You Wanted the Best? Well They Didn't F*@#ing Make It!

So here's what you get, from Hollywood...Guns N' Roses!

Today, faithful readers, marks a huge day in rock history. In 1987, a certain band named Guns N' Roses exploded onto the scene, releasing Appetite for Destruction, one of the most important rock albums of all time, and a Top 5 Favorite Album for a certain Gregory Steven Klein.

With GNR, you had rock stars that looked and acted like rock stars. None of this makeup-applying, spandex-wearing, cocaine-laced anthem rock that saturated 80s rock up to this point. Sure, you had the cocaine (okay, a LOT of cocaine), some of the anthem rock, but GNR was the real deal. They were the kind of band who would play and fit in well at a dingy biker bar, full of broken bottles, blood, and fights (half of which they probably started).

On top of the decadence that Slash, Duff McKagan, Izzy Stradlin, and Steve Adler already brought to the band, you have one Mr. W. Axl Rose. Axl encapsulated everything positive and negative (more the latter) about being a rock star. He was a drunk, an egotistical asshole, a bit prone to violence and impulsiveness, but damn he had a set of friggin lungs.

Guns N' Roses was the reality check rock needed at the time, grounding its glamorized playfulness with a 12-track shotgun blast to the gut. From the start of "Welcome to the Jungle," when the siren and screeching guitars yank you into a dark alley, you're kept captive in their seedy underworld until the epic end of "Rocket Queen." But there's so much in between. You have "Mr. Brownstone," a song about the hold heroin can take on a band and one of the best rock intros to boot; "Paradise City," the quintessential anthem rock song that's the shortest 6:44 you'll ever experience; "Night Train," about everyone's favorite two-buck chuck; and "Sweet Child O Mine," the power ballad that set the ballad bar about five feet higher afterwards (until "November Rain" came along). I won't go into details for each song, I think you get where I'm going with this. Appetite is sleazy, boozy, horribly rocked out, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Say what you will about the band's short life, their overreaching in complexity (strings, piano, a brass section, and backup singers), or Axl's $13 million ever-forthcoming album, do yourself a favor today: set aside the usual scorn you have for my love of GNR, and buy/download/listen to a genre-changing, no-holds-barred, red-blooded rock album.

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Big P.S. - Apparently I have a secret spamirer, and she likes leaving silly little coments in EVERY post, not once, but twice. Now while I realize it's hard to find some qualiy blogging better than what you just read above, and flattery gets you everywhere with me, you now have to write "drvvxm" to tell me how awesome I am. Small price to pay. Goodnight, fooligans.