Appetite For Destruction

I can still remember when this album came out and it was larger than life with Axl, Slash, Izzy, Duff and Steve. There was big hair, makeup, and leather, I mean it had everything you needed right?! This album had several number one hits that came from it, but I actually think some of the better songs were not singles and that could just be based on the fact that the singles have been played so much over the last almost 40 years, that most people are tired of hearing them. There was a time I would have easily given this album 5 stars and called it a day as there would have been no reason to even discuss anything less, but now I can't say that. This album is dynamite for a bands debut album and is by far the best album GNR ever put out, but at the same time without the great guitar play from Slash, a lot of what is left is the same tired ass riffs and hooks you can hear on albums from many of the hair bands of the 80s. I am not saying that Slash was the only one talented in the band or on this album, but his guitar sure does make most songs shine much more than any other single member. Album is a solid 8/10 or 9/10 and I am giving it 4 stars.

So hard to be objective when Rose is a domestic abuser, homophobic racist whose voice is unpleasant at the best of times. These songs have also been drilled into my skull by teaching them to drum students - which also comments on their longevity and lasting appeal. Just listened to Is This It by The Strokes and gave it a 5. That was my first 5, and Derek and The Dominos would have been my first 0 if possible. These songs are better than that record by far. Ugh. I don’t know anymore. I fucking love 80s hair metal. Star score purely reflecting music if I knew nothing about Rose and his stupid misogyny and gremlin-esque voice.

This album is shit. Sweet Child o' Mine is head and shoulders above all the other nonsense dross.

Unpolished classic.

You get used to the scrotum voice.

Decent rock album. A lot of done that I still here on the radio. Axel has a unique voice, and I think guitar sounds stood out (or maybe I was just listening for those more). Hard to separate art from artist, so sure might be overcompensation

En banger som blivit väldigt uttjatad genom åren. Bra men blir lite tröttsamt trots variation i låtarna. De bra låtarna är riktigt bra, de andra låtarna är lite meh. Kommer inte åka in på iPoden men är ändå en klassiker

own

The top review on this site does make a good point - if you listen to rock music then you've probably been oversaturated with the singles from Appetite to Destruction. But I guess that isn't GnR's fault. They created one of the best debut albums of all time and every song rocks - there's really no let up in the intensity for 53 minutes and even the longer tracks like Paradise City never feel like they're being padded out. Class

I usually listen to my daily album in the morning when I get up. And when I saw Appetite For Destruction I was kind of dreading it. Everybody’s heard the hits from this album and they’re decent but I just didn’t think it was for me. So I started listening to it and I haven’t heard any of these songs on a proper HiFi system until now, and I’m actually quite impressed. This has been a great start to the day. The songs are really in your face but they still feel spacious and clear. It’s a great mix. And the guitars and bass are dialed in really well. However, the album is like an upside down parabola. It starts quite weak, gets really good in the middle and then drops off again. With the exception of the opening track which I don’t mind but I’ve heard it a million times. The two tracks after Welcome To The Jungle are not memorable and just feel off. The fourth and fifth track is where things start picking up and then six and seven are easily the best. Unfortunately after that everything slowly declines and you lose interest. I found myself wanting to go back to Paradise City and My Michelle for the whole rest of the album, it really starts to drag on. I was really surprised by My Michelle as I haven’t heard it before and I’ve been missing out, it sounds so menacing and it immediately grabs your attention. The riff during the verses is groovy as hell and it completely lets loose on the chorus which provides a great contrast, keeping you more invested. This album has good and bad and everything in between, I think this would be great if you’re in the mood for some hard rock while doing another task just to have something in the background.

iconic hard rock

A great album.

Hits and filler

Welcome to the Jungle indeed. This is so much fun! Even the fillers on this album are great. Good times.

mkay. fun, campy but not essential

This is a really strange album. A lot of the 'great' tracks from it only really have a small section which are iconic. It's a lot of fun but really messy at times and sometimes really strange.

