Appetite For Destruction - Guns N' Roses
Album #61: Appetite for Destruction
If you want it, you're gonna bleed, but it's the price you pay – “Welcome to the Jungle”
Sex, Drugs, and Chaos. The id embodied. Welcome to heavy metal.
Released in 1987, Appetite for Destruction may be the most aptly named debuts I’ve ever heard. Young, dumb, and full of cum, this record is every urge you’ve wanted to indulge but never had the balls.
Guns N' Roses
Slash’s blues guitars are a knife of sweet sexy pentatonics, with every riff slicing the bra strap off your back, while Axl Rose violently screams in pleasure. From the opening “Welcome to the Jungle” to “It’s So Easy,” Appetite lures you into every deep dark desire.
Musically, the band is at the top of their game and tight from the get-go. The gripping rhythm of drums (Steven Adler), bass (Duff McKagan), and guitar (Izzy Stradlin) holds down the grooves like your life depends on it. Amidst the virtuosity of the musicians and Axl’s affectations there is the casual shuffle and classic I-IV-V chord progressions. Hell, even “Sweet Child O’ Mine” is just an arpeggio that Slash used as a practice.
The record drips in its own sleaze, strewn across bottles of Jack Daniels, heroin, and the eternal disaffection of angry youth.
The record drips in its own sleaze, strewn across bottles of Jack Daniels, heroin, and the eternal disaffection of angry youth. Its musicianship and grime at the intersection of hate that everyone secretly enjoys. The riffs are written for every timeframe, production crisp, and songwriting refined without showing off.
But mostly, it just flows well, like straight Jack on a frustrating night, with intoxicating city and devil’s grin in your face, in other words, the essence of Rock n’ Roll.
Until I hate to look into those eyes and see an ounce of pain.
