Best Album of the 1980s -- Appetite for Destruction by Guns N' Roses

Nirvana didn't kill hair metal - Guns n' Roses did. With their explosive 1987 debut album, Appetite for Destruction, Guns n' Roses burst out of the Los Angeles glam rock scene and permanently carved a spot in rock history.

This music review places Appetite for Destruction as arguably the best album of the 1980s. From the opening delayed guitar riff of "Welcome to the Jungle" to the incendiary "Paradise City" the the almost 50s flavored ending of "Rocket Queen," the album captures the reality of life on the streets better than any before or since.

Lyrically, the band completely avoided all the traditional trappings of heavy metal. The eccentric but brilliant Axl Rose ensured that there are no Zeppelin-esque Lord of the Rings references, no pseudo-Satanist posturing, not even any of the party-all-the-time silliness of their contemporaries. Instead, there is nothing but a raw dose of five young men living a virtually homeless, penniless existence on the mean streets of LA in the mid-to-late 1980s.

Musically, the band is essentially an extension of late-70s Aerosmith. The interplay between rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin' and lead guitarist Slash, though reminiscent of the Joe Perry-Brad Whitford connection, is much harder and much more defined than Perry and Whitford have ever been. The album's blues-inflected hard rock sound is firmly rooted in 70s classic rock, but manages to avoid the overdone clichés of that era, as well as the worst of the overdone clichés of the 80s.

So... you know where you are? You in the jungle, baby!

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