10 Bands That Never Topped Their 1st Album

No one who has ever woken up with a diabolical hangover should have thought Guns N' Roses would be a band with longevity.

The Los Angeles band was made up of misfits with mixed backgrounds driven only by the same drunken rage to topple every other puffed-up hair metal band from their Sunset Strip throne. With Appetite For Destruction, they did exactly that.

It's one hell of a ride, with producer Mike Clink doing an expert job working with Slash and Izzy Stradlin to layer guitars on guitars on guitars over Steven Adler's manic skin-pounding. Top that off with some truly memorable songwriting and Axl Rose's psycho-shrill shrieking over the top and you've got something magical.

It sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and made GNR the biggest band in the world with the biggest-selling American debut album ever. What followed was the most boringly typical story of rockstar excess that saw the band go through substance-fuelled turmoil for almost half a decade before they could pull it together for a proper follow-up.

And then came the two-volume piano ballad album. Finally released on the same day in 1991, the bloated Use Your Illusion I and II contained a nauseating 30 songs between them that could easily have been condensed to one decent album, but no one was brave enough to stand up to the madness of Axl Rose becoming the dictator of the band. Izzy had left by then and Slash was too drunk.

Both albums went platinum a mind-blowing seven times over, but most sane GNR fans saw the writing on the wall. They would never return with a lean set of original rockers. It would be swimming with dolphins, Slash soloing on a camera dolly and trumpets on stage from there.