Appetite for Destruction

''Appetite for Destruction'' is the debut studio album by American hard rock band Guns N' Roses. It was released on July 21, 1987, by Geffen Records. The album was released to little mainstream attention in 1987. It was not until the following year that ''Appetite for Destruction'' became a commercial success, after the band had toured and received significant airplay with the singles "Welcome to the Jungle", "Paradise City" and "Sweet Child o' Mine". The album peaked at number one on the US ''Billboard'' 200 and became the seventh best-selling album of all time in the United States, as well as the best-selling debut album. With over 30 million copies sold worldwide, it is also one of the best-selling albums of all time.

Although critics were originally ambivalent toward the album, ''Appetite for Destruction'' has received retrospective acclaim and has been viewed as one of the greatest albums of all time. In 2018, it was re-released as a remastered box set to similar acclaim.

Background

Guns N' Roses' first recordings were for a planned EP in March 1985, shortly after forming, with "Don't Cry", a cover of "Heartbreak Hotel", "Think About You" and "Anything Goes". However, plans for the release fell through, as original guitarist Tracii Guns left the band, being replaced by Slash. Shortly afterward, the classic lineup of Axl Rose, Duff McKagan, Slash, Steven Adler and Izzy Stradlin was finalized.

After heavy touring of the Los Angeles club scene, the group signed with Geffen Records in March 1986. In December of that year, the group released the four-song EP '' Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide'', designed to keep interest in the band alive while the group withdrew from the club scene to work in the studio. The EP release was designed to soothe the label, which believed the band did not have enough songs to record a full-length album.

Writing and recording

Rose stated that many of the songs on the album were written while the band was performing on the Los Angeles club circuit, and a number of songs that were ultimately featured on later Guns N' Roses albums were considered for ''Appetite for Destruction'', such as " Back Off Bitch", " You Could Be Mine", "November Rain" and "Don't Cry". It is said that the reason for not putting "November Rain" on ''Appetite for Destruction'' was that the band had already agreed to put "Sweet Child 'O Mine" on the album and thus already had a "ballad" on the track list.

Producer Spencer Proffer was hired to record "Nightrain" and "Sweet Child o' Mine" to test his chemistry with the band. The band eventually recorded nine songs with Proffer during these sessions, including "Heartbreak Hotel", "Don't Cry", "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Shadow of Your Love". In mid- to late 1986, the band recorded demos with Nazareth guitarist Manny Charlton, which were released in 2018. ( See Below for more info)
The band initially considered Paul Stanley of KISS to produce, but he was rejected after he wanted to change Adler's drum set more than Adler wanted. Robert John "Mutt" Lange was also considered, but the label didn't want to spend the extra money on a famous producer. Ultimately, Mike Clink (who had produced several Triumph records) was chosen, and the group recorded " Shadow of Your Love" first with Clink as a test.

After some weeks of rehearsal, the band entered Daryl Dragon's Rumbo Recorders in January 1987. Two weeks were spent recording basic tracks, with Clink splicing together the best takes with his razor blade. Clink worked eighteen-hour days for the next month, with Slash overdubbing in the afternoon and evening, and Rose performing vocals. Slash struggled to find a guitar sound before coming up with a Gibson Les Paul copy equipped with Seymour Duncan Alnico II pickups and plugged into a Marshall amplifier. He spent hours with Clink paring down and structuring his solos. The total budget for the album was about $370,000. According to drummer Steven Adler, the percussion was done in just six days, but Rose's vocals took much longer as he insisted on doing them one line at a time, in a perfectionism that drove the rest of the band away from the studio as he worked. Final overdubs and mixing were done at Mediasound Studios, and mastering at Sterling Sound, New York City.

Many of the songs on ''Appetite For Destruction'' began as solo tracks that individual band members wrote separate from the band, only to be completed later. These songs include " It's So Easy" (Duff McKagan) and " Think About You" (Izzy Stradlin). " Rocket Queen" was an unfinished Slash/McKagan/Adler song that was written from their earlier band Road Crew, whereas "Anything Goes", written by Hollywood Rose and included in their compilation album '' The Roots of Guns N' Roses'', was later re-written for ''Appetite''. Most of the songs reflect the band's personal experiences and daily life, such as "Welcome to the Jungle", some of the lyrics of which Rose wrote after he encountered a man in New York shortly after arriving there from Indiana in 1980, and "Mr. Brownstone", which is about the band's problems with heroin. Lyrics to some of the songs focus on the band members' younger years, like "Out ta Get Me", which focuses on lead singer Axl Rose's constant trouble with the law as a youth in Indiana.

