Appetite for Destruction is the 1987 debut album by Los Angeles-based hard rock band Guns N' Roses. The album combines elements of heavy metal, punk rock, hard rock, and blues-rock. Appetite for Destruction reached number one on the US Albums Chart, and has since certified 15x platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. The album has accumulated worldwide sales in excess of 28 million. Appetite for Destruction is ranked the fourth best-selling debut album in the United States. The album is considered by many to be one of the greatest hard rock albums of the 20th century. Origins While the songwriting credits are indiscriminately credited to all five band members, many of the songs began as solo tracks that individual band members wrote in the pre-Guns N' Roses era, only to be completed by the band. These songs include It's So Easy and Nightrain (McKagan), Mr. Brownstone, Anything Goes, and Think About You (Stradlin). Paradise City and Rocket Queen were unfinished Rose/McKagan and Rose/Stradlin demos respectively that the band wrote in their early career. Other songs on the album reflect the band's reaction to the debauchery of the L.A. rock and roll underground, such as Welcome to the Jungle (Rose wrote the lyrics while in Seattle about an incident in New York City) and Out ta Get Me, as well as their assorted female companions, reflected in the songs Sweet Child o' Mine, Think About You, My Michelle, You're Crazy, and Rocket Queen. Cover art The album's original cover, based on the Robert Williams painting "Appetite for Destruction", depicted a robot rapist about to be punished by a metal avenger. After several music retailers refused to stock the album, they compromised and put the controversial cover art inside, replacing it with a cover depicting a cross and skulls of the five band members (designed by William White, originally as a tattoo), each skull representing one member of the band: Izzy Stradlin, top skull; Steven Adler, left skull; Axl Rose, center skull; Duff McKagan, right skull; and Slash, bottom skull. The photographs used for the back of the album and liner notes were taken by Robert John (photographer). Achievements In 1989 Rolling Stone ranked Appetite for Destruction as the 27th best album of the 1980s. The same magazine later ranked it at sixty-one on their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. In 2001, Q magazine named Appetite for Destruction as one of the 50 Heaviest Albums of All Time. In 2003, VH1 named Appetite for Destruction the 42nd Greatest Album of All Time. It was ranked 18 in Spin magazine's 100 Greatest Albums, 1985-2005. Kerrang! magazine recently compiled a 100 Greatest Rock Albums Ever list of which Appetite for Destruction was ranked #1. In 2004 the album was voted number 1 by fans in Metal Hammer magazine's greatest albums of all time list. Rolling Stone recently devoted their cover to the album's 20th Anniversary, July 2007.