Arguably, this could be labeled a "Xennial Anthem."

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NuovaFromNowhere@reddit

Pass on this one. Never was a big fan of GNR music and Axel Rose is an enormous bigot.

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FormerWrap1552@reddit

Stop being that person, if you say something like that, at least look up the truth first, wtf.

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FormerWrap1552@reddit

Faith in humanity restored by .0000000000000420

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Haha I’m honestly so glad to find out I was wrong in the assumption I made! I totally misunderstood and the truth is way cool. Axl Rose went through some tough stuff and worked to be a better person. That’s dope!

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WhiskeyAndNoodles@reddit

Axl rose is not and was never a bigot. There's never been less than one member in the band at any time that was black, and his views on politics from his Twitter are FAR left. He stuck up for his black backup singer roberta when James hetfield was tossng around the N word backstage in her presence in the very early 90s. She goes in depth on it on a few podcasts.

This is a terrible and uneducated take. Axl (not Axel) had issues from bipolar disorder for a long time, coupled with being a perfectionist in a band full of heroin abusers, but since he's been medicated, he's been ultra chill and every show starts on time and he's been rock solid mending bridges from his past. I guess we only care about mental health when it's not a musician we dislike.

All that aside I'll repeat again not only was he never a bigot, he's the exact opposite of one. And November Rain is one of the greatest songs of all time, whether you like the band or not. I'm not a huge queen fan (Axl happens to love Freddy mercury btw, a famously gay man) but I cam still acknowledge that Bohemian rhapsody is a masterpiece. So is this song.

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NuovaFromNowhere@reddit

I just remember there being some gross song with a line about immigrants and f-slurs from the 90s. I was like “nope” at that moment and stopped paying attention to the band. You’re right that my take was uneducated — I didn’t research Axl (not Axel, my bad) Rose or his specific politics. I heard him say bigoted stuff in a song and then tuned him out. So I stand corrected, thanks for the info! Still not a GNR fan, still not in love with this song, but it’s nice to know dude isn’t awful.

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WhiskeyAndNoodles@reddit

You're not wrong that there's a song with slurs in it. The song is about Axl coming from a small town in Indiana holding bigoted views, and how after spending some time in the big city, realized how ridiculous and backwards that viewpoint was. He's done interviews making that very clear, that he came off the bus thinking all these horrible things, and within a few short weeks realizing how wrong he was. Plus Slash is half black, he wouldn't have been playing that song if it was racist. That was never the intent, Axl is just a genuine artist that doesn't shy away from his emotions. But even then, the song has been removed from all presses of the album for several years now since as the band says "nobody really got what it was about".

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NuovaFromNowhere@reddit

I appreciate the clarification and background info. I definitely didn’t know. I think my knee-jerk response as a Black person and LGBT is to instantly retreat and nope out when I hear the slurs and bigoted opinions being expressed. Self-preservation, I guess. But I definitely don’t WANT anyone to be a bigot and I’m super glad to learn Axl is not one. I’m also glad to hear he got treatment for his bipolar that helps — that mental illness in particular is a ROUGH one. I watched it tear a beloved family member of mine apart and I know it can get people saying and doing some wild stuff. Thanks for schooling me and offering more balanced perspectives!

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WhiskeyAndNoodles@reddit

Of course. Thanks for being so understanding. I'm a big GnR fan as I'm sure you can tell and occasionally have this conversation with people online. Usually when I correct them either they never reply back or just call me a racist too or something.Very refreshing to see someone actually take it as a learning experience rather than an attack on their character for not knowing. Thats the way it should be.

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delibertine@reddit

the song has been removed from all presses of the album for several years now

Goddammit. I wish I knew where my original CD's disappeared to. One in a Million, despite that line which I never took seriously at all, a lot like Eminem's catalog, is such a beautiful tune from Axl's vocals to the guitar solo and now I likely won't find it

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WhiskeyAndNoodles@reddit

It does suck, it was a great tune in most other ways. But I mean, Axl is right that almost nobody "got it" without having to look into it, and that wasn't necessarily easy to do before the internet if you werent buying hard rock magazines. Even now if people heard it, 99% wouldn't look into it and just call him a bigot despite a world of evidence to the opposite. I get why they chose to remove it.

