Appetite for Destruction

Chris could always be counted on to do the right thing so I wasn't particularly surprised when he showed up at my parents' house that night in his beloved beige Ford Escort with a brand new cassette in its tape deck. We picked up our Smiths-loving feminist friend, Cynthia, and headed down to Hampton. As `It's So Easy' blasted out of the Escort's cheap speakers, Cynthia's face turned crimson and she became enraged, "What is this crap?" she yelled.

"It's our new tape by Guns n Roses," Chris said in his most soothing voice, "Just relax and enjoy it."

"Turn around btch, I've got a use for you!," ordered Axl.

That was all Cynthia could take. "Turn that misogynistic sht off," Cynthia screamed.

Chris and I couldn't help but laugh. Cynthia was a good friend, but not that good. I mean we had just discovered perhaps the greatest album of all time and Cynthia wanted us to cut it off due to a few of Axl's more colorful turns of phrase. She'd have to endure it. And endure it she did - until "Rocket Queen" ended and we started it all over again. Probably not a night Cynthia recalls fondly, but Chris and I sure enjoyed it.

Then over time, a funny thing happened. "Welcome to the Jungle" became a hit and "Sweet Child O' Mine" became a cultural phenomenon. All the girls (Cynthia included) who previously despised Guns n Roses fell madly in love with them once they heard Axl serenading Erin Everly's eyes in song. Even our classmate Jenny, a Kate Bush fan whose Sapphic tendencies were just beginning to blossom, began raving incredulously about Axl being a poet after hearing "Sweet Child O' Mine" on the radio. Yes, those were pretty weird times and we have Axl, Slash, Izzy, Duff, and Steven to thank for them.

Appetite for Destruction provided me with a musical identity. I'd spent the first few years of high school in the classic rock scene because that's what I heard on the radio and I didn't own any music of my own. My mom and dad listened to classical and country, respectively, at the time and it just didn't seem possible to bring rock music into our house. For one thing, I never really had much spending money so I just quietly listened to the radio in my room hearing the same classic rock songs over and over. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed them, but when I heard Appetite for Destruction, it was like a void had been filled within me. As a shy person myself, Axl shouted all the things I and countless other kids like me in America wanted to shout but couldn't. Even if I wasn't dancing with Mr. Brownstone, taking the Night Train, or dating a girl whose daddy worked in porno, at least I knew Axl was. References to GnR became commonplace in and around our high school. I can't tell you how many times Chris and I told Cynthia she had "nothing better to do" and that we were "bored". At the McDonald's in Lightfoot, John Martin leaned against a refrigerator, inhaled deeply, and claimed to "smoke his cigarette with style."

With Appetite for Destruction, more than for any other album in my collection, the stories and memories are endless. For better or worse, it helped make me the person I am today. I have always been willing to accept that different people have different opinions on music, but I remember being horrified in the 1990s when GnR became a punchline for alterna-brats. Only a handful of bands have revolutionized popular music. We treat the others (Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana) reverentially, why not GnR as well? As far as I'm concerned, Appetite for Destruction is the best record released during my lifetime and probably the best rock record ever made. "Take that one to heart."


One of the greatest albums ever   October 27, 2000
32 out of 36 found this review helpful

In 1987, Guns N' Roses exploded onto the national scene with "Appetite for Destruction." It was their first and best album. On the first track, "Welcome to the Jungle," Slash's beginning riffs and Axl's eerie howl set the stage for the rest of the songs. "Jungle" is a no-holds-barred look at the dark, drug-infested world beneath the glitz-and-glamour exterior of Los Angeles. "It's So Easy" shows the heart of the band: Axl's interplay with Slash and Izzy Straldlin. "Night Train" is another exploration of the sex, drug, and alcohol-fueled world of an L.A. club band at the time that Guns was coming up. "Out Ta Get Me" is the first glimpse of Axl's paranoia and self-absorption, which would ultimately lead to the band's downfall. "Mr. Brownstone" is a song about (surprise!) heroin, and with the lyrics "the show usually starts around 7. We go on stage around 9," it would prove prophetic about the chaotic nature of Guns N' Roses and their live concerts. "Paradise City" begins in (and the choruses return to) a Southern-Rock style, but is mostly the blues-and-punk-flavored hard rock that made them famous.

