Rick A.

Damn, you're getting good at Photo Shop in your retirement!

I thought Use Your Illusion could have been better as a single album with all the best songs... and the compilation release isn't it. Here's my track listing --

Civil War
You Could Be Mine
Yesterdays
Pretty Tied Up
Live & Let Die
Don't Cry
14 Years
Breakdown
Estranged
Bad Obsession
Back Off Bitch
Knockin' on Heaven's Door
Dust 'n Bones
November Rain

The first round of tonight's Jeopardy! show featured the following 4 categories, in order:

Take Me "Down"
To The Salt Lake City
Where the Grass Is Green
And the Girls Are Pretty

Huh; funny. I know I saw this, but never responded to it.
While I agree that you could have put a single incredible album together from out of the two Illusions, I think what you have here - 14 songs, probably 90 minutes of music would be too long. So limiting it to 10 songs - presented as a concept album of a relationship gone wrong.

You Could Be Mine
Bad Obsession
Back Off Bitch
Civil War
Estranged
14 Years
Yesterday
Dust N Bones
Knockin on Heaven's Door
November Rain

I saw this; I laughed...

Is that Angus?

Yes

Guns N' Roses released their debut LP "Appetite for Destruction" on July 21. 1987. The record debuted at number 182 on the Billboard 200 in the week of August 29, 1987, but it did not top the chart until August 6, 1988, after the band had toured and received radio and music video airplay with singles such as "Welcome to the Jungle" and "Paradise City".

The record cost about $370,000.00 to make with a large portion of that spent in extra studio time because lead singer Axl Rose recorded the words one line at a time. Originally, Paul Stanley of KISS was going to produce the record, but the band didn't like that he wanted to change a lot of the music and mainly the drum sound.

Is it fair for us to ask you how you first felt about the band as to how you feel about them now?

Happy 33rd Birthday to "Appetite for Destruction"!!!

because you asked, i will offer.

maybe because of my age, or maybe because i was so into the singer-songwriter genre at the time, i never ever liked guns n roses. not in the least bit. i must add that iwas never into any 'screaming' lead singers (steve tyler quickly comes to mind) and i find axel rose to be the screamiest (is that a word).

i also, having grown up with rock and roll and having heard almost all of the great guitar players that ever were, have always found slash to be tremendously over-rated. i have no idea why slash is considered to be so "great'. or what he has done to earn his 'greatness' label.....i never heard it, although i never really listened a whole lot to his work either. and that more than likely has something to do with my feelings.

i must add that i do not own anything by guns n roses either, tried the 'best of' CD and brought it back, just not for me i guess.

i guess it has something to due with where were you when........i never got into kiss either, again i blame that on my age too.

those fans of guns n roses, please do not take offense to this, i was asked and i gave a truthful answer about how i feel, i hope no one was offended.

I personally love the album and play a track from it every day (that includes hearing songs on XM Radio daily as I drive around as the album is a staple of hard rock radio stations).

Certainly understand people who don't like hard rock but nothing thrills me more than songs like the ones found on Appetite. A big reason I love electric guitar and sounds it makes.

So happy birthday Appetite For Destruction!

I ignored the album for quite a while after release., thinking they were more style than substance. But one day I went to a friend's house and he put it on and I was blown away by the power, the riffs, and even the presentation. Still a fan of the album, and most of the two Use Your Illusions.

Another thing that helped GnR was MTV, they were able to do videos for their songs and Axl and Slash do look the part of RnR rebels (in fact the whole band could not have been cast better). They are a real band not a creation by some record company and for that alone I give them immense credit.

Ah, where to begin. Probably with the most pertinent facts - I was 14 years old, already a big glam metal fan when this was released, and for all that I lived in Fredericton New Brunswick, Guns and Roses was the 5th rock band I ever saw live, opening for Iron Maiden in 1988. So this album forms a cornerstone of my musical taste.

I knew and liked all 3 of their singles by the time I saw them - thanks Power Hour - but still hadn't bought the album. I distinctly remember that because I remember being pissed that their version of Knockin' On Heaven's Door wasn't on Appetite. (HA! But it is on the radio RIGHT NOW). And for all that I thought their singles were above the competition - more on that in a second - it was the other songs they played that night (It's So Easy, Mr. Brownstone, Heaven's Door, and Out Ta Get Me) that showed me they were really different and hooked me for life. So I consider myself a fan from the get go. Well, as much as someone 3,000 miles from the Sunset Strip could be, anyway. I bought the cassette the day after the concert, and wore out 3 of them in 5 years. I still have the T-Shirt I bought that night.

