Taye Weispfenning
It’s July 21st, 1987. The sun is shining through your bedroom window. You get up and turn your radio on to start your day. Suddenly, you’re blasted with a groovy guitar solo. It sounds like a 70s rock-and-roll anthem, and it hits hard. It’s followed by a building drum track that finally breaks down into the full song. Axl Rose and a cowbell are a powerful combination. The blend of Izzy Stradlin’s guitar and Duff McKagan’s bass sets your head spinning, banging even. This is the effect of Guns N’ Roses. Making their official debut after being signed by Geffen Records in early 1986 after the band members left their original groups, Hollywood Rose and L.A. Guns. That debut album was the eternally-loved “Appetite for Destruction.” This would eventually become their most iconic album.
The album starts out with “Welcome to the Jungle,” a story from the perspective of the streets of Los Angeles. Considered to be the most representative of Guns N’ Roses, the song was originally written in Seattle. Axl took a look at his surroundings in the city; sure the city was big, but it was small compared to his hometown of Los Angeles, and he put that feeling into words. He spoke in an interview about the making of the album on the day of its release: “It seemed a lot more rural up there. I just wrote how LA looked to me. If someone comes to town and they want to find something, they can find whatever they want.” It became a true, legendary anthem to rock and roll and completely revived the genre going into the 90s.
The fourth song on the record happens to be my favorite out of the 12. “Out Ta Get Me” is a story of feeling like everyone is constantly on your back. Axl was quoted from the previously mentioned interview: “The lyrics are saying, ‘I’ve always been in trouble, but I’m still handling it.” Like every time you turn around, someone is trying to screw you over financially, or the cops are banging on your door, and you didn’t do anything. It’s just being railroaded into something and trying to get out from underneath it.” It’s the perfect song to go full volume on while you drive to the job you hate but work anyways. Total “Screw the system, and you too” energy.
“The best songs we do, they’re collaborations. The best way to do it is to have the whole band sit there and listen to everybody else’s ideas, and put it all together to make something that everybody enjoys playing.” (Slash quoted from the same interview.) Every song has the effort from every member. The same blood, sweat, and tears from the individuals who changed rock for the better. The entirety of the album has this essence of a love letter to life in Los Angeles: this cocky, raw sexuality mixed with a deeply rooted, almost yearning kind of love for the people you meet and the life in front of you, while wanting to drive those people into madness. Most songs being written out of spontaneity gives the whole record a completely different feel from other Hair metal bands. It is a beautiful amalgamation of life, love, and sensuality, as well as the need to cause harm, chaos, and self-sabotage, rolled into a bundle of rock n’ roll history. After rewriting the course of their genre and creating this new composition for people to dive into and relive the rock they once knew, Guns N ’ Roses will forever be known as a one-of-a-kind, show-stopping band, one we may never see the same energy of again. That’s what makes them so iconic. Take that wonder heart!
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