Artwork

The album's original cover art was based on Robert Williams' painting ''Appetite for Destruction.'' It depicted a robotic rapist about to be punished by a metal avenger. After several music retailers refused to stock the album, the label compromised and put the controversial cover art inside, replacing it with an image depicting a Celtic cross and skulls of the five band members with (designed by Billy White Jr., originally as a tattoo), each skull representing one member of the band: Izzy Stradlin, top skull; Steven Adler, left skull; Axl Rose, center skull; Duff McKagan, right skull; and Slash, bottom skull. In a 2016 interview, Billy White Jr. explained, "The cross and skulls that looked like the band was Axl's idea, the rest was me. The knot work in the cross was a reference to Thin Lizzy, a band Axl and I both loved."

The photographs used for the back of the album and liner notes were taken by Robert John, Marc Canter, Jack Lue, Leonard McCardie, and Greg Freeman. The original cover was supposed to be on the 2008 vinyl reissue, though the record label replaced it with the "Skulls" art at the last minute.

The band stated the artwork is "a symbolic social statement, with the robot representing the industrial system that's raping and polluting our environment." In albums which were issued on double sided media (vinyl records and audio cassettes) the two sides were not conventionally labeled "A" and "B", but "G" and "R". Tracks 1–6 which compose side "G" all deal with drugs and hard life in the big city ("Guns" side). The remaining tracks, which compose side "R", all deal with love, sex and relationships ("Roses" side). In an interview with ''That Metal Show'' in 2011, Rose stated his original idea for the cover art was to be the photo of the Space Shuttle Challenger exploding, which was on the cover of ''Time'' magazine in 1986, but Geffen refused it saying it was "in bad taste".

Marketing and sales

left, Promo photo of Guns N' Roses in 1987; from left to right, Izzy Stradlin, Steven Adler, Axl Rose, Duff McKagan, and Slash.

''Appetite for Destruction'' was released by Geffen on July 21, 1987, receiving little notice from American press and radio, apart from some airplay in California. Music journalist Stephen Davis later attributed this to competing rock music in the mainstream at the time, including Aerosmith's comeback hit '' Permanent Vacation'', Def Leppard's presence on radio with their '' Hysteria'' album, and the dominance of U2's spiritual rock on MTV's prime-time viewership.

In the week of August 29, 1987, ''Appetite for Destruction'' debuted at number 182 on the ''Billboard'' 200, but several months after its release had only sold 200,000 copies, and Geffen was "walking away" from the record.

Radio stations originally did not want to play the band's single "Welcome to the Jungle", nor had MTV wanted to air its music video. However, after several months of lobbying the network, Geffen general manager Al Coury convinced MTV to play the video just once a night for three nights. "Welcome to the Jungle" became the most requested video on MTV's network, a success that Coury pitched to radio stations while sending them promo copies of "Welcome to the Jungle", "Paradise City", and "Sweet Child o' Mine".

With the radio and video airplay, as well as the band's touring, ''Appetite for Destruction'' managed to top the ''Billboard'' 200 on August 6, 1988, after a year of having been released. It spent four non-consecutive weeks at number one and a total of 147 weeks on the chart. "We thought we'd made a record that might do as well as, say, Motörhead," Slash recalled. "It was totally uncommercial. It took a year for it to even get on the charts. No one wanted to know about it."

By September 2008, the album had been certified 18x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), having shipped over 18 million copies in the United States, making it the country's 11th best-selling album ever. According to '' Billboard'' in 2008, it is also the best-selling debut album of all time in the US. That year, Sky News reported the album's worldwide sales to be approximately 28 million copies, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. More recent figures have it at approximately 30 million sold worldwide.

Reception and legacy

''Appetite for Destruction'' was not well received by contemporary critics. Many complained that its massive success with consumers was fostered by the taboo of "sex, drugs and rock & roll" during the 1980s, when much of the cultural atmosphere in the US became informed by the Reagan-Bush Administration, the AIDS crisis, and the popularity of MTV. Reviewing in 1987, Dave Ling from ''Metal Hammer'' dismissed the album as an inferior mix of elements from bands such as Aerosmith, Hanoi Rocks, and AC/DC. Critics in England were more positive; ''Kerrang!'' claimed that "rock is at last being wrestled from the hands of the bland, the weak, the jaded, the tired, the worn, and being thrust back into the hands of the real raunch rebels." It was voted the 26th best album of the year in ''The Village Voice''s 1988 Pazz & Jop, an annual poll of American critics nationwide. Robert Christgau, the poll's supervisor, was qualified in his praise while reviewing the album for his 1990 book '' Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s''. While applauding Rose's "effortless, convincing vocal abilities" as "undeniable and ettinghim apart from his contemporaries", the journalist found his performance undermined by questionable lyrics that reveal darker ideas: "He doesn't love 'Night Train', he loves alcoholism. And once that sweet child o' his proves her devotion by sucking his cock for the portacam, the evil slut is ready for 'See me hit you you fall down.'"

