Guns N' Roses legendary debut album Appetite For Destruction has been certified by the Recording Industry Association of America for US Sales totalling 18 Million.

This raises the previous certification of 15 million copies which had been issued in 1998.

According to Wikipedia, Appetite For Destruction was released on July 21, 1987. In the US, 'Welcome To The Jungle'  was issued as its first single with an accompanying music video. Initially, the album and single lingered for almost a year without performing well, but when Geffen Records founder David Geffen was asked to lend support to the band, he obliged by personally convincing MTV executives to play 'Welcome To The Jungle' during their after hours rotation. Even though the video was initially only played one time at 4 a.m. on a Sunday, rock and punk fans took notice and soon began requesting the video and song en masse.

The album underwent an artwork change after the original Robert Williams cover design (pictured - a surrealist scene in which a dagger-toothed monster vengefully attacks a robot rapist) spawned complaints from religious groups and caused some record stores to brown bag, obscure, or refuse to sell the album. The revised cover was gleaned from a tattoo that Axl Rose had recently commissioned featuring skeleton faces of the five musicians arranged on a cross. Rose later insisted that the Gold and Platinum plaques issued by the RIAA be set using the original cover. The artwork from the original cover can be found in the booklet of the CD release.

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