After turning the rock world upside-down with their 1987 debut Appetite for Destruction, then completely redefining the concept of an epic follow-up with 1991’s twin Use Your Illusion double albums, Guns N’ Roses have largely vanished from record store release calendars.
All told, Axl Rose and company have to date released 84 songs in a career that has now spanned nearly four decades – and nearly two-thirds of those came out during the band’s first six years of existence. But the impact made by those initial releases and the enduring relevancy of the band’s songs have helped keep Guns N’ Roses permanently lodged as one of rock’s most popular attractions.
Despite (or more likely, partially because of) their mind-boggling early success, Guns N’ Roses’ original lineup began fracturing at the start of the Use Your Illusion sessions. Their post-Illusion output for the rest of the ’90s consisted of the covers album The Spaghetti Incident? and two songs recorded for movie soundtracks.
By 1997 Rose was the only founding member left in the group. He spent nearly an entire decade assembling and dismantling different teams of musicians and producers for what reportedly became the most expensive rock album ever made, 2008’s Chinese Democracy. To date, even the 2016 return of co-founders Slash and Duff McKagan hasn’t resulted in a new Guns N’ Roses studio album, although the duo have contributed to reworked versions of four songs left over from the Chinese Democracy sessions.
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