Possibly the finest debut album ever, Appetite for Destruction is one of my all-time favorites. It came rushing out of the Southern California hard rock scene like a speeding Nightrain. The first time I heard of GNR was their maiden appearance on Headbangers Ball in the Fall of 1987. I’d spent a night out with my college roommates and as we were wont to do at the time flipped on the Ball as we drunkenly gorged ourselves on cheap, fast-food, late-night fare.
The band were kind of snotty during the show acting above it all, as if they really didn’t want to be there and they were doing the host, Adam “Smasher” (Asher Benrubi) a favor by gracing him with their presence. The interview segments between videos were awkward as I remember. The guys didn’t really show any enthusiasm until Adam invited them to “redecorate” the studio. The band understood redecorate to mean destroy the set. All in good fun!
Regardless of their personality quirks, attitude or anything else nobody could deny their song “Welcome to the Jungle” was a fresh-sounding masterpiece. We all loved it, and that album became a massive part of the soundtrack of that school year and well into the next. Appetite was a gigantic seller and almost everybody I knew loved it. It was everywhere for a couple of years.
The hits are the hits, and they are amazing. But my favorites are “Nightrain”, “Mr. Brownstone”, “Rocket Queen”, and “Anything Goes”. The last two comprise a helluva closing pair. They cook and burn.
I revisit Appetite multiple times each year and I expect it will be a regular part of my listening forever. For my money it is one of the greatest rock records ever. My rating:
Ranking the album #61 on a 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list, Rolling Stone offered that, “G n’ R left all other Eighties metal bands in the dust, and they knew it too. ‘A lot of rock bands are too fucking wimpy to have any sentiment or any emotion,’ Rose said. ‘Unless they’re in pain.’”1
Rolling Stone’s 1988 Yearbook issue had a go at explaining GNR’s success:
“There is nothing like success in the face of extreme prejudice, and no other band this year, metal or otherwise, mocked the music establishment's utter lack of street cred and woeful misreading of fan psychology as well as Metallica and Guns n' Roses. . . "And Justice For All" went platinum within day of release, with virtually no commercial airplay. And while AOR pooh-bahs hemmed and hawed about putting "Sweet Child o' Mine" in rotation, Guns n' Roses T-shirts outnumbered Springsteen and Bon Jovi shirts at least two to one on Jersey boardwalks this summer. Programmers slept, critics yawned, but the kids voted with their allowances in the only interesting electing this year.”2
Spin magazine summed up GNR’s creative destruction wrought by Appetite: “Shrieking incubus Axl Rose and Co. blew up blow-dried L.A. hair metal with the meanest, slinkiest blues since the Rolling Stones didn’t suck.”3
“The debut from Guns N' Roses was a watershed moment in '80s rock that chronicled every vice of Los Angeles led by the lye-voiced Axl Rose and a legendary, switchblade-sharp band.”4 According to Pitchfork anyway.
In 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Bruno MacDonald wrote:
“Guns N’ Roses outshone contemporaries like Faster Pussycat because not since Van Halen had such a charismatic cocktail of characters (notably mood-swinging Axl and Muppet riff master Slash) invested their clichés with such vigor; because the cover alone - Robert Williams’ painting of a robo-rape - caused uproar (hence its replacement by the cross tattoo of Bill White Jr, and Andy Engell); and because MTV drip-fed “Welcome To The Jungle” and U.S. No. 1 “Sweet Child O’ Mine” into Young America. Oh, and because the songs are stunning. Most, despite the group writing credit, originated with (Izzy) Stradlin. Believing ‘rock ‘n’ roll in general has just sucked a big fucking dick since the Pistols,’ he revived the raunch that distinguished GNR’s ancestors Aerosmith from their contemporaries.”5
Enjoy and listen without prejudice. Cheers!
Prime Playlist: 257. Appetite for Destruction by Guns N' Roses
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For details about this project, read this: Project 1001 Albums
Charts
• Peak on Billboard 200 album chart: #16
• Singles on Billboard Hot 100 chart: “Sweet Child O’ Mine”, #1 (2 weeks); “Paradise City”, #5; “Welcome to the Jungle”, #7; “Nightrain”, #93 7
• RIAA certification: 18x Platinum | September 23, 2008 8
Released on September 23, 1991. Here’s what else was happening:
Pop Culture
• Number one song: “Alone” by Heart9
• Number one album: Whitney by Whitney Houston10
• Number one movie: Robocop by Paul Verhoeven11
• Most watched TV programs: The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers, Murder, She Wrote, The Golden Girls12
• NYT bestseller, fiction: Misery by Stephen King13
• NYT bestseller, non-fiction: The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom14
Some other albums released that month15
Sport
• Jul 19 British Open Men's Golf, Muirfield: Briton Nick Faldo wins his first major title, by 1 shot from Paul Azinger and Rodger Davis.
• Jul 26 74th Tour de France won by Stephen Roche of Ireland.
• Jul 26 Catfish Hunter, Billy Williams and Ray Dandridge are inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.16
Notable Births
• Jul 14 Dan Reynolds, American singer and songwriter (Imagine Dragons - "Radioactive"), born in Las Vegas, Nevada.
• Jul 20 Brent Wilson, American rock bassist (Panic! At The Disco, 2004-06), born in Las Vegas, Nevada.
• Jul 31 Michael Bradley, American soccer defender (USA 150 caps; Borussia Mönchengladbach), born in Princeton, New Jersey.17
Historical Events
• Jul 14 Taiwan ends 37 years of martial law.
• Jul 15 John Poindexter testifies at Iran-Contra hearings.
•Jul 17 Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above 2,500 (2,510.04) for 1st time.18
Notable Deaths
• Jul 10 John H. Hammond, American music producer, talent scout, promoter, and activist, "discovered" Billie Holiday, Teddy Wilson, Count Basie, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen, dies at 76.
• Jul 11 Thomas F Waddell, founder (Gay Olympics), dies of AIDS at 50.
• Jul 25 Charles Stark "Doc" Draper, American Scientist and Engineer who headed the team that invented the Apollo Guidance Computer and inertial navigation technology for aircraft, space vehicles, and submarines, dies at 85.19
Rolling Stone The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, 2005, p. 77.
MacDonald, Bruno, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, Fifth printing, ed. by Robert Dimmery p. 574.
Ibid.