Guns N Roses - Appetite for Destruction
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Free Music Notes for Appetite for Destruction
Free Music Review: Don't like Guns 'n Roses? "You're crazy!"
Hit: 5 Stars
My brother purchased this album before I did -- and he was five years younger than me, still in grade school while I was in high school. Apparently he was a little less intimidated by the sound and aura of Guns `n Roses than me. To be sure, I loved the songs off "Appetite for Destruction," but somehow felt like bringing this album home from the store would get me in trouble or soil me in some way. Sure, Axl Rose's snaky voice and the alarming lyrics on the hit song "Welcome to the Jungle" would set anyone on edge, but the commanding "F*** off!" heard by the singer on the album's second song, "It's So Easy," along with the startlingly brash lyrics heard on the rest of that tune (and throughout the album), were pretty dangerous stuff to my sophomore-in-high-school ears. Axl's over-the-top persona and G `n Rs' antics over the succeeding years would intermittently turn me off at times, but all this time later I can really, really appreciate this awesome album.
Def Leppard's Pyromania album from the 1980s featured masterful twin guitar work by Steve Clark and Phil Collen. Hook after hook on that album won listeners over. G `n R guitarists Slash and Izzy Stradlin were magical on this album also, but in a different way than Clark and Collen. "Appetite" is less about hooks and more about abandonment and rough-edged rock and roll that forces you to pay attention. The flexing, heavy-hitting power chords by Stradlin that intermingled with the oily guitar leads of Slash are way more complex than you might think, and if you listen hard enough to the fiery guitars on this album, you'll hear something new every time.
Steven Adler's drumming was later criticized by others in the band, perhaps due to his bad drug habit, but "Appetite" has some of the best "air drum" moments in the history of rock and roll. I find myself stomping the kick drum, hitting the cow bell, high hat and snare on such greats as "Mr. Brownstone," "Paradise City," "Sweet Child o' Mine" and "Rocket Queen" with just as much abandon as Adler himself.
Axl was a vocal chameleon behind the microphone, high-pitched and wailing on many songs and bizarrely sounding like a croaky grandmother on others. His powerful vocals on the chorus of "My Michelle" are infectiously contagious. The sentimental "Think About You" is the perfect lead-in song to the even more sentimental "Sweet Child o' Mine," one of the best rock songs ever recorded. "You're Crazy" and "Anything Goes," also great, rocking tunes, sum up the classic G `n R persona, and the album's closer, "Rocket Queen," ends "Appetite" on a strong, melodic note, somewhat in the vain of "Sweet Child of Mine's." reflective way.
Swagger, soul, abandonment, grit, feeling. Hard rock music at its best. Twelve songs that will fly by and you'll want to hear them again. I'm glad I kind of came of age when G `n R debuted at the top of the world. They should make a movie about these guys, or at least make a documentary about the late-`80s era they represented with such recklessness.
Free Music Review: Attitude, good music, and no messing around
Hit: 5 Stars
The year was 1987... Those of us who liked rock had been reduced to swallowing poser hair/glam bands that had made us forget what we liked about hard rock in the first place. The times were filled with bands that cared more about their hairspray than their music, more about being commercial by softening up their sound through keyboards and heavy reverb than to give us something to feel, and more fakery than fool's gold. In the midst of this musical malaise, I remember seeing "Welcome to the Jungle" on MTV. I was so sick of poser bands that at first I dismissed the song and the band as just another LA poser band. I heard the song a couple of more times and I started to think that this band had something that other bands did't have, but I couldn't pin point it. Then I heard "Sweet Child of Mine". I was impressed at G'n'R's sense of melody and Axl's ability to switch vocal styles so well. MTV kept feeding us more of the same old sugary hard rock until it first aired "Paradise City". I was immediately hooked on G'n'R after hearing "Paradise City". The lyrics were intense, the guitar playing was dirty and raucous, and the music had attitude... REAL attitude. G'n'R were bad and they didn't have to tell us: attitude was all over them. Then I bought "Appetite for Destruction". I skipped "Jungle" to hear the next track "It's So Easy". Within the first five seconds of hearing the opening bass line, I got goose bumps. Upon hearing the first verse, I was floored! Axl didn't mess around and didn't mince words. He told it like he saw it and he made us feel his attitude. Crawling through the streets of Hollywood, he could say with credibility "It's so easy, when everybody's trying to please me, baby". The next song, "Nightrain" blew me away, yet again. The harmonized rhythm guitars burned. Axl's words again made me think that this guy doesn't THINK he's bad; he IS bad. The many other great songs (Mr. Brownstone, My Michelle, Anything Goes, etc.) were continuous brutal assaults with lyrics such as "I get up around 7/Get out of bed around 9/I don't worry about nothing/ `Cause worrying is a waste of my time" or "Your daddy works in porno now that mommy's not around/She used to love her heroin but no she's underground). After hearing "Appetite" I remembered what I was missing from rock music: realness, attitude and good music. I must have listened to "Appetite" at least a hundred times. It's still sounds good to this day.
