Axl Rose vs. Bon Jovi: Which came out better after the ’80s rivalry?
Axl was asked. And he replied, “You mean Jon Bon Jovi? Oh yes, I saw them. His work that scared me the most was the last one, the one with the happy face.”
The reference was for the album “Have a nice day”. But in reality, Rose’s conclusion gave us much more to understand than that initial insult: “What bothers me the most is that they were always like perfect boys. They are clowns who will never change.”
It was the 80s and glam music was trapped in show business. After the revolutionary 60s and the chaotic 70s, the big industry had seen the business in rock, attracted it from the margins to its ranks and thought about how to indoctrinate it to make it, which had been born countercultural, simply more money. Bon Jovi represented all that; Axl had chosen the word clown carefully, not from the empty insult, but from its true meaning: someone to entertain.
Bon Jovi, who knew how to read between the lines, avoided controversy: “Does that mean that we make people happy? Then… Thank you!” Guns N’ Roses came from poor cities in the U.S. They saw in art possibilities for change. For them, who were looking for a way to survive in a very hard life, rock was not just a show to entertain people while life went on.
This dispute has always existed in rock. Even in later decades it also occurred with force. But that initial impulse between the two artists faded over time, when Bon Jovi’s fame passed. Well into the 90s, Guns N’ Roses, after becoming professional as no one would have thought just years before, was disarmed between the comings and goings of Axl Rose. Man was torn between all his ideas: over-demandingness, divorces, the incessant pursuit of elusive happiness.
The third decade of the 21st century finds them far, far away: Guns may not have changed the world, but they still tour, attracting rebellious and big boys who still believe in the improbable revolutionary capacity of rock. Bon Jovi is content to play for their cogenerationals. Jon looks very handsome and virile even at 57 years old, Axl is a chubby guy who screams as best he can. GN’R is considered one of the great bands of all times; Bon Jovi appears in melancholic eighties programs. Who was better off?
