Japandroids: Celebration Rock

it’s hard to sum up how important this album was to me. I was in 7th grade when it came out. I owned a handful of cassettes and was really in to a lot of shitty hair metal. think Bon Jovi, Cinderella, Whitesnake, Europe. but hey, so was everybody else. anyone remember MTV’s old daily countdown show, Dial MTV? they had a number you called in to and voted for your favorite video and was continually dominated by that same shitty ass rock.

then Appetite came out. and for the first time in my life, I realized that rock and roll was supposed to be _dangerous_. and that all that music I had been listening to was crap. and that there was a whole world out there waiting to be discovered. I played that tape out, to the point of distortion. I would sit and look at all the little details of the nasty Robert Williams painting in the liner notes (the local big box stores never got the original copies of this record with it on the outside; but really, that all worked out for the best as the “censored” cover ended up being one of the most iconic of all time.)

I can still play this record straight through with no sense of irony. it’s just a great fucking rock and roll record from start to finish. favorite song: Rocket Queen. that bass line is totally menacing, awesome groove, live sex on tape and then it finishes out all sweets and roses.

a funny little epilogue to the story. I had tickets to see the Illusion tour, at the Palace of Auburn Hills in Detroit, what was to be my first concert. then Axl cut his hand on his mic stand the stop before and they cancelled the shows. I was so pissed that I took all my metal tapes to the local record store, sold them all and bought my first Cure CD. and my musical education took another turn for the better.