What Guns N’ Roses did with their first album in 1987, a lot of bands whose catalogs span multiple decades can’t do with a greatest hits collection. It’s a fortunate thing for Guns N’ Roses and us because 1993 would mark the end of new material until the prolonged and disappointing release in 2008 of Chinese Democracy, which is as much an Axl Rose solo album as anything else. In between, G N’ R Lies (1988) gave us new material such as the gentle “Patience” that showed Guns N’ Roses successfully going acoustic and slowing the tempo down. They stretched out with Use Your Illusion I (1991) and Use Your Illusion II (1991). The epic “November Rain” lasts the better part of ten minutes and “Coma” exceeds ten minutes while the joyride “Garden of Eden” is over in under three minutes. “Civil War,” “Don’t Cry,” “Estranged”—the masterpieces just keep coming. The minute-and-a-half “My World” is a mixed attempt at something like rap and sticks out uncomfortably as the bookend to the preceding material, but at least it shows the band continuing to experiment and try new things. The Spaghetti Incident? (1993) is all covers, but they sound good. Unless you count The Skyliners’ “Since I Don’t Have You” from 1958—which was obscure to most rock fans even back in 1993—Guns N’ Roses avoided covering hits. Instead, they focused on material from bands such as the New York Dolls, The Stooges, Johnny Thunders, and the Misfits. While they are much more than a one-hit or one-album wonder, Appetite for Destruction remains their most important, powerful, and concise statement.
It’s somewhat difficult to imagine a time in which Guns N’ Roses received mainstream airplay, but the 80s were a much different era in some ways. In America, “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” and “Paradise City” all made it to the top ten of the mainstream chart. The album has sold over thirty-million copies worldwide. It’s especially surprising considering that there are no pure ballads on the album. A lot of hard rock bands found that including a ballad or power ballad—“Home Sweet Home,” “Beth,” “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” “Love Bites,” “Is This Love,” “I Remember You,” “Wind of Change”—helped increase their audience. However, there is no such track to be found on Appetite for Destruction. One can make the argument that “Sweet Child o’ Mine” has elements of the ballad and comes the closest of any Appetite cut to fulfilling that role, but it’s still heavier than any of the aforementioned examples of ballads. Its similarities to a ballad probably helps explain why it was the most commercially successful single from the album and reached number one on the U.S. charts. Lyrically, the heartbroken, yearning “Think About You” fulfills the formula, but musically it’s too heavy (in an alternate universe, “Think About You” is a slowed-down, stripped-down acoustic number that hit the top of the charts).
The other songs from Appetite cover topics such as being eaten alive by the brutal realities of the world (“Welcome to the Jungle”), substance abuse (“Mr. Brownstone” and “Nightrain”), paranoia (“Out ta Get Me”), the desire to reach an unreachable and idealized version of home (“Paradise City”), a young girl’s struggles with drug addiction, the death of her mother, and her father’s interest in pornography (“My Michelle”), and unstable personalities (“You’re Crazy”). “Rocket Queen” incorporate sounds from a sex act that was recorded live in the studio, and there are lyrics such as “Why don’t you just / fuck off” from “It’s so Easy.” The cover features the image of a Celtic cross with the skull of each band member. It’s saying something that that was the least offensive cover. The previous one depicting a robotic assault that the band claimed was “a symbolic social statement” was quickly pulled after several retailers refused to stock the album, and Rose’s original idea to use a picture of the Space Shuttle Challenger exploding was vetoed by the record label who perhaps felt they had to finally draw the line somewhere. It’s not typically the stuff of a mega-selling album, but what a record it turned out to be.
Appetite for Destruction took what came before it, absorbed it, and transformed it. From super-charged blues, metal riffs, classic rock like Aerosmith and the Rolling Stones, hints of psychedelia, bursts of punk, bits of funk, wisps of country and Southern rock, and traces of the 1950s, Appetite puts it all together. You’d have to look to Led Zeppelin to find a band as willing to span so many genres. Appetite stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the most significant hard rock albums of the 80s.
