Guns N' Roses signed with a major label within eight months of their inception and topped national sales charts weeks after garnering late hours airplay on MTV. Appetite for Destruction was the second highest-selling debut album of all time, behind Boston's self-titled debut album.
Their peers in the music industry often spoke highly of the band: Ozzy Osbourne called Guns N' Roses "the next Rolling Stones." In 2002, Q magazine named Guns N' Roses in their list of the "50 Bands To See Before You Die". Also, the television network VH1 ranked Guns N' Roses ninth in its "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock" special, and also ranked 11th on "Top 50 bands". Appetite for Destruction appeared in the Rolling Stone Magazine special issue "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Guns N' Roses #92 on their list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". On the Vh1 list of "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock" they were ranked at #9.