About a couple of years ago, I was lucky enough to meet Axl by chance at a cigar shop in Santa Monica, CA. Long story short, I had a two hour conversation with him about music, G'n'R, about his new music, other musicians and much more. I found him to be extremely knowledgeable about musical instruments, music in general and about anything that we talked about. Axl was down to earth, intelligent and very cool - nothing like what the media has portrayed him to be. I got to ask him the questions that I wanted to know and I will never forget our conversation.
G'n'R single handedly brought back the attitude and musicality that was missing in hard rock. If you haven't heard "Appetite", you don't know what you're missing.
Free Music Review: An album unlike any other from the 80's
Hit: 5 Stars
In 1987, I was an awkward teen trying to be different from the masses in my oh so average high school full of jocks, nerds, misfits and headbangers. I always dreamed about living in LA where freestyle BMX reigned, snowboarding was emerging and Life's a Beach clothing flowed freely. So even though I was stuck in Boston, everything I liked was SoCal...and when I got my hands on some metal mag talking about some upcoming band name Guns N' Roses who had the baddest attitude, I knew I had to hear the album. There was Axl all glammed out with big hairspray, mirrored sunglasses and black leather pants etched "Glam Sucks" on his thigh. He looked cool and dangerous. Good enough.
Well a dozen record stores later in the summer of 1987...there was nothing on the shelves...until one day in August a single cassette of Appetite for Destruction was found. I bought it, got home and on comes Welcome to the Jungle. It blew my mind..so much so that I played it like 5 times in a row before I even got to the other songs. I think for 6 months, that was the only album I kept in my cassette deck. As I learned to listen to the other tracks, I would come to school preaching the sound of a new band out of LA that would define my music. I wanted a GNR t-shirt to wear proudly then and there, but it would take a few months before Welcome to the Jungle would make its fiery debut. Then came Sweet Child...and a hard rocking monster band was born on an album that time would later tell to be a classic, that far outlives the legacy it's authors have, or will ever, achieve.
The core tracks of AFD are Jungle, Paradise City and Sweet Child because those were the big MTV releases. All three songs are defined by their immense openings...preludes to the tracks that combine an incredible hard rocking beat mated to the timely screams and vocals of Axl. However, true fans of the album know the remaing songs are giants in their own accord. It's so Easy and Out to Get Me, though musically very different in tone, evoke the same raw hardcore image of the LA club scene of fast times, fast girls and fast living. Brownstone is probably my favorite track on AFD as Axl goes into deep vocals and the combination of the bass beat with Slash's lead combine for a true classic. Side A of AFD is one of the strongest set lists I have ever heard.
Side B is less powerful, because it is handicapped by 2 throwaway songs...Think About You and Anything Goes (this is an AWESOME song in it's original form if you can find it bootlegged). My Michele and You're Crazy are hard hitting songs that are solid contributors, but to my ears, not nearly musical enough to anything on Side A. However what makes up for Side B is Sweet Child and Rocket Queen. These are two long songs that combine unprecedented music harmony with hard rock. They are that good...and elevate AFD, as an album, to another level.
~20 years later, I do not play this album that much any more because it is an andrenaline pumping machine moreso than background after-dinner music. However it is, and will always be, my first album choice in picking one to add to any collection.
Free Music Review: Dreams of Grit, Dirt, and Life in a Gutter
Hit: 5 Stars
Picture this: a 15 year old high schooler in the mid 1990s is full of angst, rage, and hormonal passion. He is gifted with musical ability, and he funnels all his emotion into the guitar and listens to guitar-based music. At the time, that would entail listening to Nirvana, Stone Temple Pilots, Smashing Pumpkins, and more Nirvana.
Now, that 15 year old kid has mastered playing all those songs, and he wonders if there is a more "romantic" life somewhere out there, beyond the confines of his suburban dwelling. Y'know, a life of grit, dirt, and living in the gutter. A life where you "take it day by day," and "learn to live like an animal." But, that kid doesn't want to abandon the anger and rage which has carried him through his adolescence.
That kid was me, obviously. I had quickly grown tired of playing simple power chords and listening to monotone singers. So, imagine my utter shock when I heard "Paradise City" on the radio one day. What was that? A 3 minute outro solo? What is that amazing guitar tone? And why is the singer reminding me of a banshee out of hell?
