Every good song should always come back to the music. Even though there may be a million ways to use music through the use of different cultural milestones, there’s nothing that compares to the power of a great melody that can touch people’s souls without anything else. While most artists had grown familiar with the method of playing music directly to the people, something changed with the arrival of MTV and the music video.
As one of the most popular radio stations in the world started to become everyone’s television, fans flocked to see the latest videos from their favourite artists. In one fell swoop, it was as much about how an artist dressed and conducted themselves as it was about the music in front of them. Considering how much money could be spent and subsequently profited from a music video, though, this meant that labels invested a lot of their budget in order to achieve the most ambitious pieces of art they could.
Although most rock stars didn’t have to make too many bold changes to their music, some of the biggest pop starlets were about subverting people’s expectations in those few minutes onscreen. Following their lead, the sounds of glam metal began to take over the world as one of the most successful parts of the channel, with fans flocking to see the latest videos by Poison or Cinderella.
After going on for a few years too long, the hair metal revolution was quickly shown the door once Guns N’ Roses came into the picture. Playing stripped-down rock and roll, nothing about these gutter rats was contrived, being just as interested in making songs about their lives off of Sunset Strip.
Once they tasted that first success, Axl Rose decided he would pull out all the stops for the next album, making some of the most dramatic Guns N’ Roses songs on tracks like ‘November Rain’. Although most of the band’s videos tended to be fairly straightforward, this era of the group brought ambitious storylines that were hard to follow if you weren’t paying attention.
By the time they got to making the video for ‘Estranged’, Rose had pulled out all the stops. Sounding like a dramatic theme song to a heavy metal version of The Godfather, Rose took it upon himself to make outrageous demands as a rock star, featuring a luxury yacht in the video and up-close shots of him swimming amongst dolphins.
To this day, Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Estranged’ remains one of the biggest productions in MTV history, costing $5million to create. When adjusted for inflation, that’s the equivalent of $10million going into one single for the album.
For the rest of the band, that was just a drop in the bucket for the rest of the tour. Going around the world twice, Rose was pulling out all the stops for their backstage antics, occasionally keeping the crowd waiting for him to go on and hosting lavish parties backstage that no one else in the band wanted.
Eventually, the band had moved too far away from their roots that they couldn’t put up with their singer anymore, with everyone except Rose leaving Guns N’ Roses to pursue solo careers. Rose may have had a good vision for what he wanted the band to be, but swimming with dolphins clearly indicated how far away they had strayed from their street roots.
