Guns N' Roses - The Spaghetti Incident?

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NME.COM feature on Guns N' Roses - The Spaghetti Incident? album including album review, artwork, tracks, listen now, tour dates, discography and more.

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Release date: 20 March 2006

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Guns N' Roses - The Spaghetti Incident?: Wikipedia Album Entry

"The Spaghetti Incident?" is the fifth album by hard rock band Guns N' Roses. The album is unique for the band, consisting entirely of cover versions, mostly of punk and glam rock songs of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Many of the tracks were recorded with original Guns N' Roses guitarist Izzy Stradlin during the Use Your Illusion I and II sessions and then were later re-recorded by Gilby Clarke. Those tracks were previously intended to be included in a combined Use Your Illusion album, consisting of three (or possibly even four) discs, instead of the two separate discs they ended up being.

In 1992, the band prepared to release the leftover cover tracks as an EP, with then-Guns N' Roses guitarist Gilby Clarke replacing Stradlin's guitar tracks. They later decided on making the album a full release and recorded several more tracks for it.

Then-Guns N' Roses bassist Duff McKagan sings on many of the album's tracks and Hanoi Rocks frontman (and Axl Rose's idol) Michael Monroe appears on "Ain't It Fun" as a guest vocalist.

This was the last Guns N' Roses album to feature lead guitarist Slash, bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Matt Sorum as well as the only album to feature Gilby Clarke.

"The Spaghetti Incident?" debuted at #4 on the Billboard 200, selling about 190,000 albums in its first week of release, significantly less than their previous releases.

Album title
The title is an inside-joke referring to a food fight between Axl Rose and Steven Adler involving spaghetti. Much was made of this food fight during Adler's resolution lawsuit with the band in 1993, in which Adler's attorney referred to it as "the Spaghetti Incident". The meaning was explained by drummer Matt Sorum in a 1994 interview with Much Music and confirmed by Slash in his autobiography, Slash.

The title may also be a play on the title of the 1991 film The Linguini Incident.

During a discussion between Rose, Slash and the album's cover designer in the "Making of Estranged" video, it is made clear that the correct form of the title is within quotation marks and with a question mark.

Original release
The album was released shortly after the conclusion of the Use Your Illusion World Tour which had lasted until mid 1993. The vinyl copy of the album was released in clear plastic orange, and the CD was released with color designs and markings: black concentric rings around the outer edge, and an indigo and blood-red depiction of an evil jack-o-lantern eating spaghetti out of a hollowed-out, decapitated head in the center, which would later be changed (in the 1997 reissue) to simply a plain silver colored CD.

Reception
In its first week of sales "The Spaghetti Incident?" sold about 190,000 copies and debuted at number #4 on the Billboard 200, selling far less than their other releases, the album has failed to match the success of any other Guns N' Roses album, it did not increase the popularity with in the band, most reviews of the album were rated average saying "the covers are just of mostly punk songs that really aren't that good". Reasons contributed the lower sales was the lack of promotion the band had done for the album, they weren't performing or touring, the other members were busy focusing on side projects, the first two singles were radio only singles, the third single Since I Don't Have You was the only single from the album where a music video was made.

[bgControversy
Despite protests from Rose's bandmates, an unadvertised cover of Charles Manson's song "Look at Your Game, Girl" was included on the album at his request. The CD release gave no track number to the song - it could only be found by listening through the dead air left after the last documented track on the album, on track 12. In early 2000, Rose said that he would remove "Look at Your Game, Girl" from re-issues of the album, citing that critics and popular media misinterpreted his interest in Manson and that a misunderstanding public no longer deserved to hear it. However, the song is still present on the album, and in recent re-issues, "Look at Your Game, Girl" has been added as a separate, 13th track.

Live
The first track, "Since I Don't Have You" was performed a few times as an intro to songs Sweet Child O' Mine or Paradise City in 1992 and 1993. "Down on the Farm" was performed once in its full length during the 1990 performance in the Farm Aid IV show it was also played a few times during the Chinese Democracy Tour in 2006. The band performed "Hair of the Dog" once in 1988, and another time in 1990, during the only known GAK (band featuring members of Guns, Metallica and Skid Row) performance. "Attitude" was performed frequently during the Use Your Illusion world tour, and Duff still plays it in Loaded and his solo career. Other songs played live by him are: "New Rose", "You Can't Put your Arm Around a Memory" and "Raw Power". The others songs were never played live by Guns N' Roses, but might have been played by some of the members' side projects, like Matt Sorum's supergroup Camp Freddy, that plays cover versions of famous songs.

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