10 Artists Who Never Managed To Top Their First Album

10. Guns N' Roses

Appetite For Destruction was not only one of the greatest rock debuts of the 80s, it's one of the best debuts ever and the best-selling US debut of all-time. 1987 was a year of glam bands and pop-infused hard rock, yet when GNR emerged the sound began to shift toward a more hard-edged sound. The album birthed three monster hit singles, Sweet Child O' Mine, Welcome To The Jungle and Paradise City all which remain iconic to this day. Axl Rose's trademark gospel-singer-meets-waling-banshee vocals blended perfectly with Slash's riffs and made an album and a style that listeners didn't know they even wanted until they heard it. One of the most impressive things about this record - and a must for any album to be classified as classic - is the fact that there's not necessarily a weak song on the entire tracklist. Sure there are some that aren't quite up to the standards of the above, but nothing demands to be skipped over either. Guns would follow up on Appetite with Use Your Illusion Vol. 1 and 2, which were both excellent in their own right, but the volatility of the band members and behind the scenes difficulties prevented the guys from ever staying on the same page long enough to bring us another classic like they had already proven they were capable of. Guns N' Roses remaining together is one of the great "what if" moments in rock history, with their various projects outside GNR has made it obvious that in this case the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.