I was an early adopter for not liking this band. Having to endure any one of the massively over-played hits from this album gives me an appetite for destruction.

The mediocrity of this album has really inspired me to be more average

Fantastic!

El inicio de Guns N Roses, hermoso disco de principio a fin!

i can see it's a great album mas não é muito do meu gosto. não me incomoda ouvir, porém. algumas músicas são até legais e acho que a dinâmica do álbum é boa.

Really good album. Other than the hits, it is a bit samey, but that's just my taste.

Have I listened to this album before No How familiar am I with this album Pretty familiar, I feel like all the hits are on here How do I feel about this artist? Neutral, another band my dad loves Pre-Listen Thoughts: I’m a pretty big fan of Slash’s guitar style even if I don’t listen to Guns N’ Roses a lot. I think it’ll be funny but if it’s not my thing. Favorite track(s): Sweet Child O’ Mine (yes it’s over-played but this riff really holds up) Post-Listen Thoughts: This was solid. It’s not a 5 for me personally, but I can see why it gets a lot of 5s. It was kind of just banger after banger. Probably nothing I will revisit, but enjoyable.

Those three singles on here, fantastic, easy to see why they became classic staples of the hard rock sound and launched careers and a million little guitarists. But I’d so much rather just listen to them as three singles. As a whole album, it’s both probably about as good as you’re getting out of the 80s glam metal sound and also incredibly samey and tiresome and something that just totally washes over you. I could probably go my entire life without hearing those other 9 songs again, and still be able to piece the gist together by memory because I too have heard of and enjoy the concept of this thing called “sex”.

Carried by it's singles.

Some songs are so good others are just there

Yeah this album fucking rules. The lows are still pretty darn decent and the highs are all timers.

GNR is one of the canonized 'classic rock' bands that never really did it for me and when I would tell that to people in LA, they would look at me like I was crazy. I think the high flyin' Sunset Strip scene is baked into this album and it's legacy. The sex and drugs and attitude prevalent here may speak to a youth culture that needed a voice at the time, but years have not been kind to this record in my opinion. It is pretty standard hard rock/edgy glam, downstream of Aerosmith, Def Leppard and others. The tender sentimentality of Sweet Child O Mine comes out of nowhere among the grit and spit of the previous tracks and I see how that hit hard. I find some of this to be a bit cringe. I bet if you had a Pontiac, bottle of booze and a head injury, this shit slapped.

3.5

I think like a butterfly metapmorphs into something beautiful and ultimately dies, I think my affinity of this album has done the same. This was one of my all time favorites from childhood, sweet child and paradise city. As I grew up and got a bit older Mr. Brownstone, Out ta Get Me, and Rocket queen became staples. But then one day it felt soft and all my love died for it at once. But we're just right back at the beginning again. This album is an absurd debut in a time where glam rock was getting gritty and hard again. Memory serves GnR was on the scene cultivating a following for a few years before dropping this album so it gave them time to sharpen this songs to razor like quality. They all cut so deep and hit like a mack truck. The riffs are filthy, disgusting and yet iconic. The backbeat izzy and duff seriously come up with some unique grooves and well Axl... hate him or love him he's one of the best frontmen in rock n roll. Nothing short of a perfect debut and legacy album, but I hate Axl quite a lot so I'm gonna ding it a star. But also upon retrospect the ballads weren't great on this one either. But they would release one of the best decade defining ballads a few years later.

Also a fucking classic

Great guitar rock. Having not heard this thru in decades, it has aged well, even Rose’s vocals. Adler actually swings more than most heavy metal drummers.

For a debut album, you have to admit this is insane, especially given the number of songs which are staples in the metal and rock world. Even if overplayed, songs like Sweet Child of Mine and paradise city have me buzzing like crazy. There are some criminally underrated songs on this album like rocket queen and nightrain, with Axle's voice giving me goosebumps. One comment I will have is that when you have 12 hard rock and metal songs consecutively, it can really wear you out. Some of the best rock albums have ballads or softer songs interspersed to give the listener a break, as well as add a uniqueness and other meaning to the album. This happened at the end of Rocket queen which took a turn from its explicit sound to a melancholy ache which I thought was beautiful, if only this could have been done elsewhere.

