10 Perfect Hard Rock Songs That Are Ridiculously Long

After the hair metal scene started to die out, Guns N Roses were one of the first few bands to become the saviors of rock and roll. At a time when most of the starlets on MTV had a poodle style haircut and no real swagger to speak of, Guns' mentality felt more akin to a street gang, bringing together all of the elements of old school rock and roll into one unique package. They had to grow past that though, and Axl had something much more extravagant once the band hit it big.

Though November Rain feels like peak of excess from the song length alone, the germ of this song was actually thought of well before Guns N Roses was even a thing, originally being worked on during the first few sessions of Appetite for Destruction. Once Axl got the budget that he wanted for the Use Your Illusion project, this simple piano ballad turned into something a lot more extravagant, bringing in different classical instrumentation and ballooning into an epic saga spanning over 9 minutes.

While you can tell that the band were getting more excessive around this time, there's never a moment in this song that doesn't feel like Guns N Roses from skin to core, like the back half of the song that breaks down into a heavier section and Slash's lead licks taking you down to Hell. Guns' life wasn't going to be very long after this album cycle, but the light burned incredibly bright while it lasted.