to the public’s hunger for “real” rock music, as op-
posed to Top 40 pop. Guns n’ Roses’ songs were rawer
in sound and more serious, honest, and emotional
lyrically than those being played on most radio sta-
tions in the mid-1980’s. The group’s album featured
twelve songs, three of which became national hits:
“Welcome to the Jungle,” “Paradise City,” and the love
ballad “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” Rose’s nearly operatic
vocal range and Slash’s soaring guitar solos decorated
songs about the hard life the band’s members knew as
struggling musicians in Los Angeles. Their
songs were often laced with obscenities and
referred unabashedly to sex, drugs, and al-
cohol. Their follow-up album,Lies(1989),
was the only other one they released during
the 1980’s. It treated similar themes and in-
cluded the popular and lighter “Patience.”
Though Guns n’ Roses’ music was the
group’s main claim to fame, the band’s no-
torious debauchery, the sexual imagery of
its album art, and Rose’s public antics of-
ten placed band members in the public
eye as well. Known for being a difficult per-
former, Rose often showed up hours late,
walked off stages in the middle of perfor-
mances, and made comments considered
rude, misogynistic, and even racist. Drug
problems led to Adler’s dismissal, while
debates within the band would eventually
cause its dissolution.
Impact Guns n’ Roses continued to be
the center of controversy for many years
and recorded three records in the 1990’s,
but it was with 1987’sAppetite for Destruction
that they made their most significant mark
on music and on culture. Considered vul-
gar and loud by detractors and the saviors
of authentic, powerful rock and roll by
fans, Guns n’ Roses was one of the most in-
fluential and important musical forces of
the 1980’s.
Further Reading
Stenning, Paul.Guns n’ Roses: The Band That Time For-
got.London: Chrome Dreams, 2005.
Wall, Mick.Guns n’ Roses: The Most Dangerous Band in
the World. New York: Hyperion, 2004.
Lily Neilan CorwinSee also Bon Jovi; Heavy metal; Mötley Crüe;
MTV; Music; Music videos; Pop music.The Eighties in America Guns n’ Roses 435
Guns n’ Roses star Axl Rose.(Hulton Archive/Getty Images)