The aptly named “Better,” which peaked at No. Rose’s brilliantly brutal delivery here proved he could still out-snarl both his peers and the countless frontmen who followed - including Trent Reznor, whose Nine Inch Nails, in turn, seemingly inspired this brazen mix of industrial rock riffs and squelchy electronics. But with the title track, “There Was A Time” and, most notably, “Better,” it nevertheless spawned several songs worthy of joining the Guns N’ Roses canon. 72 on the Hot 100, this short but bittersweet farewell to the past (“Yesterday’s got nothin’ for me/Old pictures that I’ll always see/Time just fades the pages in my book of memories”) remains one of the band’s most underrated ballads.Ģ008’s Chinese Democracy was never going to justify its torturously long conception.
Even the video, a simple warehouse performance filmed in black and white, abandoned the sense of the epic. And its vintage blues-rock sound was the most straight-forward thing across both. It was the only track on the second volume to clock in under four minutes, for one thing. The reflective “Yesterdays” undoubtedly brought some much-needed respite from the pomp and grandeur of the Use Your Illusion era.