Even though some of the tracks are a bit played out nearly 40 years later, this is still an exceptional album. Especially for a debut. Whatever you think of Axl in 2026, has on absolute top form here. So are the rest of the band. Easy 5*

Liebs

I liked it, but not too re listinable, found myself zoning out at times

Eh

One of the greatest hard rock albums of all time

they've done better

As definitive of a genre and era as Nirvana's Nevermind. An important record in hair metal that would cement GnR on billboards and MTV for a long time to come. But give me thrash any day of the week.

I think this would have been amazing when it first released, and I'd have been all over it in 1987

Tried to listen to it, but struggle, even with their hits.

ok

mamamia 3.5

Fak, prou OŠ flashbacks mam. Ok. Ta album bo mogoč tricky. A je "Welcome to the Jungle" dejansko a banger, ampak je problem v tem, da smo ga vsi že miljonkrat slišali? (Sm pa že annoyed, da je čez 50 minut dolg album.) Ok. Alpa ne. Na tej točki ("Anything Goes") sm krepko ready, da bo konec. (O, sj je predzadnji komad thank fuck!) "Rocket Queen" je obnoxious.

I hated Guns N' Roses before it was cool, I continued hating them when it was cool, and I still hate them now when it's not as cool to hate them as it was before. All times of this glam hair metal slop pisses me off, realistically I hate Guns N' Roses no more than any other of those bands, but these guys are one of the most popular so it makes me hate them more. The screeching vocals along with the relentlessly loud guitar playing make this album absolutely unlistenable. It's so in your face for the entire runtime, it gives you absolutely no time to take a break between the most intense moments, and it just sounds awful the whole time it's doing it.

classic

classic

Possibly the best American rock album.

4.7

oh, them. I grew up in the target market for this kind of stuff: white-boy-camo-baseball-cap-wearing-rusted-pickup-driving-trailer-trash. I did not enjoy that culture. My childhood was unpleasant. I wish I could listen to this album without that baggage. It's ok musically. Lyrically it's mostly miss. I don't care at all for Axl Rose.

Such yum and yuck together on the same record. The misogyny on this thing is so gross. Slash’s guitar tones are transcendent.

No thanks

I’m so glad I didn’t have to be a rock fan in the 80s and thus somehow feel obligated to defend this garbage.

I have heard this album so many times, I did not listen. I hate this record - noisy, simplistic hair band drivel.

Hard Rock/Sleaze Rock Favorite Songs: Welcome to the Jungle, Nighttrain, Paradise City, Think About You, Sweet Child ‘o Mine Least Favorite Song: Anything Goes …huh…a rarity on the site. An album that has a higher rating on this site than either on RYM (3.45) and on AOTY (74). I should be really hating this album. I ****really**** should be hating this album. It’s this hard rock sleazy hair album that has this really dated lyrics about objectifying women and wanting to have sex with them. It’s this album that Axl Rose’s voice should be really annoying for me (and it kinda does, ngl). It’s the album where you would typically hear from your stereotypical white conservative dads who would blast this kind of music on the car’s stereo. I really should’ve hated this album… …and yet, I thought that the album’s great. I don’t know why, but I think sonically, it’s a lot more catchy, with a bunch of nice guitar solos thrown in there. It’s due to this that it wouldn’t make me a fan of the band, but this is a way better hard rock album than any of the AC/DC albums that I got so far. Probably gonna put this as my guilty pleasures. 8/10

Nightrain

i definitely definitely should not have been listening to this when I was 9-10 years old. that said, album rocks hard from start to finish. 4/5.