"My Michelle" is the darkest song Guns N' Roses ever produced. It's the semi-true story of a girl trying to grow up in L.A. without any support from her family, and then falling prey to the demons of wanton sex and drugs. "Think About You" is one of the most under-rated Guns songs. It's a sweet ballad about first love, but set to a hard-rock beat. Not a power-ballad, but a great song that never got the acclaim it deserved. "Sweet Child O' Mine" is another love song set to a rock beat, and showcases Slash's unique talents as a guitarist probably better than any other song on the record. "You're Crazy" shows the band's punk influences. "Anything Goes" is a straight rocker about a mutually self-destructive relationship. The record ends with "Rocket Queen," one of their best, and least appreciated. Slash and Izzy's guitar greatness are on display here probably better than anywhere else in the album. "Rocket Queen" also shows Axl's vocal and song writing talent. It starts as a rocker about a virile young stud (probably Axl) and an older woman. But after the famous interlude, (if you don't know what I mean, find out for yourself,) the song switches gears seamlessly, to a mellow ballad about friendship and love through tough times. It's a truly amazing song.

The cassette version of "Appetite" is the first album I ever bought. Time has not diminished the impact of these songs for me. Guns N' Roses are my personal favorite band, and "Appetite" is their high point. As they say, once you reach a peak, it's all downhill, but that's not important. What is important is to remember them as what they were: a definitively groundbreaking band.


MAYBE THE BEST ROCK ALBUM OF THE 80'S   November 16, 2001
Martin Lemos "Marty" (San Francisco, CA)
32 out of 43 found this review helpful

APPETITE FOR DESTRUCTION was a shot in the arm for the sorry state of hard rock in the 80's. All the other big bands of the era were more into looks than music, while the musically sound bands didnt get their due. WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE kicks off the album and it is an angry tribute to life in LA and breaking into the music business. ITS SO EASY is another hard rockin song that keeps the listener intensely hook into this record. NIGHTRAIN is a straight ahead in your face rock song that just blows you away. MR. BROWNSTONE is the bands story of playing with heroin and it epitimizes the rock n roll lifestyle right before your eyes. PARADISE CITY is a epic song should be considered up there with STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN or FREEBIRD. SWEET CHILD O' MINE is another classic tune that starts off with that great guitar intro. MY MICHELLE starts off with a dark, sinister sound that it maintains throughout. THINK ABOUT YOU is a love song in true Guns fashion. ROCKET QUEEN is the last song on the album and it is a truly great song. It has a somewhat dark mood to it midway through it changes tempo and slows down and it still comes off great. This album was a brief look as to what the future could have been for this band before drugs and internal conflicts finally tore them apart. This album is a must own and stands up there with all the great Stones albums from 68-72


Blew my 12 year old suburban mind...   July 7, 2004
Todd Hagley (Decatur, GA)
32 out of 43 found this review helpful

Oh, it was something all right. This loud, chugging, brutal nasty song on the radio about a jungle that made us want to jump up and down. My siblings and I were mesmerized in our little adolescent world and fascinated by the music. The television jumped with a video of this gross yet oddly beautiful frontman on his knees while the audience tries to drag him into the maelstrom he created. The lanky bass player gives us this knowing wink on the downbeat while a top hated guitar player and some bored looking gypsy coax monstrous sounds out of their guitars. And it made our little suburban life look so dull.

Our joy and elation knew no bounds the day our dad came home from work with a slight detour at Turtle's Records and Tapes (ask your grandparents, kids) to buy something called a CD of that band's album. Rejoice, we thought, for musical enlightenment was moments away. We went berserk inside while my audiophile father put on the disc and turned the volume knob up unreasonably high. The thundering, echoing riff tore through our house and we danced with glee. The song finished, we giggled and grinned as the next song started and my whole outlook changed. It sounded like a train having a bullfight with a tornado. Sister in a Sunday dress? Why is the singer's voice so low and murky? Is that sleaze? Why isn't he high-pitched? Standing up? Think I'm so cool? Well of course...Oh my God....what did he just say?

