Twenty-five million albums and twenty years after it neglected to review Appetite for Destruction, Rolling Stone's current issue features Guns n Roses--the real version with the guy with the top hat and not the faux version with the guy with the chicken bucket--on the cover (What? Lindsey Lohan wasn't available?). Along with FHM-style models, Rolling Stone has featured on its cover in 2007 The Police, Pink Floyd, James Brown, and Keith Richards. Hello! It's 2007. Anybody home? Alas, I much prefer these relics to current monstrosities Fall Out Boy and Panic at the Disco (do both have obligatory exclamation points in their names?) who (dis)graced RS covers earlier this year too.

Anyhow, I say "greatest hard-rock album" advisedly. AC/DC's "Back in Black" is similiar to Appetite in that it can and does pass for a greatest hits album. It's all killer, no filler, as they say. Several Led Zeppelin albums, IV and Houses of the Holy come to mind, also are top-tier hard-rock albums. Methinks Appetite, though, is about as close as one gets to hard-rock perfection.

Appetite for Destruction is proof that, particularly for debut albums, the notion of getting out of the gate fast is overrated. Its weakest year in terms of sales was probably its first. By July of 1988, the album had sold 500,000 copies, or, put another way, less than two percent of its eventual take. Why so slow getting out of the blocks? An in-your-face album cover featuring a robot attempting to rape a woman probably turned some people off (Ya think?). Many of the songs contained profanity, memorably the line that followed "You get nothing for nothing if that's what you do..." You can't play that on the radio, can you? The marketing of the band, I remember, was a bit confused too. Guns n Roses was a hard rock band in the midst of the golden age of hair metal. The temptation to present the band as a hair metal act was strong, as evidenced by Axl's teased-out, Aquanet hairdo in the band's initial video, "Welcome to the Jungle." Alas, I fell into the trap of initially dismissing Guns n Roses as a hair metal act. But I, like millions of others, figured out that they were not Poison, Cinderella, Bullet Boys, or any of their ilk.

I figured that out by listening to Appetite for Destruction. What stuck out upon hearing the album for the first time was that the single, "Welcome to the Jungle," was the worst song on the album. If "Welcome to the Jungle," what would be the strongest track on any of a number of contemporary albums, was the weakest track on this album, then Guns n Roses had to be something special. I've since revised my low opinion of "Welcome to the Jungle" ("Anything Goes," "Paradise City," and You're Crazy" are certainly weaker), which was never really low but instead a reflection of my high opinion of what followed, but at the time it really struck me because the expectation would be that the rest of the album should be inferior to the single. With Appetite, it was the reverse.

What makes Appetite so good?

There is a sonic and lyric consistency. The guitar and bass is dark in "My Michelle," and so, appropriately, are the lyrics: "Your daddy works in porno/Now that mommy's not around/She used to love her heroine/But now she's underground/So you stay out late at night/And you do your coke for free/Drivin' your friends crazy/With your life's insanity." The opening cowbell and guitar are frantic in "Nighttrain," and so are the words Axl sings: "Wake up late honey put on your clothes/Take your credit card to the liquor store." The Bo-Diddley beat of "Mr. Brownstone" reflects a party dynamic, which, even within the cautionary tale of partying too much, is there: "The show usually starts around seven/We go on stage around nine/Get on the bus about eleven/Sippin' a drink and feelin' fine." And so on.

The album reflects a time, a phenomena, and a place, Los Angeles's hard rock/metal scene in the mid 1980s. The fact that Guns n Roses lived what they sang about gave them street credibility. Rumors of drug dealing, pimping, and even hustling surround members of the band. Izzy Stradlin remains the only member of Guns n Roses who graduated high school. Duff McKagan was rarely coherent in any interview during GNR's heyday, which made later news of his pancreas bursting the least surprising event in history. Steven Adler's drug-induced stroke, which has impaired his speech but not his drumming, was no shock either. Stradlin urinating in the aisle of a commercial flight, Slash and McKagan's profane acceptance speech at the American Music Awards, and Rose's involvement in a riot all added to their legend. In rap parlance, they kept it real. If you can believe the Rolling Stone cover story, even the moans and gasps on "Rocket Queen" aren't faked.

It also helped that, during a time when rock transitioned from larger-than-life personalities to meek, everyday people, Guns n Roses remained a thousand-feet tall. They never cut their hair. Axl Rose donned chest protectors, kilts, biker gear, and other costume-party outfits. He screamed "rock star." Slash, to this day, milks the Cousin-Itt mop and oversized top hat. He's an icon. Even Izzy Stradlin's anti-image image, which helped quiet rock when Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Radiohead, and other successive bands cultivated it in the face of the giant personalities of rap, worked when juxtaposed with his more colorful bandmates. Post-GNR, rockers sought imageless anonymity. That wasn't Guns n Roses.