After catching a few more AFD radio tunes, I took the plunge and bought this archaic 1980s rock CD. I could picture Cobain's ghost laughing at me.
I was instantly transfixed.
This was the first album that I actually didn't skip past the non-radio songs. Every single song is based on a catchy hook, every solo is passionate and meaningful.
I started to scrutinize the back cover of the CD. These guys were FILTHY and obviously drunkards. And what's with the names? Axl Rose? Slash? Izzy Stradlin'? Duff McKagan? They were like some psychotic knights from a long past era, too crazy to have normal names. The more I read of their history, the more interested I became in their story. For the love of god, these guys lived in a rented recording space, sleeping on the floor, stealing money from the girls who "visited" them! Such a romantic life, something I was destined never to experience in my suburban, college-bound life.
To this day, I consider AFD to be the pinnacle of a band composing music. Sorry to the Illusion fans--AFD is pure, unabated, raw anger, full of barely-chained rage. Just listen to the hatred in Axl's voice when he sings on "Rocket Queen," or try the intense emotion of Slash's solos in "Nightrain." And, if you're a guitarist, you really owe it to yourself to hear what Slash can do. True, his solos are based on standard pentatonic blues, but he puts such emotion into them--I can whistle most of his solos as if they were lyrics. Also, please don't neglect Izzy; he wrote a great deal of material on this album, and AFD could not exist without him.
AFD is a once-in-humanity achievement. Some people lament how quickly GNR burned out, but not me. You need to understand that the intense psychosis in the band is what's responsible for creating AFD--that psychosis also destroyed them. And if that's the only way AFD could have been created, then that's just fine with me.
Free Music Review: It's a little too much and a bit obscene. It's GNR!
Hit: 5 Stars
Being 13, I can't really use the very popular "way back in '87" format, but I still have to say that Appetite For Destruction is the best rock album I've ever heard, and I've heard most, from The Beatles to ... everyone else.
My cousin had just come back from America, and her boombox was blasting out guitar riffs that seemed vaguely familiar ... "Take me down to the Paradise City--" BANG. I found myself finishing the chorus. I had heard this somewhere before! And as I listened the album through (which I'm doing right now -- "My Michelle" is starting) I knew this was my favorite band on earth. Four years on, it still is.
"Welcome To The Jungle" rolles out the Welcomewagon with a party rocker, great riffs and a beat you want to jump to. "It's So Easy" has Axl sounding like ten more of himself, and then the masterpiece that is "Nightrain." It's a fantastic song, and one of the best GNR tracks. "Out Ta Get Me" and "Mr. Brownstone" are galaxies apart as far as tune and beat go, but one is just as good as the other, that is, great. Then that fateful song, "Paradise City," the immortal intro and the brilliant solo, ending with the chorus repeating constantly over some incredible guitar work.
"My Michelle" is another great track about writing a letter to a chick called Michelle; "Think About You" is a great song, too. "Sweet Child O' Mine" deserves another 1000 words - no, paragraphs. The intro is genius, the lyrics are sublime, and the second half is beyond simple, perishable words that vanish as soon as they come out of your mouth. An incredible solo which is kicking off right now, and the ending keeps up the great tradition of Slash and Axl in very (very) loud mode, yet in harmony and complementing each other. Axl/Slash are just as good as Plant/Page, Tyler/Perry, Bon Jovi/Sambora and anyone else, probably better. After that, come "You're Crazy" and "Anything Goes," both lots of fun and tracks you will never tire of. Both are fast-paced rockers, and they're GNR, so they guarantee their quality themselves. To finish, "Rocket Queen" is a brilliant song, one of the best.
From "Welcome To The Jungle" to "Paradise City" to "Sweet Child O' Mine," and lastly, but far from least, "Rocket Queen," this is the only album on my iTunes that gets 5/5 straight through. As for "Rocket Queen," it is the perfect ending. It ends with a very long verse, Axl professing love in a high-pitched voice, and Slash baffling you with the magnificence of the guitar that he plays. A GLOROIOUS ending. And I have only 2 minutes before it starts, so better hurry now. "Anything Goes" will be over soon ...
All in all, this is the best rock record ever, and a prelude to the two albums that, IMHO, are its two runner-ups. This made me hungry for destruction! And best of all, MY parents never objected to Axl's obscenities, and never objected to anything at all until my dad accidentally put on Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Alas! Poor, poor, desecrated disk ... I can mourn later, I've run out of time! Are you still reading? Get the bloody album!