Appetite for destruction is the master piece of the 90’s rock. Alex rose voice is the piece that builds it all. Slash guitar is the cherry on top. The album is playful and attractive. The character of the rockstar that destroys hotels and has amazing wild sex is perfectly represented in this album. Wild and free. Also the rocket queen moan is crazy.

HELL YEAH! Give me more punk rock, brahhhhhh!!!

Gotta be up near the top of best rock debut albums ever. It's not a perfect album, there's definitely a couple skippable tracks here, but the bangers are good enough to still warrant 5*.

7/10

it's not the greatest album ever but it's fuckn fun ,and that what counts.

I wish I liked GnR. But I never have, and after thirty-something years, suspect I never will.

High school me would love this, but at this point I have heard the hit songs a few too many times.

Never a fan, but the hits are the hits and they are masters of their instruments.

Es un álbum mítico, el mejor tema por lejos es "Sweet Child O' Mine". Conocía únicamente dos temas de este álbum, pero al escucharlo completo fue fantástico, guarde todos los temas en mi playlist personal de Rock porque me fascinaron todos.

I really don't like the lyrics of a lot of the tracks cus they're for the most part sleazy and horny. But one cannot deny the sheer catchiness of some of the songs, there are some moments that shine in it as well. I just feel overall, it's just highly compressed sleazy metal/hard rock that falls flat in most parts. My favourite tracks: Sweet Child O' Mine Welcome to The Jungle Rocket Queen Think about you

a classic

Peak Guns N Roses. Some all timers, and the odd filler song. A great album.

icónico.

Sweet.

I remember loving this album as a teenager, does it hold up? And it doesn't seem to have aged to well. Still some good bangers on the album but not the masterpiece I remember it being. I feel like it really captured the sleaze of late 80's Hollywood but that hasn't aged super well. Still some great songs but definitely not what I remember it being.

Like most rock music fans at the time, I loved GnR when they debuted. Welcome to the Jungle, Paradise City, and Sweet Child of Mine were a constant soundtrack to our lives. I loved Nighttrain and Mr. Brownstone too. The album holds up pretty well over time, too. Better than the band has.

Their visuals are awesome; they have so much aura. However, most songs kind of sounds the same... Not in like a bad way, but in an I-might-get-slightly-bored-and-don't-know-which-song-is-actually-playing. Oh wait, that impossible, cause bro keeps REPEATING THE SONG TITLE OVER AND OVER AGAIN BUT what a hell of a debut album

This takes me back to a school trip to Belgium in the 90s where 4 of us 11 year old kids bought GnR t-shirts at a market and wore them with pride with our shell suits and bum bags all week. Great debut, stack full of hits and the kind of energy and passion that seems to be lost from the mainstream. A great album and very much a flag bearer for it's time. Fwiw they should stop playing live now, let it go you old fucks.

Apart from the tracks that slap, this is pretty fucking dull for the rest of it.

It is possibly the purest rock album of its filthy era.

Dangerous, toxic, offensive, and brilliant rock n' roll.

This definitely deserves a place on this list simply because of the immense popularity of its numerable singles. Tracks like Welcome To The Jungle, Paradise, and Sweet Child Of Mine are inescapable but god, do I dislike them. I’m therefore balancing these two points and putting right in the middle with a 3.

It’s obvious why this is here. It’s got the bug hits and if you like this kind of classic 80s rock it’s great. The super produced stadium rock doesn’t do that much for me, so it’s just ok

I do really like their big hits but overall it was just OK.