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FormerWrap1552@reddit

Listening to a tape of Use Your Illusion 2 on the bus in the morning with a walk man was peak reality.

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Ok_Researcher_9796@reddit

I like UYI2 better than the first one but November Rain was on the first one.

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FormerWrap1552@reddit

I was too young for UYI1. But I loved the hell out of the video.

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One-Earth9294@reddit

Granted it came out when I was 11 it was a formative album for me. Kind of like the nuke you shoot at the asteroid to alter its trajectory.

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Muderous_Teapot548@reddit

While this is a fantastic song, I feel like "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is a better Xennial anthem. It came out when the earliest of us were entering High School, like an honorary kick off.

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NoTown7618@reddit

i didn't play the piano but I bought the easy version sheet music of this song at sam goody (or whatever the cd place was on the second floor of the mall) and tried to learn it, haha

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mike-droughp@reddit

“Smells like teen spirit” wiped this song off MTV indefinitely.

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FormerWrap1552@reddit

Brother, this video came out AFTER Smell Like Teen Spirit. What exactly are you even trying to say lol.

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PhoneJazz@reddit

He is absolutely right that Teen Spirit changed the culture and music scene forever. Guns n Roses and the rest of their hair metal ilk were just gone after that.

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Bruichladdie@reddit

G'N'R were not hair metal. And both this song and Don't Cry, Sweet Child of Mine, etc, received healthy amounts of airplay after Nirvana made it big.

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PhoneJazz@reddit

Well yeah, on the radio, which had a place for everything. They disappeared from MTV, which was the true cultural barometer at the time.

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Bruichladdie@reddit

Ah, we didn't have MTV, I'm just going by what was on TV, and Guns 'N' Roses were still very visible.

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Farm-Alternative@reddit

Yeh we collectively ditched GnR for Nirvana. As much as I like Kurt and Nirvana, I kind of feel bad for GnR when I look back and think about it.

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Horse_Dad@reddit

What are they tuning a harp?

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bluemitersaw@reddit

My older cousin got me into music. I followed his lead with heavy metal, hair metal, speed metal... Just as it was all dying!!!! I caught maybe 6 months of the head bangers ball on MTV before it got cancelled.

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velvetneenrabbit@reddit

Slash stepping up onto the piano was a formative moment in this young girl's life.

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Alive_Ad_2065@reddit

Got my crush to dance with me to this song at our 8th grade dance. I don’t think she knew how long it was.

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taleofbenji@reddit

Hopefully you were able to maintain that erection!

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rosstein33@reddit

Always saved this one for that one special lady!

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PatheticMeat@reddit

gif

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Crans10@reddit

My class song was Long November by the Counting Crows.

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YinzaJagoff@reddit

They used to play this on the local rap/hip hop station in Chicago back in the day. No joke.

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_shaftpunk@reddit

My gf had a teacher that assigned the class to bring a cd in with their favorite song to play as a “get to know you” kind of thing. They would stand in front of the class while it played and then talk about it for a bit. She chose November Rain and then while standing there realized how excruciatingly long it is.

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Similar-Sir-2952@reddit

No

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PhoneJazz@reddit

Agreed. I’d argue that a “generational anthem” would a) have a powerful, relevant message, and b) come out during our teenage or young adult years. Most of us Xennials hadn’t even entered puberty when this song was released in 1991. I was 9.

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Ok_Researcher_9796@reddit

I was 14.

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bluemitersaw@reddit

Same!

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itsmestanard@reddit

Yeah, I agree with this. For Aussie Xennials, I'd say our anthem is https://youtu.be/i_reH8k80j8?si=fXro_FMS4skh3dCi

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Farm-Alternative@reddit

This was massive for me being born in 80, I was 11 and the GnRs "use your illusion" albums carried through my teenage years. Although I kind of feel bad because by 94-95 it was all grunge from there.

