How I Discovered: Guns N' Roses

I think Jack is the one who first bought Guns N' Roses' Greatest Hits in sixth grade. In any case, it was an album that would go on to shape Trevor's and my perception of music and the guitar forever. Since fifth grade, we had been riding what I call the Guitar Hero Wave, a sudden growth in the number of people learning the guitar after the success of the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series of video games. In particular, Guitar Hero III and Rock Band introduced me and Trevor to heavy, riff-driven hard rock and inspired us to take guitar lessons together. Years later, the two of us consider playing guitar and being musicians a huge part of our identity, so in that sense we owe a huge part of ourselves to a silly video game.
Greatest Hits was basically my only exposure to Guns N' Roses for a long time. It exemplified hard rock in my mind, with loud, heavy, and iconic riffs, edgy lyrics, and a sense of rebelliousness prevalent throughout. Many of the songs on that song are undisputed rock classics, but it really doesn't give a full picture of who the band really was. Years later, I discovered that the band was incredibly controversial; in one song, they essentially spend four minutes throwing obscenities at journalists, many of whom they name outright. Guns N' Roses as a whole is therefore a bit too crude for my taste, but their classics are out of this world.

Favorite album: Appetite for Destruction (1988)
Favorite songs: "Estranged," "November Rain," "Welcome to the Jungle"