Perspective and reality are definitely not in cahoots. For example, I give you this week's artist, Guns N Roses. To me, and many of my school-aged brethren, they were THE band in the late eighties and early nineties. Everyone liked them. The metalheads and mainstreamers. The cool kids and the outcasts. The sportos, motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wasteoids, dweebies, and dickheads all adored them and thought them righteous dudes.
Wait, that's Ferris Bueller.
And, well, to be honest, I don't think Ferris would have been a GnR fan. He was probably one of those guys that only listened to bands that society had deemed unassailable, like The Beatles and (to a lesser extent) The Clash. He wouldn't associate with music that could be considered a sham or middling by a segment of his school, lest he find his coolness quotient drop by a percentage point or two. That mattered more than anything. He may have appeared to be rebellious, but he really only pushed the envelope to help himself, and otherwise led a very safe, very protected life.
Now, Cameron on the other hand, he probably was into weird shit like The Meat Puppets and Mojo Nixon and...um...never mind.
Got off on a bit of a tangent there. Sorry about that. Where were we?
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| Oh, right, the eighties |
Truth is, this band was a worldwide sensation and seemingly the number one musical act on the planet during that time. However, by a certain metric, they weren't nearly as successful as I had assumed. That measuring stick; weeks at number one.
Not even in 1988, when Sweet Child broke through, were they at the top for very long. For that song, their only (yes, only) chart topper, remained at the summit for just two weeks. And, while that is certainly an accomplishment, it doesn't come across quite as impressive when you peruse the "hot" list for the full year.
Let's do some research!
Over the course of fifty-two weeks in 1988, there were thirty-three different number ones. The stay in the penthouse for these tunes broke down thusly;
- Fifteen songs were on top for one week
- Sixteen songs were on top for two weeks
- One song for three weeks
- One song for four weeks.
- By this counter, the top song of 1988 was..."Roll with it" by Steve Winwood. Which, yuck.
Anyway, so, Guns n' Roses tied with fifteen other songs for the third-best performance of that year. Hey, bronze medal! That's nothing to sneeze at. I'm sure the rest of this allotment were remarkably clever and still-relevant and oh never mind let's get to the carnage.
- Sweet Child O' Mine was EXACTLY equal and no better or worse than any of the following hits:
- "Could've Been" by Tiffany
- "Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car" by Billy Ocean
- "A Groovy Kind of Love" by Phil Collins
- "Bad Medicine" by Bon Jovi
- And several others, including, uh, this
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| Don't worry, be happy that this song is just as good! |
That's...no. And do you know what's even less impressive? The guns guys were among the vast majority of artists that only managed a sole score over those twelve months. Meanwhile, four musicians had multiple ones, which makes them that much more successful! How much more?
- George Michael was four times better!
- Michael Jackson was three times better!
- Whitney Houston was two times better!
- Rick Astley was two times better!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!
Now...
Must I do it?
Yes, I'm afraid I must.
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| Maybe if the band were called Gingers and Stripes, it would have been bigger |
Where does that leave us? Should it leave us with a lesser impression of the legacy of Guns n' Roses? I wonder what my final thoughts will be.
FINAL THOUGHTS
On one hand. we all know this band. They were absolutely monsters of of their time, and few artists can ever hope to achieve the level of popularity they reached.
That said, they tied with a song by George Michael called "Monkey". Monkey?!?! I've legit never heard of that tune, and I'm pretty sure nobody else had. People must have liked George so much that they just voted him number one for the heck of it. And then, Axl and the boys barreled through and took their moment in the sun.
Until that miserly bastard Bobby McFerrin knocked them down.
What a weird point in history.
Regardless, Guns n' Roses will always be a big deal, with or without number one hits. And this was a great song! So good, in fact, that I failed to talk about it at all in this entry.
Higher praise cannot be bestowed.
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