Track 1 - 4 Track 2 - 3 Track 3 - 3 Track 4 -2.5 Track 5 - 2.5 Track 6 - 3.5 Track 7 - 3 Track 8 - 3 Track 9 - 4 Track 10 - 3 Track 11 - 2.5 Track 12 - 3

The album destroyed all the rest for me in 8th grade

Appetite for Destruction is glam metal with a real edge, keeping the poppy hooks the genre is known for while adding killer guitar riffs and real sleaze in the lyrics. Most of it is style over substance - see the simple guitar melody on "Sweet Child o Mine" - but it mostly works. Classics like "Welcome to the Jungle" fit right in next to deep cuts like "Nightrain" and "Think About You." The problem? There is a lot of chaff here. "My Michelle," "You're Crazy," and "Anything Goes" litter the back half with subpar songs, and I'd even throw "Paradise City" in there with its midtempo chorus and overlong outro. The sleaziness can also be too much in places, where it sounds dead serious instead of stylized or done for effect. This rocks hard, and has plenty of great moments, but in the end the lesser moments outweigh them.

Everybody knows this is one of the greatest rock n roll records ever made. That said, here are my song rankings. Order For My Appetite: 1. It’s So Easy 2. Night Train 3. Mr Brownstone 4. Paradise City 5. Your Crazy 6. Rocket Queen 7. Anything Goes 8. Out Ta Get Me 9. Welcome to the Jungle 10. My Michelle 11. Sweet Child O’ Mine 12. Think About You

Album 325. Appetite For Destruction — Guns N' Roses (1987) Maybe I'm silly but I like this classic hard rock album so much 5/5 Liked: — Welcome To The Jungle — It's So Easy — Nightrain — Out Ta Get Me — Paradise City — My Michelle — Think About You — Sweet Child O' Mine — You're Crazy — Rocket Queen

A loud and impressive debut. Welcome to the jungle is such a great start to a good album. It’s raucous, with great riffs and singing. I have no idea how his voice survived singing like that. Had a great time listening to this, had a whole day of listening to rock inspired by this album.

Finally something good after a long run of mediocre albums, fuckin' Guns N' Roses are here to kick your ass. Loaded with hits and drenched in sleazy vibes, this record is honestly almost too good for a debut album. From the first blast of "Welcome To The Jungle," this thing is a total adrenaline shot. It completely ditches that polished hair metal vibe for something way grittier and more dangerous. Slash is on fire here, and tracks like "Paradise City" and "Sweet Child O' Mine" are absolute anthems for a reason... the energy is just off the charts. That said, it’s definitely a wild ride with some rough patches. Axl’s screaming and sex noises gets a bit exhausting by the time you hit the end, and the lyrics are pretty toxic and haven't aged well at all. Once you get past the massive hits, some of the deep cuts kind of just blend together into filler. But even with the dated sleaze and the grating moments, you can't ignore how huge this record is. It’s a messy, loud, and iconic piece of rock history that’s hard not to respect.

Fucking great album, they would go on to do good stuff, but never anything this magical. This is a great fucking album.

Still sounds great ! amazing guitar work (by Slash) and sizzling vocals

It was two good songs

This isn't my favorite album, it's probably not one I'll go back to very often outside of the hits, but the power of those 3 big songs is so undeniable. It feels like the climax of this hair metal wave that had been building up for 10 years. From Van Halen and Aerosmith, to Motley Crue and Bon Jovi, this is where the sound hit its height. And it's their first album - their sound perfectly defined right out of the box. Being this streamlined and dialed in right off the bat is probably what doomed them to be forever chasing what they achieved here, but this album belongs in a special place no matter what.

heard this enough. for the genre, it's tops

Not the biggest fan but I recognize that they’re good

Vastly overrated

They are Gun's N' Roses and they are iconic and they rock! Now a full album of them is a lot of rocking. The hits are great (Jungle, Brownstone, Sweet Child). The non-hits didn't do anything for me so its a solid 3

Axle Rose was a much worse singer than I remembered. But I like Slash's guitar playing.

The mega hits on here still mostly stand the test of time, especially Sweet Child O' Mine, but good lort his voice is annoying after almost an hour of it. He's so screamy and it's kind of painful. If I didn't know them and their hits, this might be a 2 based on Axl's vocals alone. The heavy metalness of it all gets old too, but it's Guns 'N Roses and they're just so classic.

Really strong guitars. The voice is a bit much sometimes but great energy.