In a retrospective review for ''The Rolling Stone Album Guide'' (2004), Ann Powers wrote that Guns N' Roses "produced a unique mix of different rock values", such as "speed and musicianship, flash and dirt", on an album that "changed hard rock's sensibilities at the time." Stephen Thomas Erlewine also viewed it as a "turning point for hard rock" in his review for AllMusic and felt Rose's singing and songwriting are enhanced by Slash and Stradlin's dual guitar playing, which helped make ''Appetite for Destruction'' "the best metal record of the late '80s". According to Jimmy Martin of ''The Quietus'', as the 1980s' best hard rock album, ''Appetite for Destruction'' had an "unrefined, punk quality" that marked a "shift away" from hair metal bands commercialized by MTV. According to '' Billboard'' magazine's Christa Titus, ''Appetite for Destruction'' appealed to rock music's various listeners because the band incorporated "metal's forceful playing, punk rock's rebellious themes, glam metal's aesthetic, and bluesy guitar riffs that appealed to purists." Russell Hall, the features writer for Gibson's online publication, said the album "injected a much-needed dose of ’70s-style rebellion into the frothy pop metal of the '80s", by "combining the swagger of late '60s Stones and vintage Aerosmith with the menace of punk and a trash-glam aesthetic".

Writing for ''Pitchfork'', Maura Johnston called the album "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." BBC Music's Dennis O'Dell said the engagingly hedonistic album remains the band's best, as did Ric Albano of ''Classic Rock'' magazine: "This band would never again reach this level of importance and breakthrough originality." In a 2000 list, '' Q'' named it one of the greatest metal albums ever and hailed it as "a riotous celebration of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll". Chuck Klosterman said it would be the only pop metal album to make a theoretical list of rock's ten best albums. and Chuck Eddy named it one of his essential hair metal records; it was "the greatest album ever made about how you can't run away from yourself", he wrote in '' Spin''. On the other hand, Sputnikmusic believed the album has been somewhat overrated and that most of the songs suffer by comparison with the highlights "Welcome to the Jungle", "Sweet Child o' Mine", "Paradise City", "Mr. Brownstone", and "Rocket Queen".

In 1999, Rose had the album re-recorded with the then current lineup (Rose, Robin Finck, Tommy Stinson, Paul Tobias, Josh Freese, Dizzy Reed & Chris Pitman) to "spruce up" the album with new recording techniques. The re-recorded version of the album was never released, although an edited clip of "Sweet Child O' Mine" featuring the second half of the song using the re-recorded version was included over the credits of the movie '' Big Daddy'' in 1999.

Accolades

According to Acclaimed Music, ''Appetite for Destruction'' is the 63rd most ranked record on critics' all-time lists.
* In 1989, ''Rolling Stone'' ranked ''Appetite for Destruction'' as the 27th best album of the 1980s.100 best albums of the 80's: 27: Guns n' Roses, 'Appetite for Destruction'
"Guns n' Roses play not so much pure metal as unalloyed hard rock that listeners who cut their teeth on the Rolling Stones and the New York Dolls can appreciate."
* In 2020 the same magazine later ranked it at sixty-two on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
* In 2001, ''Q'' magazine named ''Appetite for Destruction'' as one of the 50 Heaviest Albums of All Time.
* In 2004, ''Q'' magazine also named ''Appetite for Destruction'' as one of the greatest Classic rock Albums Ever.
* In 2003, VH1 named ''Appetite for Destruction'' the 42nd Greatest Album of All Time.
* In 2002, ''Pitchfork'' ranked ''Appetite for Destruction'' 59th on their Top 100 Albums of the 1980s. The album dropped to 86th on ''Pitchfork''s 2018 list of the 200 Best Albums of the 1980s.
* It was ranked 18 in ''Spin'' magazine's "100 Greatest Albums, 1985–2005".
* In 2006, ''Kerrang!'' ranked the album #1 on the list of best rock albums.
* In 2006, the album was included in the book ''1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die''.
* The album was ranked 32 on Rock Hall of Fame's 'definitive 200' album list, developed by the NARM, the National Association of Recording Merchandisers.
* In 2006, ''Q'' magazine placed the album at #10 in its list of "40 Best Albums of the '80s".
* In 2006, the album was placed No. 2 on '' Guitar World'' magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Albums of All Time.
* In 2011, Australian radio station Triple M listed ''Appetite for Destruction'' #1 in their list of the 250 most life changing albums.
* In 2012, ''Rolling Stone'' ranked ''Appetite for Destruction'' as the 62nd greatest album of all time.
* In 2012, '' Slant Magazine'' listed the album at #37 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s".
* In 2012, '' Clash'' added the album to its Classic Albums Hall of Fame.

