“The Spaghetti Incident?”

Album Cover

“The Spaghetti Incident?” is the fifth Guns N’ Roses Album. 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. 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.

The title is an in-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.

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.

The album was released shortly after the conclusion of the Use Your Illusion World Tour which had lasted until early 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.

Track Listing
1. “Since I Don’t Have You” (by The Skyliners)
2. “New Rose” (by The Damned)
3. “Down on the Farm” (by U.K. Subs)
4. “Human Being” (by New York Dolls)
5. “Raw Power” (by The Stooges)
6. “Ain’t It Fun” (by The Dead Boys)
7. “Buick Makane” (by T. Rex)
“Big Dumb Sex” (by Soundgarden)
8. “Hair of the Dog” (by Nazareth)
9. “Attitude” (by The Misfits)
10. “Black Leather” (by The Professionals)
11. “You Can’t Put Your Arms Around a Memory” (by Johnny Thunders)
12. “I Don’t Care About You” (by Fear)
“Look at Your Game, Girl” (hidden track)