10 Reasons Guns N' Roses Broke Up

How did the biggest band on the planet implode?

By Jay Anderson /

They were the biggest band in the world, one of the few bands that seemed almost untouchable from criticism and shifts in popular music. They survived the peak of the alternative music movement with barely the blink of an eye - Nirvana came and went while Guns N' Roses was still at the top. Yet the same year that alternative rock lost an icon, Guns N' Roses put out their final recording with guitarist Slash, and would then go on to release just one song between 1994 and 2008. How does a band that big just implode? It's something almost unparalleled in music. Yes, The Beatles broke up, and that's the reason for the qualifier in the previous sentence. Still, the fact that a band so dominant could just fall apart, then struggle with line-up changes for years, flirting with regaining success each time until another change in personnel set things back, is practically unthinkable. Why did it happen? What led to the classic era line-up (we can't even say original, as they never even made it to the recording studio) falling apart? Lets take a look at ten reasons why Guns N' Roses (and by this, we pretty much mean the Hall of Fame members) broke up.