Jim, I was born in ’85 so Appetite was definitely before my time as a music fan. I didn’t really discover it until junior high in the mid to late 90′s. But even at that point, I was very familiar with Jungle, Paradise City, and Sweet Child because I was always a big sports fan and those songs have been played to death in sports arenas for 20+ years. I feel Appetite is one of the greatest hard rock albums ever recorded, possibly even the greatest. The fact that you can have three legendary songs like WTTJ, PC, and SCOM yet also have a bunch of other songs that are just as good? Pretty incredible. It’s So Easy, Nightrain, Mr. Brownstone, My Michelle, and Rocket Queen are all amazing tunes in their own right.

I don’t feel like Appetite gets elevated because of the supposed step down in quality with their later work. Appetite is simply one of the best debut albums ever recorded and certainly the best debut hard rock album ever recorded. I’m a big fan of GN’R Lies and the Use Your Illusion albums. Are they as good as Appetite? No. But they do have material on them that is in the same league. This was a great rock band that put out a ton of really good material in a short amount of time. Unfortunately the rock genre today is fucking dead.