takes an elephant to have a baby –
but even the diehard fans were left scratching their heads with the
1993 cover album
The Spaghetti Incident?
After unleashing two albums of originals (save for two songs I
can remember), Axl Rose and crew turned back to the music that
shaped them and did it with their own flavor mixed in. They needn’t
have bothered.
This album became more famous not for the twelve tracks it
credits, but the cover of Charles Manson’s “Look At Your Game,
Girl,” that Rose tacked on the end of the album. You know you’re in
pretty deep dog shit when a track like this is a freaking
high point to an album. I still don’t understand why the
band would choose to include a song like this… count it as yet
another bean-ball between the eyes that Guns N’ Roses had been
lobbing at people’s heads their whole career.
But the bulk of
The Spaghetti Incident? shows how sloppy this band had
become since the breakthrough success of
Appetite For Destruction. Their cover of The Skyliners’
“Since I Don’t Have You” almost sounds like a garage band – the
tightness this band once had was gone. (And while I am no prude
about language, I can’t defend adding the word “fuck” to an
almost-40 year old song, I don’t care
who is performing it.) For that matter, their half-ass cover
of Soundgarden’s “Big Dumb Sex” (leading out of T-Rex’s “Buick
Makane”) hardly stays close to the original – wasn’t that the whole
point of this project?
Rose’s vocals make it sound like he really didn’t want to do
this project (maybe this is why members of the band have been
dropping faster than overweight people on a treadmill) – the sole
exception being on the cover of Nazareth’s “Hair Of The Dog”. When
it comes to covers, I still prefer Britny Fox’s (remember them?)
cover, but Guns N’ Roses almost captures the essence of it. It’s
depressing when your
bassist (Duff McKagan) does a better job as lead singer than
your actual lead singer. McKagan shines on “New Rose,” “Attitude,”
and “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around A Memory”.
So the question remains: What the hell was
with this album, anyway? It wasn’t a contractual obligation
album, so far as I can tell; Geffen is still looking forward to a
new studio album from Guns N’ Roses. However, the way things have
been going for the band, I think there’s a better shot of Elvis and
Jim Morisson forming a supergroup and touring in 2000 than G N’ R
coming out with anything more. (Trivia question: Another metal band
released an album of punk covers, and has since disappeared. Can
you name them?)
I would dare to call
The Spaghetti Incident? as a studio goof gone terribly
wrong. This one shouldn’t have seen light outside of the vaults. If
Guns N’ Roses wants to screw around in the studio like this, that’s
fine, it’s their money. But why should we have to suffer through
the end result?
Geffen has recently re-released this disc in their economy line.
It’s still overpriced –
The Spaghetti Incident? is to heavy metal and Guns N’
Roses’s past what Alpo is to fine cuisine.