This is a band that could have had the world, but by the time of Use Your Illusion, the recklessness, substance abuse, and interpersonal conflicts had all increased leading some to wonder if the real appetite for destruction was self-destruction. The subjects that fueled the original lineup now began to undo them. Drummer Steven Adler was dismissed permanently during the Illusion recordings. Rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin left several months after the release of the Illusion albums. Just a couple of years after their debut and Guns N’ Roses was already a different band.
That’s one of these reasons that this expanded edition is so important: It captures not just material from that golden era, but more material from a blue-hot lineup that never existed again and probably never will. Obviously, there’s only going to be so much available from that particular combination of musicians during that time.
The second CD gives us the Lies EP but wisely deletes the inferior and completely tone deaf—even then—“One in a Million.” Also included is a five-song sampling of the 1986 Sound City Studios sessions. These takes aren’t so different that the songs sound alien, but longtime fans will hear the differences immediately. The opening banshee wail of “Welcome to the Jungle” isn’t as long—around ten seconds compared to about twenty seconds—or powerful as the Appetite version, which sounds like it’s announcing the arrival of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. What sounds like a tambourine in the opening minute of “Paradise City” mercifully didn’t make it into the final version. There are small slips and slides that popup here and there. Little lyrical changes, slight changes in the emphasis on certain words, tiny alterations of guitar lines, and small switches in drumbeats are present in the sessions. For those of us who have been enjoying these tunes for years, a fresh take on them is welcome, but know ahead of time that despite being recorded in a studio these are rough and occasionally bumpy demos—not alternate takes of finalized songs. You’ll feel like you are sitting in a slightly loose rehearsal of songs that are close to, but not quite, finished.
The live and studio versions of the fast-paced “Shadow of Your Love” are here. It would have fit in fine with the rest of the Appetite material. A three-song live sampling consisting of “It’s So Easy,” the Bob Dylan cover “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” and the AC/DC cover “Whole Lotta Rosie” appears from a show in London, England from June 28, 1987. CD two concludes with four acoustic songs or acoustic versions of songs: “You’re Crazy,” “Patience,” “Used to Love Her,” and “Move to the City.” Though they performed an acoustic set at CBGB in 1987 and acoustic takes on songs during their 1993 tour, it’s too bad Guns N’ Roses never did a formal run that was properly recorded on, say, MTV’s Unplugged (where, for example, we might have heard my fantasy acoustic rendition of “Think About You.”)
Whereas the deluxe version contains four CDs with twenty-five of the Sound City session tracks along with other material not on the two-CD collection, a Blu-ray, a 96-page hardcover book, a poster, temporary tattoos, replica concert tickets, and just about everything but a bandana with Rose’s dried sweat, the two-CD version gives us a comprehensive overview and the most essential material—or most of the most essential material—at a price even a street urchin can scrounge up enough change for.
At beginning of the Sound City “Welcome to the Jungle” someone who sounds like Rose asks, “You guys ready?” He might as well be asking that question to the world about Appetite for Destruction. The answer is no. No, we’re still not ready, but we still want more.
TRACKLIST
Disc 1: Appetite for Destruction Remastered
Welcome To The Jungle
It’s So Easy
Nightrain
Out Ta Get Me
Mr. Brownstone
Paradise City
My Michelle
Think About You
Sweet Child O’ Mine
You’re Crazy
Anything Goes
Rocket Queen
Disc 2: B-sides, EPs N’ More
Reckless Life
Nice Boys
Move To The City (Live)
Mama Kin
Shadow Of Your Love (Live)
Welcome To The Jungle (1986 Sound City Session)
Nightrain (1986 Sound City Session)
Out Ta Get Me (1986 Sound City Session)
Paradise City (1986 Sound City Session)
My Michelle (1986 Sound City Session)
Shadow Of Your Love
It’s So Easy (Live)
Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (Live)
Whole Lotta Rosie (Live)
You’re Crazy (Acoustic Version)
Patience
Used To Love Her
Move To The City (1988 Acoustic Version)
