Appetite for Destruction (Guns N' Roses)

Appetite for Destruction
Guns N' Roses (1987)

Top Tracks: “Welcome to the Jungle”, “Mr. Brownstone”, “My Michelle”

Kinda of like Nirvana would do a few years later, Appetite was an album that made a huge impact and changed the direction of popular music for awhile. There had been plenty of other bands out there epitomizing the Sunset Strip sound, look, and lifestyle… Motley Crue and others come to mind. But GNR took it even further, making it grittier and more druggy and rock and roll than the purely image-based hair metal bands that preceded them. I just thought they sounded like an edgier version of old Aerosmith at the time, and I wasn’t wrong (May 2020).

British Steel (Judas Priest)

British Steel
Judas Priest (1980)

Top Tracks: “Breaking the Law”, “Living After Midnight”, “Metal Gods”

Oh hell yes. So, metal is an interesting genre within the scope of rock. It’s said (and I agree) that you really don’t get metal as we know it without Black Sabbath, but the direction of the genre was cemented with the presence of Judas Priest. They been around for about ten years before they exploded into the mainstream with British Steel, an album that would become a benchmark for metal for decades. Side note: I got to interview Glenn Tipton a number of years ago and it was super exciting to me despite talking to rock stars all the time for my work (June 2020).