Guns N' Roses formed in 1985 in Hollywood Los Angeles California. The band currently consists of Axl Rose, Ron Thal, DJ Ashba, Richard Fortus, Tommy Stinson, Dizzy Reed, Chris Pitman, Frank Ferrer. The band have recorded six albums and had numerous changes in their line up.
Guns N' Roses early image was youthful, cool, rebellious, rockers which is quite obvious shown in the dress sense in their early videos, the band all have long out of control hair, tattoos, sunglasses and wear colourful light clothes or leather jackets.
Guns N' Roses have developed their image from being youthful to being heavily involved with alcohol and drugs. They are viewed as a poor example to follow. The band have made this new image for themselves by turning up late for performances such as at Reading Festival 2010, they turned up an hour late and then complained and publicly hit out at the organisers for turning the power off at the end of their allocated time slot. The media did not give the band any sympathy and they received alot of negative publicity, they were also bottled off stage at a gig in Dublin not long after their headline slot at The Reading and Leeds Festival. The band do not feature as characters in their videos however do appear performing the songs as most of their music videos are performance based Rather than narrative.
Guns N' Roses have plenty of photo's with the whole band featured, this shows that there are no individuals within the band although we know that Axl Rose likes most of the attention. Most of the attention now days is focused on Axl Rose as the band has had many members through the years. The only style the record company has used to sell the band is by having the band to have crazy long hair which has been made to look out of control using hairspray, alot of it!, they all were quite tight clothing, usually a leather jacket is being worn in most of the bands photos, this is to distinguish that the band are rebellious. The band are never caught smiling in any of their photos together, this is most likely to show attitude.
The camera angles used in the bands videos focus alot on former Rose, Slash as he is renown for his guitar skills, alot of the shots used would be at a low angle, looking up at him, whilst he was playing guitar or doing a solo part of a song. this is used to reinforce the bands image as slash wears a top hat and sunglasses, the sunglasses most likely to hide his eyes and the top hat was his signature item of clothing.
The bands cultural significance has to be their sex appeal, this comes across from the tight leather trousers, jackets and usually ripped shirts. this also comes across in the bands posturing, alot of the time the band appear looking like cool and tough which adds to their sex appeal.
The band has come from being cool, youthful, rebellious rockers to bad examples for anyone to follow, as they are viewed by in the media at the current time. the band have managed to change their image by being poor role models throughout there history and due to that they have lost sex appeal and their 'cool'.
