10 Albums That Changed Rock Music Forever

Somewhere in between the layers of makeup on MTV, the hair metal scene had really started to lose the plot. Compared to the rough and tumble sounds of early Motley Crue, bands like Poison were a lot more photogenic, almost sounding like a boy band version of what the traditional Sunset Strip scene should have been. Rock had seemed to lose all of its substance, until we got a band that seemed like they had been pulled directly off the street.

When Guns N Roses were first building their band, their influences were far more eclectic than the likes of the New York Dolls, taking inspiration from the old school rock and rollers like Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith. While Appetite for Destruction was a no BS rock record at the time, the only reason it stood was for how dangerous it was, almost telling a story about what it was like living on the dark side of town, from the seductive nature of It's So Easy to straight up love songs on Sweet Child O Mine.

As much as people like to label grunge as the real downfall of the hair metal empire, the moment where everything falters really starts right here, with Guns outplaying everyone in the scene and taking no prisoners in the process. Every good band to come out of the hair metal scene usually came from Sunset, but this was the kind of street gang mentality that felt more in tune with the Rolling Stones than Sweet.