2006.12.12 - GunsNRoses.com - 'Jungle' Wins Top Honor In Blender

'JUNGLE' WINS TOP HONOR IN BLENDER

By Doug Miller / GunsNRoses.com

The song that opens every night's set on the current Guns N' Roses tour is the one that started it all for the band that broke out of Los Angeles in the late 1980s.
And now that song has won a unique honor.

The current edition of Blender magazine rates "Welcome To The Jungle" as the best rock song ever written about L.A., topping a list of 25 heavyweights that includes such radio staples as N.W.A.'s "Straight Outta Compton," Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'," War's "Low Rider," Fleetwood Mac's "Gold Dust Woman," Sheryl Crow's "All I Wanna Do," Jane's Addiction's "Jane Says" and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Under The Bridge."

Blender's short description of the essence of "Welcome To The Jungle" reads, "Small-town kid hits streets of Los Angeles, smells teen spirit, vomit, blood."

Here's the full excerpt detailing why it was chosen as the best rock song ever written about the City of Angels.

"Just when Mötley Crüe were toasting the joys of Sunset titty bars, this hurricane of a song swept in from the darker side of the Strip: a sneering gutter-howl from ill-nocturnal Hollywood, a place where 'if you got the money, honey, we got your disease.' Axl Rose knew whereof he screeched. Living broke in a Sunset crash pad dubbed "Hell House," the band spent years on the lower rungs of the local economy — they scammed girlfriends, some sold drugs — blending outsider perspective (Indiana-born Rose was the hayseed transplant he played in the "Jungle" video) with seamy images they collected as genuine L.A. lowlifes. The song's intensity implies that their jungle was a glimpse into an apocalyptic future."

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