Making Taste

The wasteland of mainstream rock music must be driving Robert Hilburn to desperation if he considers Guns N’ Roses a “taste maker” (“Taste Makers,” Dec. 25).

And the comparison of rock star impersonator-actor Axl Rose to pop-culture legends James Dean and Jim Morrison is laughable.

Guns N’ Roses is nothing more than a convincing nostalgia act supported by a generation whose main cultural contribution is the rental limousine party. This time the rock nostalgia industry serves gluttonous consumers spiced-up, microwaved left-over sounds from the early 1970s.

The most interesting (and unexplored) part of the article is that eight years ago Axl Rose came to Los Angeles from Indiana. In previous years, pop culture trends originated on the coasts. After trends became commercialized and predictable, they slowly crept inward to the heartland. Evidently Los Angeles’ mainstream rock scene has become so stagnant that characters from the heartland can hop into the scene and fit right in.

The most positive thing I can say for Guns N’ Roses is that their catchy reformulated style satisfies their audience’s need for fantasy-danger and escapism in an increasingly safe, boring, and controlled musical form.

When rock critics start recognizing such bands as leaders, it confirms that mainstream rock has become as stale as other post-mortem musical styles such as blues and country-Western.

For the sake of historical accuracy, how about comparing Guns N’ Roses to a band closer in looks, style and social insignificance: Black Oak Arkansas. Remember them? None of their albums sold 6 million copies, but then MTV’s global marketing scheme hadn’t yet been masterminded.

CLAUDE MACRI

Santa Barbara