Enter; Guns n’ Roses, a bratty quintet from LA who had been playing nightclubs around the United States’ west coast for a handful of years. Their singer, Axl Rose, had seen Williams’ painting “Appetite For Destruction” on a postcard somewhere in LA, immediately connecting to it and seeking out its creator. He decided its striking content and appearance matched Guns N’ Roses’ intent, vehemently anti-authority and particularly resistant to what they saw as corporate capitalism destroying our world. Although they eventually had to change the album’s cover as many record stores wouldn’t stock the album, they made a splash with their confrontational style and appearance, achieving massive success for the next decade.
Juxtapoz Sound and Vision is a weekly segment on our platform dedicated to exploring one piece of substantial album artwork every Sunday. Album artwork is one of the primary ways that musicians and visual artists are able to collaborate, and many iconic album covers are simultaneously iconic pieces of pop art. It’s also an excuse for us to share some of our favorite albums and the visual component behind what makes an album groundbreaking and fun.
January 27th, 2019: Guns n’ Roses’ “Appetite For Destruction”
Artwork by Robert Williams
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a general feeling of sterility set across the United States due to economic stagnation, political malaise, and a general “hangover” from the progress and optimism of the 1960s. The Vietnam War was finally over, we had finally created Social Security, Medicare, the Environmental Protection Agency, and, despite its inadequacies, a framework towards racial equality in the Civil Rights Act. The country was, by and large, “comfortable” in comparison.
In the wake of this, music and art around the world began to rumble against this false sense of comfort. Punk culture had begun its ascendence and nowhere in the US was this more clear than Southern California. Black Flag and Raymond Pettibon were pitted firmly against the police, and the fear of counter-culture was palpable in a post-Manson LA. Around that time, our magazine’s founder Robert Williams was making waves with his involvement in Zap Comix and his extremely volatile and provocative, yet highly detailed paintings. LA began to develop a new wave of counterculture in music and art, which would burst forth over the next two decades and eventually lead to Williams and his comrades founding our magazine.
Enter; Guns n’ Roses, a bratty quintet from LA who had been playing nightclubs around the United States’ west coast for a handful of years. Their singer, Axl Rose, had seen Williams’ painting “Appetite For Destruction” on a postcard somewhere in LA, immediately connecting to it and seeking out its creator. He decided its striking content and appearance matched Guns N’ Roses’ intent, vehemently anti-authority and particularly resistant to what they saw as corporate capitalism destroying our world. Although eventually they had to change the album’s cover as many record stores wouldn’t stock the album, they made a splash with their confrontational style and appearance, achieving massive success for the next decade.