Track listing

Original release

Remastered version

On April 30, 2018, billboards appeared in several large cities, and a website was launched, with the tagline "Destruction Is Coming." The website was updated with a countdown clock to May 4, 2018, and a snippet of the Hollywood Rose song " Shadow of Your Love" playing. Journalist Mitch Lafon stated the campaign was for a deluxe edition of ''Appetite for Destruction''. A video announcement was inadvertently released a day early, detailing the ''Appetite for Destruction: Locked N Loaded'' edition, which was released June 29, 2018. The box set includes 73 songs (49 of which were previously unreleased) on four compact discs and seven 12-inch 180-gram LP's. It includes remastered versions of '' Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide'', an EP of b-sides, 25 recordings from the group's 1986 Sound City Studios sessions with producer Manny Charlton, and two previously unreleased tracks from the group's sessions with Mike Clink. Three of the four songs from the ''G N' R Lies'' EP are included, with the exception of the controversial " One in a Million".

In addition to the music, included are 96-page book with unreleased photos from Rose's personal archive, 12 lithographs visualizing each song on the album and assorted replica memorabilia. "Shadow of Your Love" was released as a single on May 4, 2018, the band's first single in almost a decade. The full Locked N' Loaded edition initially retailed for $999; a deluxe edition which includes the five discs and extras and standard editions with just the remastered album and bonus tracks were also made available. In addition, the deluxe and super deluxe versions were made available for streaming and paid download.

On May 21, 2018, the band released the unseen music video for " It's So Easy" on Apple Music. "Welcome to the Jungle" (1986 Sound City Session), "Move to the City" (1988 Acoustic Version), and "November Rain" (Piano Version, 1986 Sound City Session) were released as promotional singles in June before the album's release. A hidden tape of the band's five-song 1985 Mystic Studios demo session is included as an easter egg in one of the drawers of the Locked N' Loaded edition.

A Pop-up shop was opened in London on the day of release, featuring Guns N' Roses themed drinks, a tattoo artist, merchandise, and a large screen showing the band's 1988 show at The Ritz.
The remastered release resulted in ''Appetite for Destruction'' re-entering the top 10 of the Billboard 200 for the first time in 29 years.

Reception

The box set received universal critical acclaim, with Metacritic scoring it 95 out of 100, based on nine reviews. It was nominated for a Grammy award for Best Boxed Set, their first nomination since 1993 (However, it lost to " Squeeze Box: The Complete Works of "Weird Al" Yankovic").

Deluxe edition

Super deluxe edition

The "Locked N' Loaded" Edition and the "Super Deluxe Edition" have the same musical contents. Disc one is the original album.

A fifth disc is included; a Blu-ray disc, which has 96 kHz 24-bit 5.1 Surround Sound and stereo mixes, mixed by Elliot Scheiner and Frank Filipetti. It includes all of ''Appetite for Destruction'', alongside bonus tracks "Shadow of Your Love", "Patience", "Used to Love Her", "You're Crazy", and "Move to the City (1988 Acoustic version)". In addition, it includes music videos for "Welcome to the Jungle", "Sweet Child O' Mine", "Paradise City", "Patience", and a previously unreleased video of "It's So Easy".

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.

Guns N' Roses

* W. Axl Rose – lead vocals, synthesizer on "Paradise City", percussion
* Slash – lead guitar, acoustic guitar, slide guitar, talk box, backing vocals
* Izzy Stradlin – rhythm guitar, lead guitar, backing vocals, percussion
* Duff "Rose" McKagan – bass guitar, backing vocals
* Steven Adler – drums

Production

* Mike Clink – production, engineering
* Steve Thompson – mixing
* Michael Barbiero – mixing
* George Marino – LP, cassette mastering
* Barry Diament – CD mastering
* Dave Reitzas – assistant engineer
* Micajah Ryan – assistant engineer
* Andy Udoff – assistant engineer
* Jeff Poe – assistant engineer
* Julian Stoll – assistant engineer
* Victor Deyglio – assistant engineer
* Adriana Smith – background vocals on " Rocket Queen" (uncredited)
* Ted Jensen – boxed set mastering at Sterling Sound, New York City

Design

* Robert Williams – "Appetite for Destruction" painting
* Michael Hodgson – art direction and design
* Robert John – photography
* Jack Lue – photography
* Greg Freeman – photography
* Marc Canter – photography
* Leonard McCardie – photography
* Bill White Jr. – cross tattoo design
* Andy Engell – cross tattoo redrawing

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications and sales

See also

* List of best-selling albums
* List of best-selling albums in the United States
* List of best-selling albums in Argentina
*List of glam metal albums and songs

References

External links

''Appetite for Destruction''
at YouTube (streamed copy where licensed)

''Appetite for Destruction''
at Acclaimed Music (list of accolades)
*

{{DEFAULTSORT:Appetite For Destruction
1987 debut albums
Albums produced by Mike Clink
Albums recorded at Record Plant (Los Angeles)
Geffen Records albums
Guns N' Roses albums