Twenty years ago, the world was a different place.
The Cold War was still going on, but coming to a close, "The Legend of Zelda" was unleashed on the United States and Michael Jackson was still kind of black on the cover of the "Thriller" follow-up, "Bad." Yes, times were different.
Hard rock and heavy metal ruled the charts, hip-hop was in its gangster phase but wasn't quite the beast it would become and new wave was slowing down. Despite being on top, however, rock n' roll ran into a problem that all popular genres run into at their climax - all the bands began to sound the same.
That is, until a little band out of Los Angeles changed rock music as the world knew it and delivered one of the greatest albums of all time. It was in 1987 that Guns N' Roses released their debut album, "Appetite For Destruction" and left everyone else behind.
While a few of the songs followed the metal mold of the urban pain of L.A. and being a rocker, Guns N' Roses were able to express emotions with endearing lyrics on not just one, but multiple ballads.
Time can do terrible things to something classic, yet despite being an overused anthem for sporting events today, Slash's opening riffs on "Welcome To The Jungle," combined with Axl Rose's howl, still gives me goose bumps. Heralded by Blender Magazine as the greatest song about L.A., "Jungle" was the perfect metaphor for the gritty, big city and "if you got your money, honey, we got your disease" was the best way to describe the ever-present drug problem the city suffered.
But looking beyond the "jungle," one could have caught the "Nightrain" to "Paradise City." One of GN'R's biggest hits, "City" includes one of the greatest guitar solos in music and an undeniably catchy hook. There has long been speculation as to what the song was really eluding to - many guessed heroin - Rose told Hit Parader Magazine in 1998 that the song was actually about being back in the Midwest, as Rose is from Indiana.
What has to be, in my opinion, the best song of the '80s and called one of the most important songs of the last 40 years by Rolling Stone, was an accident.
Bassist Duff McKagan said in a VH1 special, "The thing about 'Sweet Child O' Mine,' it was written in five minutes. It was one of those songs, only three chords. You know that guitar lick Slash does at the beginning? It was a joke in a jam session."
The joke was on the band apparently, as "Sweet Child O' Mine" would go on to be their first No. 1 single and an instant hit. Rose mixed the "joke riff" with a poem he was writing for his then-girlfriend. To think that one of my favorite songs of all time and one of the most influential songs of the '80s could be put together so quickly just goes to show the magic behind "Appetite For Destruction."
Although Guns N' Roses have long since disbanded, with Rose off somewhere trying to put out the long-delayed "Chinese Democracy" and Slash and company becoming members of Velvet Revolver, the legacy of this album still lives on.
While many will praise "Appetite For Destruction" for the numbers it posted up - the album is the fourth-best-selling album all-time in the U.S., going 15 times platinum and an additional 11 times worldwide - sales mean nothing. One year after its release, the album had only sold 500,000 copies.
From Slash's opening licks and Axl's "Oh My God" on "Jungle" to the rolling guitar solos of "Rocket Queen," Guns N' Roses set their place forever in music history for creating something worth commemorating.
Contact Stephen Ortiz at
Stephen.Ortiz@UConn.edu.
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