Legendary '80s Rockers Released Their Chart-Topping Debut Album 38 Years Ago Today — and It Almost Flopped

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Legendary '80s Rockers Released Their Chart-Topping Debut Album 38 Years Ago Today — and It Almost Flopped originally appeared on Parade.

Packed with hits like "Welcome to the Jungle," "Sweet Child O' Mine" and "Paradise City," it's no shock that Appetite for Destruction remains one of the bestselling debut albums in U.S. history nearly four decades after its release on July 21, 1987 — but fans today might be surprised to learn that it wasn't a success right away.

Guns N' Roses was already getting plenty of buzz around Los Angeles by the time Appetite came out, but the initial response to the album was lukewarm at best. The first single — "It's So Easy" — went largely unnoticed, and the second single, "Welcome to the Jungle," seemed destined for the same fate. But it was the now-iconic video for "Welcome to the Jungle" (featuring a wild-haired Axl Rose) that truly put the band on the map, after record exec David Geffen convinced MTV to play the clip late at night, per Ultimate Classic Rock.

According to Rose, "Welcome to the Jungle" was written while he was visiting a friend in Seattle, where he was inspired by the contrast between the Washington city and Los Angeles.

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"It's a small city compared to L.A.," he explained. "It seemed a lot more rural up there. I just wrote how it looked to me. If someone comes to town and they want to find something, they can find whatever they want."

“It was a very telling lyric — just the stark honesty of it,” Slash said later, per American Songwriter. “If you lived in Los Angeles, and lived in the trenches, so to speak, you could relate to it. And knowing Axl, I could relate to exactly where it was coming from.”

A little over a year after its debut, Appetite finally made it to number one on the Billboard 200 chart on August 6, 1988, where it would stay for five consecutive weeks — thanks in no small part to the popularity of the "Welcome to the Jungle" clip and the other music videos that followed (not to mention the band's first big tour). And that was only the beginning: The record went on to receive 18 Platinum certifications from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) by September, 2008.

Related: Why Rock Legend Eddie Van Halen Was Paid 'Zero Dollars' for Iconic Solo on Michael Jackson Hit

Legendary '80s Rockers Released Their Chart-Topping Debut Album 38 Years Ago Today — and It Almost Flopped first appeared on Parade on Jul 21, 2025

This story was originally reported by Parade on Jul 21, 2025, where it first appeared.