And then I saw the look on my father's face change, and knew it surely matched the look on my mother's face while she was loading the dishwasher, trying to ignore the din from the den. My father's hand nearly tore the knob off the volume as he cut off the music and shuttered us out of the den; we knew our little party was over. I'm sure my mother's stare sent daggers at my father while we were ushered over to the kitchen area. Why? Who knows, perhaps they wanted to observe if we were about to mutate into something hideous and barbaric like the music that had played just moments ago. I can't debate the merits of my father letting us listen that night. I just knew that from then on, things were different. We snuck into the den before my parents came home from work and listened to the album again and again. We copied it onto tapes to carry with us and listen to in our rooms when our parents thought we were sleeping. Music became this new, huge, menacing beast. It could be a release, a celebration, a call to arms, or whatever I wanted it to be. I knew of this place called LA, I just didn't know it could be so gritty, so unappealing, and yet so alive.

Nearly twenty years on, I can look back and say that this record changed me the way it changed everyone else here. Suddenly, a life that I never knew about was achingly clear in these songs. And yet, it didn't turn me into a hooligan, drug dealer, Satanist, misogynist, troubled youth, or any other assorted thing that parents seemed to fear about this band. Maybe I had good parents who taught me a difference between what you hear and what you do in life. Sure, maybe if I had been older and in LA I could've fallen into a vortex like that, but from my own perch, this album lived it's own life for me, and I wore out the CD player and taped copy in my walkman listening to these booze soaked tales of struggle and survival, heartbreak, rage, and misunderstanding. Nearly every song is a gem and deserves a good listening before written off as a "weak" track.

And like every defining group, you'd go back and source their influences. I knew about the Beatles, but not really the Rolling Stones. Aerosmith? Weren't they in that video with Run DMC? What's a New York Doll? Things like this weren't clear to a 12 year old, and learning how Izzy crafted his sound in search of a Keith Richards vibe, or Slash's blues burn based on a Boston band, made music that much better, and helped define this album on it's own merits.

At the risk of heresy, I'd say this album was as important as "Nevermind the Bollocks...Here's the Sex Pistols" and defined an era just as well. America was confused, bored, occupied, and in a deep malaise and the result was this record.

I stopped borrowing the old, worn out CD a while ago, dismissing it as unsophisticated dinosaur rock in an age of grungy plaid flannel, trip-hop and BritPop. And yet when I think about how many bands formed and made music just as important and life-changing because of the influence of Appetite for Destruction, it makes me miss it that much more. I'll be ordering my own copy soon. Will I let my daughter listen to it when she reaches 12? Probably not, but you never know. She may figure out how the work the CD player one night when her mother and I are asleep...


One of the three greatest rock albums of all time   October 27, 1999
27 out of 40 found this review helpful

Only The Stone's "Exile on Main Street" and Jimi Hendrix's "Are You Experienced?" can even compare with "Appetite" (and I probably like Appetite best of the three). Simply put: this album saved rock and roll (at the time, Metallica was still too underground, though their 80's albums are killer as well). Slash's guitar riffs on this album coupled with Axl's venemous voice and powerful lyrics almost single-handedly booted glam rock into nonexistance. They brought good old-fashioned hard rock back into style. Welcome to the Jungle, Paradise City, and Sweet Child O' Mine are now classics, and the nine other songs are just as powerful. This is a fantastic album!

...I would just also like to add this for all the reviewers who have chosen to criticize Axl Rose. Though he is certainly no saint, and probably more than anyone else led to GNR's downfall, he is without a doubt one of the most talented lead singers in history. No one, not Robert Plant, not Chris Cornell, can match his range. Just listen to Welcome to the Jungle then Its So Easy. It doesn't even sound like the same singer! He also was a great song writer and lyricist. You can bet that the end of Rocket Queen was written by him, its so beautiful the way that song changes direction mid-way through. It almost brings tears to my eyes. And though some of his lyrics may seem hateful and immature (even though "One in a Million" was actually written to be extremely sarcastic) it takes a hell of a mind to spark as much love and hate simultaneously that Axl sparked with the public. He was a musical genius.