The “unadulterated” album Slash wanted to be remembered for
For most legendary acts, even if they’re releasing hit after hit after hit, there is always one defining release that sticks. There is always one ultimate, definitive record or song that everyone sees as their opus or anthem. It’s the one that will live forever, and Slash is pretty happy with his.
However, Slash’s experience of this phenomenon is a rare one. Typically, stars have a lot of resistance to the idea of a defining hit. It feels like a cage or a prison. Of his own, decades ago, Mick Jagger said, “I don’t mind singing something like ‘Satisfaction’ off and on, but I don’t want to be doing it for a living. The point is, I don’t want to have to go out there and sing it. I’d rather do new stuff”.
It’s a point he’s made several times through his career, clearly harbouring a slight resentment towards the hit that he’s now performed over 970 times. “I’d rather be dead than sing Satisfaction when I’m 45,” he even said back in 1975, so while he sings it energetically each time still, perhaps it makes his blood curdle that what he once imagined as a kind of hell is happening to him year on year.
Overwhelmingly, if you asked most artists what release they’d like to be remembered for, or defined by, they’d probably say their newest. So many performers have a complex about needing to keep moving, keep evolving and demand that their audiences keep moving too.
But also, most artists’ career-defining release probably took a moment to come around. For Slash, it was instant.
“I’m going to be remembered for Appetite… and I’m fine with that,” he said in 2020. Reflecting on Guns N’ Roses’ first-ever album, Slash hasn’t just made peace with the fact that he’ll always be defined by that bestselling debut, but he wants that to be the case.
In the world of very few artists does the Venn diagram of the release they want to be remembered for and will be remembered for overlaps. But for Slash, the 1987 record Appetite for Destruction holds such a special place in his mind that he’s more than happy for that to be the record most tightly bound to his name.
“I love what it stands for, something unadulterated, totally honest, pure, innocent but streetwise,” he said. Looking back at the album the band made when he was only 21, he sees the debut as bottling a beautifully youthful version of himself, and still fizzing with the energy of those younger years.
Musically, too, though, he thinks it stands up, adding, “It nailed the anxiety of life and came out as just this raw thing”, not being overthought but still sounding mammoth.
He’s right about that. The tracklist for that debut might as well be a greatest hits record as they delivered ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’, ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ and ‘Paradise City’ all on the same opening release. There’s starting with a bang, and then there’s this, kicking the doors down to the music industry on an atomic level, and Slash is still more than happy to be associated with that power.
