Each
month we will be checkin what we feel is an album that definitky
may be worth revisiting. Sometimes it is easy to forget how
great some of these releases were. Many of them went on to
have signifigant influence on the music of today. When going
back and checking them out again you will often find forgotten
brilliance and just maybe it will give you a new spark of inspiration
for creating something awesome on your own. (-: Thanks
to Wikapedia
Appetite for Destruction
is the debut studio album by American hard rock band
Guns N' Roses, released in July 21, 1987 on Geffen
Records.
It was well received by critics and
topped the American Billboard 200 chart. As of September
2008, the album has been certified 18 times Platinum
by the RIAA, accumulating worldwide sales of more than
30 million copies. The album is featured in the book
1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
Axl Rose stated that many of the songs
featured on the album had been written while the band
had been performing on the Los Angeles club circuit,
and a number of songs that would be 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" was because they had already agreed to put "Sweet
Child 'O Mine" and thus already had a ballad on
the album (however, both Use Your Illusion albums would
contain more than one ballad). |
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While Kiss's Paul Stanley was considered
for producing the album, he was rejected after insisting
on changes to Steven Adler's drum setup and the songs.
Robert John "Mutt" Lange
was also considered, but he proved too expensive to hire.
Mike Clink, who had produced several Triumph records, was
eventually chosen instead. After some weeks of rehearsal,
the band entered Daryl Dragon's Rumbo Recorders in January
1987. Two weeks were spent laying down 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
cutting vocals until the sun came up. Slash struggled to
find a guitar sound before coming up with a Gibson Les Paul
copy 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.
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 on the album 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 near the highways of Manhattan
in 1980 shortly after arriving there from Indiana] 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. The band also based song lyrics on
some of their female friends, reflected in the songs "Sweet
Child o' Mine", "My Michelle, "You're Crazy",
and "Rocket Queen".
"Welcome
to the Jungle"
It was released as the band's second single on October 3,
1987 and reached number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 chart
and number sixty-seven on the UK Singles Chart. In the United
Kingdom, "Welcome to the Jungle" was backed with
a live cover of AC/DC's "Whole Lotta Rosie", while
in the United States the B-side was "Mr. Brownstone" from
Appetite for Destruction. In 2009 it was named the greatest
hard rock song of all time by VH1.
"Nightrain"
This song refers to a brand of cheap wine that some Guns N'
Roses members had pretty much abused at a time.
"Out ta Get Me"
Its lyrics focus on lead singer Axl Rose's constant trouble
with the law as a youth in Indiana. Slash describes it as
being written even more quickly than "Welcome to the
Jungle", which means it was written in under three hours.
"Paradise City"
Slash states in his autobiography that the song was written
in the back of a rental van as they were on their way back
from playing a gig in San Francisco with the band Rock
N Riders. He states that the band was in the back of the
van, drinking and playing acoustic guitars when he came
up with the intro. Duff McKagan and Izzy Stradlin started
playing along. Slash started humming a melody when Axl
Rose sang, "Take me down to the Paradise City",
where Slash then chimed in with "Where the girls are
fat and have big titties." Axl didn't like these lyrics,
as he wanted the song to be radio-friendly. The rest of
the band agreed and the line was changed to "Where
the grass is green and the girls are pretty."
"My Michelle"
The song is about a friend of the band, a girl named Michelle
Young who is thanked in the 'Appetite For Destruction'
cover sleeve. According to Axl, he and Young were in a
car together when "Your Song" by Elton John came
on the radio and Young 'happened' to mention that she had
always wanted someone to write a song about her. The song
is brutally honest, which Slash thought she would hate,
but she liked the song.
"Sweet Child O'
Mine"
Ninth track on the album and third single. Released on August
18, 1988, the song topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming
the band's first and only number-one single in the U.S. It
reached number six on the UK Singles Chart.
The lyrics of the song are written about Axl's girlfriend
(at the time) Erin Everly. The famous guitar lick at the
beginning of the song was simply one of Slash's warm-up routines,
as he stated in his autobiography. Though he didn't see it
as anything special, the other members of the band did. As
they jammed to it one night, Axl was upstairs in a bedroom
writing lyrics to fit it. Shortly after that night, Rose
brought the lyrics to the rest of the band and it was turned
into a full song.
"You're Crazy"
It was
originally written as an acoustic song, but was revamped
for Appetite for Destruction (this version is one of
the fastest songs in the band's catalog). The slower, acoustic
version was later recorded for G N' R Lies; this version
has also been performed live with electric guitars (as
heard on their live album). A working title for the song
was "Fucking
Crazy".
"Anything Goes"
It was one of the earliest-written songs by the band, having
been written in 1981 and had been performed in an earlier
incarnation with Hollywood Rose. It was originally named "My
Way, Your Way".
Packaging
The original cover art for the albumThe album's original
cover art, based on Robert Williams' painting "Appetite
for Destruction", 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 cross and skulls of the five
band members (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.
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 re-pressing
of the vinyl, though the record label replaced it with
the "Skulls" art at the last minute.
The
re-pressing of the vinyl, though, is the first Guns
N' Roses release to have the Parental Advisory label
printed on the artwork; previously, like on the CD,
this was a sticker on the cellophane wrap and later
(on the CD and cassette releases) on the case itself.
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, Axl 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"
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