klimov wrote: 19/06/22, 09:29:04
I’m a couple of years younger than you folks, didn’t get into metal/grunge until 1991-2 and therefore never listened to Guns’n’Roses. Anyway, checked out a couple of their albums on Spotify the other day and have to say they’re real one-hit wonders, aren’t they - a right load of crap!
Appetite for Destruction was monumental when it came out. Looking back on it and the band's later catalogue without understanding the context of rock music at the time is foolish and naive.
1987. This is pre-grunge. Forget about grunge. GnR has nothing to do with grunge.
I was 11 years old, 5th grade. Just starting to learn about music that I liked apart from what my parents liked to play (lots of Rolling Stones by my dad). You've got all the 80s pop music on the radio. Michael Jackson released Bad that same year and is all over the place. Bon Jovi released Slippery When Wet in '86 and it was massive. Def Leppard's Hysteria came out in '87 and was everywhere. Hair metal bands are dominating in LA. Thrash and metal are thriving, but very much in the underground. Nobody I knew in elementary school was listening to metal yet.
Then came Appetite for Destruction. Slash's guitar solos. Axl's wail on "Welcome to the Jungle." THIS was something different. This was raw. These guys didn't give a fuck. They're drinking Jack Daniels and singing about drugs and sex and rock 'n roll and look like they're in a biker gang. This isn't Warrant singing "Cherry Pie" or Bon Jovi "Living on a Prayer." This was dangerous, and your parents didn't like it. The music was much more rooted in the blues/rock tradition like the Stones than anything coming from hair metal or heavy metal.
Appetite is a badass album that had a big impact on music at the time. I had GnR shirts and posters. My friend and I devoured Lies (the naked chick inside the liner notes, wow!) and Appetite over and over while we waited for the next studio album. That took years, and they finally dropped a bloated double album with mixed quality, but it was enough for them to rise to the top again for a while.
But Appetite will forever be a classic, and a monumental album in my childhood.