#19: Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction

Appetite for Destruction is a much better album than I thought it was going to be. Considering the direction they went afterwards it's, in my opinion, a much better album than it should be.

It has a very strong old school vibe to all of it, but enough different ideas are thrown into the instrumentation to keep it fresh, and all of the songs have such a strong groove that it carries you through the whole record bobbing your head all the way. As such I don't think it's surprising that it houses many of their classics, which to be honest are really the stand out tracks. I could be familiarity but with the exception of Mr. Brownstone, Welcome To the Jungle (which is an incredibly strong opening song), Paradise City and Sweet Child Of Mine are the songs that stick out most.

Sweet Child of Mine in particular, sticks out like a sore thumb because it's such a departure from the rest of the record. While everything else has a strong metal feel, or a surf rock kind of vibe, Sweet Child of Mine is just pure commercial gold, and to be honest I have mixed feelings about it. It has a solid instrumentation and probably some of the best lyrical imagery of the album, but it's not really an impressive song, and I can't get into it at all.

Given that there are much better songs strewn throughout the entire album, that this was the breakout hit seems like a disservice to the record as a whole. The album is rich with possibility and has a good energy to it and is much greater than the one famous song on it, which feels like, as Nirvana once named a song, a "Radio Friendly Unit Shifter".

Bottom line: can I recommend this album? Yes I certainly can. While it's not really for me, if I'm being perfectly honest, It's a lot like an AC/DC record. It's a good solid album for both fans of Rock and those who aren't. It's easily a gateway drug to what else the genre has to offer.

I hope you'll join me again next week when we'll be giving #18: Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits a spin.