Chock full of unsavory subject matter and explicit lyrics, etc., etc, etc…so don’t say we didn’t warn you

This 1993 album is Guns N’ Roses’ most interesting record, if not their best. It was poorly received (hair bands were out of style after the ascendancy of grunge) and the band was disintegrating – this was GNR’s last album.

The title is an in-joke that the band might never have revealed. (graceness tells me that during an interview, Slash let slip that the title was an allusion to a lawsuit against them, but didn't elaborate. ) The album is a cover album of (almost) all old punk songs, not exactly a move of shrewd marketing genius for a band that was once the most popular hard rock band in the world, and alienating to fans of the more ballad-like radio-friendly tunes of Use Your Illusion.

When it first came out, I loved it. Even if Axl Rose didn’t completely capture the spirit and the rage of the originals, I could still feel the power and the energy of those songs. It was for many people their first real exposure to punk. Heady stuff for an undergraduate gradually exploring music that never comes near the radio.

In another brilliant public relations move, one of the tracks was a song penned by Charles Manson. In the sixties, Manson was a songwriter in search of a record deal. The Beach Boys even used a Manson song, but that was in his pre-psycho days, of course. The song, "Look At Your Game, Girl" is a hidden track at the end of the album, unlisted and uncredited in the album notes. When the family values set got wind of this, Guns N’ Roses once again became a target of ritual condemnation from the conservative media.

1. Since I Don't Have You (The Skyliners) - 4:18
2. New Rose (The Damned) - 2:38
3. Down on the Farm (The UK Subs) - 3:23
4. Human Being (The New York Dolls) - 4:32
5. Raw Power (The Stooges) - 3:10
6. Ain't It Fun (The Dead Boys) - 4:59
7. Buick MacKane (T. Rex) - 2:37
8. Hair of the Dog (Nazareth) - 3:57
9. Attitude (The Misfits) - 1:29
10. Black Leather (Steve Jones and the Sex Pistols) - 3:45
11. You Can't Put Your Arms Around a Memory (Johnny Thunders) - 3:34
12. I Don't Care About You (Fear) - 2:03
13. Look At Your Game, Girl – hidden track
Tregoweth informs me that the Manson song was removed from later pressings of the album. It was supposedly made as a hidden track in the first place so that they wouldn't appear to be glorifying Manson.

I don't think Guns 'n Roses considered an album of punk covers a bad move; they considered themselves (and the critics considered them) one of the most punk of metal bands. Appetite For Destruction certainly stood out as different from the Poison and Whitesnake that was the state of popular heavy metal before its release. This album was a return to all of their roots after songs like "November Rain" which was Axl Rose's baby (before it was even recorded, he was quoted in a magazine as saying "If it doesn't get recorded right, I'll quit the business") and not really what the whole band wanted.

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