Appetite for Destruction is, in a word, rebellion, capturing what rock n roll is supposed to be about. Sex, drugs, violence, and other taboo subjects dominate. The man singing encapsulated what parents, teachers, and clergy told kids not to be. With his reincarnations in Tupac Shakur and Eminem, Axl Rose proved the prototype bad boy. He, and his band, were out of control. They were dangerous. They were without authority. Is it any wonder so many kids loved them?

Keyboards infect on just one track that I can think of, and even on Paradise City the intrusion is slight. Other than Izzy acting like a drug dealer and Slash acting like a drunk in Welcome to the Jungle, the album's three videos featured performance-based clips. None of the videos featured dolphins, or polished Victoria's Secret supermodels named Stephanie, or three Axls in the same shot, or Axl looking at his grave, or Slash driving a car off a cliff, or any such excess stupidity. Ballads, which like keyboards mar some of GNR's later works, appear, but do so in a hard rock, instead of a power ballad, form. "Sweet Child O' Mine," "Think About You," and "Rocket Queen" might very loosely be classified as ballads, but you forget that as you listen. They mesh seemlessly with the grit that surrounds. Nothing against November Rain, but thank goodness the record company coaxed Axl into leaving it for a later album. Appetite doesn't slow down.

The distinct influences of each member made for a potent mix. Izzy brought a Stonesish feel, heard unmistakably on his solo records and subtly on Appetite. Steven Adler brought an off-balance swing to drumming that reminds me of Kenney Jones on old Faces albums. He was not the drum machine his successor sounded like, and that's a good thing. Duff was a punk, and his occassional use of the bass as a lead instrument alerted the listener that a hair band GNR was not. Axl's dancing was Davy Jones, but his voice was Rob Halford (the banshee screaming on "Welcome to the Jungle") or Jim Morrison (that deep bass on It's So Easy). Slash's guitar came from the seventies, his look came from outer space. In other words, it wasn't Axl and the Roses, but five talented musicians bringing something to the table. Guns n Roses was bigger than the sum of its parts.

This past weekend, three parts (Izzy, Steven, and Duff) of Guns n Roses , with a fourth part (Slash) observing offstage, reunited to celebrate Appetite for Destruction's twentieth anniversary. The predictable inability of the original Guns n Roses to stay together only enhanced their legend. It was, like so much that is powerful, a combustable mix. Twenty years later, fans want the original to get back together more than ever--a sentiment that grows the longer they stay apart.

Great post Dan! I also dismissed GNR as a hair band when I first saw their cassette cover in '88. I, like you, couldn't have been more wrong. They were one of the "great" bands of our generation and Appetite for Destruction tore it up from the first chord. It's a great CD to throw on during a road trip, no song-skipping required (along w/Metallica Black, Pearl Jam Ten, and just about anything by U2).

I just can't believe it's been out for 20 years now...."In my day, GNR ripped it up!! You don't know who Axl Rose is??!!"

The first time I heard that album was in La Crosse, just before I went out on a bender. Really liked it. Was it their 2nd album that "Patience" was on? I always liked that one.

This album came out when i was in AZ. i bought it there,then moved back home to pittsburgh,and nobody had a clue what i was playing, it was like, WHATS that! well that all changed a yr. later when sweet child hit the radio.Appetite is a great album, but it sits in my shelf never to see the light of day.

Doesn't Axl Rose sometimes sound like his ball$ are being squeezed in a vise?

‘Appetite’ is a decent album, especially when compared to what the hair metal bands were producing at the time. That said, GNR was never on par with the true heavy American bands of that time (Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer, etc.) and ‘Appetite’ hasn’t held up well next to albums such as ‘Master of Puppets’, ‘Peace Sells…’ and ‘Doomsday for the Deceiver’. Technically and attitude-wise GNR was mostly head and very little cattle.

2007 is also the 20th anniversary of Anthrax’ ‘Among the Living’ album, let’s not forget the real stuff here.

Side note: This may be from the “Is it just me?” file but I always wanted to kick Axl Rose’s ass.

He has been known to act like a spoiled little girl on occasion.

I would classify GNR as more of a "hard rock" band than "heavy metal" (which, incidently, is exactly what Metallica turned into with the Black album).

Mariner, I totally agree about kicking Axl's ass (could never look at Stephanie Seymour the same afterwards).

I'm very happy that Metallica toned it down a bit and graduated from metal to hard rock. To me, hard rock music makes much more sense than head banging metal. And as taste music is subjective, I'll have to say that I've never been a big GNR fan. Similar to how I think of The Dead, I can only take a handful of their tunes and would classify neither as 'great'.