The early 1980s was an exciting time to be a part of the Hollywood rock music scene.  Rockers far and wide loaded up their guitars and Marshall stacks and headed for the West Coast to claim their fame and fortune on the Sunset Strip.  Punk rock was peaking in the live clubs with bands like The Circle Jerks and Black Flag.  Rock bands like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Pretenders and Van Halen were ruling the radio airwaves.  Hollywood became the breeding ground for this rock confection.  MTV had emerged on the scene and made it really apparent that the music not only had to rock; the bands had to look good doing it.  The result was a hybrid musical pie, made up in equal parts of punk, hard rock, glam and bad boy persona.  Axl wanted to meld these styles into a unique musical form.

W. Axl Rose is an American hard rock singer and songwriter. He is best known as the lead singer of Guns N' Roses, and is the only original member still part of the band's line-up. Although he is regarded by many as one of hard rock's all-time greatest frontmen, Rose is also infamous for his onstage antics, disputes with former bandmates, and for his constant rewriting of the still-unreleased Chinese Democracy album. Axl's status as a bona fide sex symbol was officially cemented after the release of Appetite for Destruction. However, internal troubles with band members and the heavy drug use among them eventually rendered Guns N' Roses obsolete until only recently. Axl Rose has hit his own fans with glass bottles, told Jon Bon Jovi to suck his d*ck, compared Indianapolis residents to "prisoners in Auschwitz" and canceled concerts without warning. He has also paid out more than $1 million in legal settlements. Critics have labeled both him and his music racist, homophobic and asinine.

It's not just the content that's magnetic; it's also the development, the performance. Rose draws you in with his sway, his simple wardrobe of jeans, T-shirt and a red bandanna -- and then he makes you watch and listen as he edges closer and closer to the abyss. It's all the more exciting to experience because Rose moves so quickly between acting enraged and actually doing damage. Seeing Rose live is a "never know" proposition. You might see the best show of your life, or you might get three songs and the middle finger. But Rose will never put on a concert that's merely routine.

It's the rawness of Rose that forms the core of his appeal. He may be a lot of things -- a spoiled brat, a prima donna, a seriously troubled, violent man -- but one thing he's never been is a fraud. He's always had his own look, his own vocal style, his own attitude and his own agenda. In the rock 'n' roll marketplace of the '80s and of today -- when consumers are given a choice between overproduced pop/hip-hop and industrialized metal -- the sheer honesty of Axl Rose stands out. He's always given the world a piece of his mind.

Rose may have been right New Year's Eve of 2000 when he told an audience, "I have traversed a treacherous sea of horrors to be with you here tonight," but throughout his rise and fall he has never lost his volatile brilliance.

Rose's personal problems, legal travails and general immaturity can never overshadow his talent. Axl Rose kicks a**! He descended on the '80s like acid, burning holes in a country that had become culturally complacent. For anyone with angst, anyone who grew up under Reagan-Bush, hating suspendered suits, hair-spray rock and synthesizers, Axl Rose was a savior. His angry, paranoid lyrics, piercing screams and stomping stage presence all acted as antidotes for the made-up, go-go conservatism of the time. He was the anti-Culture Club hero, the flat-haired, bandanna-clad bad boy who never played by the rules, never tried to look pretty -- the one guy who repeatedly made people listen, then told them to f*ck off. Few rock 'n' rollers have given the world a more sincere dedication to pure, authentic anger. No one could have seen it coming.