10 Best Metal Albums For Non-Metal Heads
3. Appetite for Destruction - Guns N Roses
While Van Halen may have gotten the ball rolling in terms of hair metal, the genre really needed to die about 10 years later. Instead of the huge party sound that everyone loved back in the day, most of the newer acts like Warrant and Winger were making music that was a lot more safe than many other would have wanted. As the cool kids teased up their hair and tried to out glam each other, Guns N Roses cut to the chase and made some of the most abrasive rock and roll ever conceived.
Off the strength of Appetite for Destruction, GNR became one of the most in-demand hard rock acts of their time, with Slash becoming every bit the guitar star as Eddie Van Halen was back in the day. Even though many would consider this more of a rock and roll band than a metal act, the metal attitude comes through in the way they deliver these songs. While tracks like Sweet Child O Mine might seem strange being put under the metal title, the pure punk attitude and relentless pace of stuff like It's So Easy and Welcome to the Jungle are just as much indebted to Black Sabbath as they are to Aerosmith.
Compared to the grunge movement that was about to hit around the same time, this was the first shot into the heart of the hair metal movement. The time of neon-flavored metal was over...it was to get a bit more nasty.