10 Awesome Openings In Terrible Songs
4. Sweet Child O' Mine - Guns N' Roses)
Sweet Child O' Mine is one of Guns N's Roses most famous songs much to the disdain of guitarist Slash who later claimed, "[The song] turned into a huge hit and now it makes me sick. I mean, I like it, but I hate what it represents."
It easy to understand why Slash hates it. The song in itself is mediocre, it's boring, tedious, nothing special especially when compared to their other stuff. Annoyingly, it's what they are known for, it brought a whole host of new fans to the band who then went on to all collectively sing the song at school discos, bachelorette parties and baseball tournaments.
Sweet Child O' Mine might be a clear example of pandering to the masses but let's not take away from the fact that the intro to the song is one of the most important pieces of the music of all time. The introduction is in a class of its own, it's like a reinvention of music, a master class in extraordinary riffery and guitar sounds. Without those few bars at the beginning, we wouldn't have the likes of Muse, The Strokes and Fall Out Boy (although we could probably do without them).
Slash has a lot to answer for.