10 Hard Rock Songs That Almost Killed Great Albums
1. My World - Guns N Roses
The Use Your Illusion era of Guns N Roses was a beautiful mess from the moment it started. Looking to go even more ambitious than their debut Appetite for Destruction, this double album featured every single element of Guns pushed to the absolute brink, with street punk bangers put alongside piano ballads. Then again, a warts-and-all Guns N Roses project does reach a low point towards the end.
Even though both respective installments of Use Your Illusion have their own distinct character, you really feel like the band is running out of gas once you get to the end of Vol. II. Whereas the first album ended with a cinematic epic on Coma, we come out of this record with a revision of their smash hit Don't Cry, complete with different lyrics. That may seem a bit anticlimactic...but unfortunately they are not finished just yet.
Spanning just over a minute, My World is one of the biggest left turns these guys have ever made, with Axl Rose hopping on an industrial backing track and making empty threats towards the listener. Compared to the other amazing tracks from this record, this pulls you out of the experience so hard you could get audio whiplash. There's been an urban legend that Axl was on magic mushrooms when recording this. Makes sense when you consider that you would probably have to be blitzed out of your mind to think that this was worth including on an album.