Appetite for Destruction - Guns N' Roses

Appetite for Destruction is the debut studio album by Guns N' Roses, released on July 21, 1987 on Geffen Records. Produced by Mike Clink, the album features Axl Rose on vocals, Slash and Izzy Stradlin on guitars, Duff McKagan on bass, and Steven Adler on drums. Slash's guitar playing defines the album's sound — his Gibson Les Paul through a Marshall amplifier produced the warm, bluesy hard rock tone heard on "Welcome to the Jungle," "Sweet Child o' Mine," "Paradise City," and "Nightrain." Nearly every track features extended guitar solos that draw as much from blues and classic rock as from the Sunset Strip metal scene the band emerged from. The opening riff of "Sweet Child o' Mine" became one of the most recognizable guitar melodies in rock history, and the song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The album sold slowly at first but eventually became the best-selling debut album in United States history, with over 30 million copies sold worldwide. Its raw, aggressive sound — combining punk energy with blues-rock musicianship — arrived as a corrective to the polished glam metal that dominated the mid-1980s Los Angeles rock scene, and its commercial success helped define the hard rock genre for the next several years.