Top 50 Debut Albums - No.48 "Appetite For Destruction" Guns N' Roses (1987)

My first draft of this top 50 had Appetite comfortably in the top 20 but as I listened to more and more contenders it slowly dropped down the rankings. My music tastes have changed considerably since this came out but there was no way it couldn't feature somewhere.

Appetite For Destruction is the perfect example of a band hitting the ground running with an album full of their best songs, there's hardly a dull moment and they managed to release seven of the twelve tracks as singles. SEVEN flippin' singles! That's frankly ridiculous. Guns N' Roses got so big so quickly they didn't have time to draw breath and they didn't release another album worth bothering with in my book.

When they first hit the scene I was 19 and a confirmed Metal Head and G'N'R seemed like the Sex Pistols for my generation. I remember hearing a radio advert for a live gig at the famous Marquee club which I was desperate to get to. I didn't make it and that remains one of my most regretted lost gigs (even though I'm sure the queue to get in would have been round the block). When I finally did see them live, at Castle Donnington in 1988, they were brilliant but already too big for their early afternoon time slot. The next (and final) time I saw them live they headlined Wembley Stadium (in what I've just discovered was Izzy Stradlin's last show as a full-time member) and had lost the edge that first got me excited.




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