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Friday 14 March 2014

When the Wailing Starts...

slash & myles kennedy live in rome
slash & myles kennedy live in rome (Photo credit: luigioss)
My ear-worm for the past few weeks: "You Could be Mine" by Guns 'N Roses. I am being very uncharitable it is just that it took a lot for me to admit that I liked some of Guns 'n Roses stuff. The same could be said about The Cure. Both bands were hugely influential for a lot of the right reasons in rock music, but there was something about their front men that pissed me off. There was also the huge adulation they both received that hit me at the wrong time in my developing music taste. I liked the edgier bands and both seemed to be too close to pop for my taste. Of course, as I grew up into adulthood I had to face up to the hypocrisy and put my hand up to really, really liking a few each band's songs. This particular song is a definite favourite that grew on me.


"You Could be Mine" was heavily wrapped up in the promotion of James Cameron's long awaited sequel to his low budget science fiction thriller classic, "The Terminator". Perhaps being mindful of the amazing genre-changing job he had pulled off with his sequel to Ridley Scott's horror, "Alien", the previous decade, Cameron had few qualms about taking his original bleak cyberpunk suspense film and creating a teen-targeted action adventure sequel. As observers have wryly noted, the 1980s was full of films that were rated for adult viewers and yet marketed to much younger audiences. Prime examples include the clever black satires on consumerism, "Gremlins" and "Robocop".