Songoftheday 4/26/16 - We are the people that can find whatever you may need, if you got the money honey we got your disease...

"Welcome To The Jungle" - Guns N' Roses
from the album Appetite For Destruction (1987)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #7 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 12

Today's song of the day is by the hard rock/Blues-metal band Guns N' Roses, who had broke through on pop radio in a big way in the fall of 1988 with the love ballad suite "Sweet Child Of Mine", which went to #1 on the Hot 100. Capitalizing on that success, the group re-released their second single, "Welcome To The Jungle", which originally hit rock radio airwaves in the spring of that year, reaching #37 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart. But this time around, radio was primed and ready based on the incredible sales of their debut album Appetite for Destruction, which validated putting such hard-edged material in rotation. I'm telling you, Axl Rose's screech in the chorus with the "bring you to your kn-kn-kn-kn-knees!" is evil in a way that most people not exposed to Ozzy Osborne had yet to hear. And the bleak representation of life in the underbelly of Los Angeles was like a spotlight on a rash that had not been exposed to so many. Written by Axl along with lead guitarist Slash and bass man Duff McKagan, the song cut across the sugar-filled landscape of pop radio like a machete, but did have that amazing bridge where it almost morphs into a sanguine ballad (kind of like "Layla" at its 2 and a half minute mark) before being yanked back into the devilish darkness...

"Welcome To The Jungle" became Guns N' Roses' second top-10 hit on the American pop chart in December of 1988. Internationally, the song reached #24 in the UK, #6 in New Zealand, and #14 in Ireland.

But in my opinion, more than Nirvana, this band and especially this single started the change in pop radio that would see more rawer rock and rap music eventually dominate through the next decade.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


...and here's the band in their glory in 1988 at the Ritz...

...and again live in concert in Japan in 1992...

In 2011, the late blues queen Etta James turned the classic into a blues exercise...

The internet sensation Postmodern Jukebox completely transformed "Welcome To The Jungle" into a smoky backroom jazz number in 2015 and so far have over a million views on the video...

Lastly, here's the band reunited in 2016...

Up tomorrow: More hard rockers that don't like loose end-ings.