Even though GnR got me through those early teenage years we all just collectively abandoned them the second grunge came around.

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draculasbloodtype@reddit

This was on MTV way too much. I liked it at first until they started playing it every half hour. Then it was like, Fuck, AGAIN? Only topped by My heart will go on when Titanic came out. Holy shit. I was working at a comic book store at the time that had a TV by the counter and that song was on every 15 goddamn minutes!

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Therealfern1@reddit

For anyone who hasn’t heard it. Theres a band of Canadian hillbillies that do great covers. Their November Rain is incredible!

https://youtu.be/fvrogxMHmlg?si=K9pg_6U-0NzmUToG

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strangecabalist@reddit

Also brought up some Bridge City Sinners (who I love unreasonably)!

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Spider-1205@reddit

That was dope TY

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Fit_Addition7137@reddit

Are Xennials really claiming GnR?

Seems like some Gen-X/Boomer trash to me. All that glam hair rocker mess was around when I was in middle school. People with mullets and Camaros listened to them.

I guess I've always aligned grunge/alternative/numetal with Xennials, and hair metal and yacht rock stuff with GenX.

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Spider-1205@reddit

This was the end for that shit lol.... T2 soundtrack was the last thing GnR that I fcuked with.... then my eyes were opened lol

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IceSmiley@reddit

On AEW Collision this week they played that song and did a recap of the past month of wrestling! AEW owner Tony Khan is a fellow Xennial and I know for a fact he's on Reddit all the time 🤣

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Therealfern1@reddit

And then, in one of their very next videos, Axl Rose went swimming with dolphins, and it’s been all downhill from that point

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socialcommentary2000@reddit

Yes, yes I did watch the entirety of this after pressing play without noticing the time going by.

You know, this video and the Estranged were basically the swan songs for the bombastic stadium hair metal era. Like, the video for Estranged dropped and then hair metal died almost overnight. Like, it happened so fast you would be forgiven for getting whiplash. Overnight you went from this and the more earthy and dark Metallica being on the charts to all PNW/Seattle grunge.

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gooch_norris_@reddit

I don’t know shit about shit but I do think “hard to hold a candle in the cold November rain” is fucking sublime poetry. It’s got alliteration, rhythm, internal rhyme, paints a picture with figurative language that is easy to understand on the literal and rhetorical level… great line great song

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purdueAces@reddit

Some of GnR music, especially later stuff, is akin to noise pollution, but this song is an absolute masterpiece from start to finish.

Middle school dance memories. Nostalgic and awkward.

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Milksteak_To_Go@reddit

I remember not knowing if we're supposed to keep slow dancing or not when the song goes hard at the end. Same issue every time the DJ would drop Stairway.

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R0ck_Slide@reddit (OP)

Yeah, but what a time to be alive. True, we were middle-school virgins, but we were already slow dancing to power ballads like this one. That shit will shape you for the rest of your life.

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Secure-Force-9387@reddit

This is seriously one of my all-time FAVORITE songs

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StayGoldenPonyBoy71@reddit

Duff bailing Slash out with the ring. The best.

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ChrisAplin@reddit

Solidly Gen X.

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Ms_ChiChi_Elegante@reddit

I agree, I feel like this was before our time.

My brother was born in '75 and would claim it before I would

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Manck0@reddit

I watched about half of that and thought "The 90s were goddamned wild."

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dragonfly_perch@reddit

Idk about an anthem, but my teenage self decided that would be my wedding dress when I got married some day. 😁

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Additional-Local8721@reddit

I hate this song. I hate all rock ballads. I listen to rock to get pumped, not to cry. This is only my opinion and I under its not everyone's opinion. If you like rock ballads, that's great and I'm glad you like the music you love. It's just not for me.

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BulimicMosquitos@reddit

Yeah, I was gonna say the same, lol. I hope they also didn’t play Good Riddance by Green Day.

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ToothAccomplished@reddit

My bf went to see them during a November concert, and it started raining as they were playing this song! He got some great photos of slash too