Appetite for Destruction by Guns N Roses

Appetite for Destruction, the Guns N' Roses debut, hit the racks on Geffen on July 21, 1987, after sessions with producer Mike Clink that ran from January 18 to June 23 that year. The songs come straight out of the band's own lives, their youth and their everyday scuffling, and they sound like it: nasty, loud and lived in, hard rock with a switchblade in its boot.

At first hardly anybody noticed. It took a year of touring and a slow creep onto the airwaves before it caught fire, but when it did it burned for good. "Welcome to the Jungle" snarls and prowls, "Paradise City" is a chant that won't quit, and "Sweet Child o' Mine" went all the way to the top of the Hot 100, with the other two landing in the top ten. "Mr. Brownstone", "It's So Easy" and "Nightrain" filled out the five singles.

The album itself topped the Billboard 200, went 18 times platinum, and stands as the best-selling debut ever in America, with more than 30 million sold worldwide. Critics shrugged at it back then and have been making up for it since. A remastered box set in 2018 put it back in the Billboard top ten.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.