The main thing with Appetite is how different it was; it was really the first Sleaze rock album, and a lot grittier than what else was happening in 1986/87; the outstanding and underrated Night Songs, the cheery and cheesy Slippery When Wet, the massive disappointment that was Theatre of Pain, the singles heavy shallowness of Look What the Cat Dragged In, the glam metal rebirths of Whitesnake and Permanent Vacation, and the impossible to avoid popularity of the hyper-polished Hysteria. Good to Great albums all (well, aside from Theatre), but you can definitely see that GnR were different from the rest of the scene. And they did inspire a bunch of raunchier bands to get signed in their wake.

People say Grunge killed Glam metal; and while it certainly put the nails in the coffin, in a lot of ways, it was Appetite for Destruction that started the decline. It highlighted just how lightweight most of the glam metal scene was, and I think opened the door for Thrash's popularity by encouraging metal fans to look for something that was a little more serious, and a lot more real. And when people went looking, they found the two other critically important Metal albums released in 1986, Reign in Blood and Master of Puppets.

From there, of course, there were all the wonderful memories:

- 3 different songs from the album I still associate with girls from my past (and no, It's So Easy isn't one of them)
- the beauty of Patience, mixed with the Live Like a Fucking Suicide half of Lies.
- Getting to hear the song quoted in the Appetite liner notes that didn't appear on the album, and it was good.
- the constant debates about the Illusion albums (which do you prefer, if you had to make just one, which songs would you choose)
- travelling 800 miles to see them, Metallica, and Faith No More, only for Hetfield to go to the hospital with 2nd degree burns, GnR to come on 2 hours late, and quit 45 minutes later, resulting in an internationally publicized riot that's still talked about in their biographies.
- The Spaghetti Incident opening the door to punk, and for me to move away from metal
- Seeing Slash as a solo act kick into the Sweet Child intro, and the crowd going ape shit. EVERY time.
- Some 25 years later, wearing the shirt I bought in Montreal, FINALLY getting to see a full set of most of the original band and not being disappointed
- Seeing Slash finally find a musical partner so that at least one member of GnR can release consistently good material after Illusions
- To be continued, as I'm waiting for them to reschedule their 2020 tour date, ticket's already bought.

For a chunk of the rock demographic population, Appetite for Destruction was "Their" Album; Hysteria was everyone's; The Joshua Tree was for the artsy college kids, and for the really heavy minority, there was Reign in Blood and Master of Puppets. But for the beer drinking, pickup driving, sports bar crowd, there was - and still is - Appetite for Destruction, and it was good.

I agree. "Appetite" had so much more going on then the other metal that had prevailed in the marketplace up to that time.


Please. Don't. Was never mine.

mine neither.

i guess i was the 'joshua tree' guy.

Always loved AFP and the two Use Your Illusion releases. I often wonder what this band would have been like if they weren't so dis-functioned. Would there have been other gems? We'll never know. Too much time under the bridge.

The thing that sticks out with GNR is how good they were AND they only really released about 3 and 1/2 albums. They created maybe the best album of all time and made a lasting impression all the while not talking to each other (Slash and Axl) for pretty much 25 years. It's hard to tell if that worked for them or against them considering how dysfunctional they were.

And a footnote to this is that I thought they were overrated as a kid and just another band, mostly because of the amount of radio and MTV time they got, but when I really launched into metal after my rap stage was nearing an end, I realized just how different they were. When I started to play guitar and even today, Slash is a hard guitarist to imitate. His tone and chops are second to none. They look phony but they all have serious musical talent and it shows when you really listen. I really hope they release a new album.

I tend to think if they weren't so dysfunctional, they would have been largely forgotten with the rest of the glam metal scene; so much of their legacy was built on the dangerous vibe at their live shows - you never knew what was going to happen. Would you get 2 hours of the biggest band on the planet, or were you going to get a 3 hour wait, followed by 1/2 an hour of music and an all night riot. You pays your money, and you takes your chances

I also think that if they were more well adjusted, a lot of the spark in their material would be missing, and their music would be a lot less memorable. Losing Jungle and It's So Easy would hurt, but that would also damage the compare and contrast impact of Sweet Child of Mine and Patience. So the whole would have suffered, and the label would have been much less likely to tolerate the Illusions experience. Axl's neuroses were just so key to the band, both positive and negative, that taking that out might have left a decent band, but not a legendary one.

I don't know if I've ever made the connection before, but the band dynamic, legacy and nostalgia level was mirrored closely by Oasis a few years later. Internal warfare, a classic album, exploding egos, and a long standing yearning for them to get back together after flaming out.

When Jimbo and I first saw GnR it was after the 80s during the period they were led by a crazy Axl and Buckethead was the lead guitarist. They played MSG one night and we had seats to the left of the stage one tier up so their were empty seats to our left. I said to Jimbo if a riot erupts we should make haste to the exit over there. He agreed.

Well that show went well but they were to appear the next night in Philly and that night did not go well. Yep there was a riot.

Now you can’t get more dangerous than that years after Altamont etc.

I think this album is their definitive work. They never topped it, IMO.

All the elements that defined GNR are here.