Rich Barris and the best hard rock album

The best pollster in the business left his lane, and musical disaster ensued!

Let me begin this post by saying how much I respect and admire Rich Barris. He’s the best pollster in the business, bar none. In fact, he’s the ONLY pollster I ever pay attention to anymore, since most of the rest of them are corrupt frauds. I’ve learned more about elections and polling from Rich than from anybody else out there.

However, being an expert on one thing does not make you an expert on everything. Rich recently made the disastrous mistake of leaving his lane to expound on the best hard rock album of all time.

Here is his post on X:

Appetite for Destruction? Did Barris lose his mind? Is it early-onset dementia going on in his head or what? 🤔 🤨

Don't get me wrong, I love Appetite; it is certainly one of the greatest hard rock albums of all time, and Guns and Roses is still one of my favorite bands. But no way is it “the best hard rock album of all time." In fact, it’s not even close to the best, not at all.

Back in Black and For Those About to Rock

There are two albums that I point you to that are, in fact, better than Appetite for Destruction:

1. Back in Black

2. For Those About to Rock

If you are old enough to remember when Back in Black first came out, you know that rock had hit a rut in those days. It had gotten tired and weak, and something new and fresh was needed.

Enter Back in Black.

The tragedy of Bon Scott’s death also had the effect of unleashing a massive torrent of creative energy in AC/DC, particularly after they found Bryan Johnson and made him Bon’s replacement.

Back in Black single-handedly rescued rock from the rut it was in and established an entirely new, hard sound that blew away pretty much anything that had come before by AC/DC or any other band for that matter.

To date, Back in Black has sold more than 50,000,000 copies. The nearest competitor to it by AC/DC is Highway to Hell, and that only sold over 9,000,000. Appetite for Destruction has sold more than 30,000,000 copies, which is a great achievement but not in the same league as Back in Black.

Now what about the music? Well, I could write a comparison of each song on Back in Black and Appetite for Destruction, but it would make this post very long and probably very tedious. I like all the songs on both albums, but Back in Black is sharper and louder, and the lyrics are better all around than Appetite for Destruction.

This, of course, is a subjective opinion, and your mileage may vary. But when I put on Back in Black, it remains every bit as vital and electric as the day it was first released. Appetite has also aged reasonably well, but simply isn’t in the same league as Back in Black in terms of being timeless.

Let us look at a video of the first song on each of the albums:

AC/DC wins the video comparison simply by virtue of none of them needing the ridiculous amount of hair spray that Axyl used in the Welcome to the Jungle video. 🙄

Back in Black: The template for Appetite for Destruction

I also feel compelled to point out that Appetite for Destruction came out seven years after Back in Black. So Guns and Roses had a template to work off to create Appetite. Back in Black served as a guide for Guns and Roses. I am not saying they copied it, because I do not believe they did. But it was there as an example to keep in mind while they were recording Appetite.

AC/DC, on the other hand, had no such advantage when creating Back in Black. They had to wing it, and they had to do it after losing their lead singer. Can you imagine the pressure Bryan Johnson felt in those circumstances? Yet he managed to knock the ball out of the park with Back in Black in a way that few other rock singers could have equaled.

If you have forgotten Bryan Johnson’s vocals on Back in Black, go back and give the album another listen. As much as I loved Bon Scott’s voice, I cannot imagine him or anyone else having a voice that matched the music as closely as Bryan Johnson’s did.

When it comes to these two albums, AC/DC led and Guns and Roses followed.

But what about For Those About to Rock?

Now, I also mentioned For Those About to Rock. That album was the sequel to Back in Black, and it fell far short of Back in Black’s sales record, selling a mere 5,726,750 copies. There was certainly nothing to be ashamed of, but it didn’t even beat Highway to Hell.

Still, I put For Those About to Rock ahead of Appetite for Destruction because of the songs on it. Frankly, AC/DC could have made Back in Black a double album simply by incorporating all the songs on For Those About to Rock. The songs on the second album easily match the quality of the songs on Back in Black.

Unfortunately, For Those About to Rock has always suffered because of the comparison to Back in Black, and it’s never been given the credit it deserves on its own. It is a FANTASTIC album, and I believe it is every bit as good as Back in Black. But it had the terrible misfortune of being released after Back in Black.

Anyway, I know that this post is going to piss off some Guns and Roses fans. But I had no choice but to point out why Appetite for Destruction, a great album, is simply not in the same league as Back in Black or For Those About to Rock.

For my part, I forgive Rich Barris for his heresy on this issue. He is, after all, a Millennial, and they aren’t known for their taste or common sense. It falls to those of us in Generation X to correct Millennials like Rich when they go too far off the reservation.

Am I wrong? Tell me in the comments.

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