In praise of Appetite for Destruction, a timeless album

soma1975

I bloody love the greasiness of the Night train solo. 

sweepy

I think AFD is a generational thing, really didn't get the hype about it all ,,,62 btw

supes

It's my favourite album of all time. I listen to at least part of it almost every day, and play some of it without thinking every time i pick a guitar up. UYI 1 and 2 are awesome too, but i don't think anything will ever top AFD.

Winny_Pooh

Interesting read, especially how many of you love AFD. I am one of those that never understood the appeal of GnR

Van Halen's 1984 rocked harder and better in every way (to my 10 year brain) so that is my benchmark for 80's excellence.

I did really like You could be mine but hate hearing Paradise City so I'm deffo not a natural fan

darthed1981

It depends very much when you grew up doesnt it?

For me AFD is a great album from the past, got it on vinyl, but will never mean as much to me as it does someone who was 18 when it came out.

Its a bit like explaining Oasis in the mid 90s to people who werent there.

imalrightjack

darthed1981 said:

It depends very much when you grew up doesnt it?

For me AFD is a great album from the past, got it on vinyl, but will never mean as much to me as it does someone who was 18 when it came out.

It’s a bit like explaining Oasis in the mid 90s to people who werent there.

It isn’t that it reminds me of childhood or has dewy-eyed nostalgia attached to it. I love it because it’s a great, timeless rock record, akin to classics like Led Zeppelin, The Doors and many more that I discovered later in life, long after they were released. 

RocknRollDave

Indeed a timeless album.

I have tried to claim that other albums are my favourite of all time but if we base it purely on the metric of the album I have listened to the most and still come back to now, over 35 years since first hearing it, AFD has to be my favourite album. Ever.

No, it’s not without faults and no I don’t live by or condone the lifestyle it lays out but it’s a GREAT record!

axisus

I don't know why but I just didn't get into it at the time. Hmmnn .... bands that I was into around 87 ..... off the top of my head, Grand Funk Railroad, Spirit, Yes. I guess they didn't fit into my headspace at the time. I finally bought it a great many years later, and yes, it's an incredible album. So powerful. 

bbill335

i have a good deal of admiration for the riffin skills of slash, izzy, duff but timeless it ain't. is it the best typically-1980s rock album? possibly but the stink of 80s is aaaaaallll over it imo

Danny1969

The strange thing thing is they rejected Bob Clearmountain as a mix engineer because they though he would put too much of an eighties sheen on it but then ended up with a very eighties sounding record without any of the 3D depth that makes some better mixed eighties records still sound good today. 

There's a couple of songs I like, Night train is great,  as is Mr Brownstone. 

Like Oasis though, they got a lot of people playing guitar which is very much a good thing. 

Open_G

Mr Brwonstone, SCOM and Paradise City had all entered my consciousness before I’d ever heard of GNR. I was in my early teens and discovered them properly in the early 90’s. They were one of the first aggressive sounding bands I’d ever heard and almost certainly the first to actively use rude words. In a world of teenage rebellion (without much of a clue what I was rebelling about) they were awesome. 

Philly_Q

Danny1969 said:

The strange thing thing is they rejected Bob Clearmountain as a mix engineer because they though he would put too much of an eighties sheen on it but then ended up with a very eighties sounding record without any of the 3D depth that makes some better mixed eighties records still sound good today. 

I think they made a wise choice, if it had turned out anything like his Free remixes.

Deijavoo

I played guitar, since always really, but about 8 or 9 years old and seeing Slash play started my love affair for Les Pauls. I had a live in Paris stadium gig on VHS, think I ended up wearing it out.

Still rate Right Next Door to Hell as a total banger to start UYI1 too by the way.

Nerine

I’ll always cite Guns as my favourite band. 

AFD is a masterpiece. First heard it when I was about 5-6 and it stayed with me. Also got me into guitar. Slash is a huge influence on my playing. 

I love pretty much all of UYI and Chinese Democracy and I think The Spaghetti Incident? Is good as well. 

As has been mentioned, that live in Paris show in 91-92 is so fucking good. I wore out the VHS too. Fortunately it’s all on YouTube now. 

breakstuff

Nerine said:

I’ll always cite Guns as my favourite band. 

AFD is a masterpiece. First heard it when I was about 5-6 and it stayed with me. Also got me into guitar. Slash is a huge influence on my playing. 

I love pretty much all of UYI and Chinese Democracy and I think The Spaghetti Incident? Is good as well. 

As has been mentioned, that live in Paris show in 91-92 is so fucking good. I wore out the VHS too. Fortunately it’s all on YouTube now. 

I had the edited version that was shown on broadcast TV but got with my girlfriend in 1992 and she'd recorded the whole show off Sky. She gave the tape which I also watched pretty much daily. There's a reason I married said girlfriend and am still with her 34 years later 

Danny1969

Philly_Q said:

Danny1969 said:

The strange thing thing is they rejected Bob Clearmountain as a mix engineer because they though he would put too much of an eighties sheen on it but then ended up with a very eighties sounding record without any of the 3D depth that makes some better mixed eighties records still sound good today. 

I think they made a wise choice, if it had turned out anything like his Free remixes.

Bob used to turn up now and then on Gearslutz. One day someone mentioned those Free mixes and he put his hands up and said yeah he regrets those now but at the time samples were a new mix tech and he overdid it. 

Think about the many, many records he did get spot on though !

roberty

stickyfiddle said:

I played Sweet Child of Mine at sound check last night. First time I've played it in 10+ years and first time with a band in 20. It's still fantastic. The whole record is awesome and basically killed them as they went mad trying to top it. 

It wasn't a hit at first, and by the time it was a year later they were addicted to smack. Doherty mode

roberty

Creed_Clicks said:

snip

How Axl achieves his high notes (allegedly)

LPManic

In the early days of Ebay I bought a VHS tape that had the Ritz 88 and the Paris 92 shows. What a band. 

So many of their shows are on youtube now but I think that the 91 shows are the best. Great setlists with a lot of UYI tracks and most importantly Izzy was still there.

CaseOfAce

As I recall it took a while for them to hit the big time. Some of my school friends started mentioning this album you had to hear.

Some lucky / in the know / Kerrang afficionados got to see them at the Marque in London in June '87 for the princely sum of £4 prior to the release of Appetite.

Bafflingly It's So Easy and Welcome... were the lead off singles. They really only hit it big with the release of Sweet Child at which point it got ballistic - to the point where they should have been headlining Donington in '88 instead of 5th on the bill (and resultant crowd tragedy).

Personally I think much like Never Mind The Bollo*cks,  Appetite is all killer / no filler - it's a fantastic album they never topped. They are definitely a sum of their influences that didn't bring anything new to the genre - nothing that Aerosmith et al. hadn't already done years before - and they had nowhere near the depth of Led Zeppelin (who took in rock, folk, metal, blues, jazz...) but what they do they execute extremely well.

To a younger generation coming to the album more recently it probably doesn't hit as hard. Guns and Roses are about as edgy as Sabrina Carpenter right now - but at the time they were dangerous. Slash with a greasy perm covering his face and top hat made you look twice and Axl looked like he could go off on one at any moment - and frequently did.

And THE last guitar hero Slash single handedly resurrected the Les Paul and made it mainstream again.  We've got him to blame for the endless hide glue, 59 bursts, Gibson resissue yadda yadda.. discussions on forums such as this. Prior to this it was all single humbucker super strats with floyd roses in wacky colours due to Van Halen dominating guitar culture.