Poll of the Day > Is Guns N Roses the most successful band with such a small body of work?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I was musing over this with my wife in the car yesterday when Paradise City came on the radio. They're not technically a one hit wonder because they have like 3 singles that are widely known and popular, yet all of said singles come from their debut album. And despite the band being 40 years old they only have 4-5 albums and no one really listens to the others, or at the very least they never produced any singles that stuck around. Yet despite all this they still tour and headline shows regularly and they're one of the best selling bands in history.

Who else is anywhere near as popular with so few hits or albums?

man101 posted...

they have like 3 singles that are widely known and popular, yet all of said singles come from their debut album

lolno

Which singles are your referring to as their only popular ones? Patience is a pretty big hit, November Rain, You Could Be Mine... None of those are from the debut (which yes is their most popular album).

She probably isn't as successful as GnR but Lauryn Hill has...one solo album and two with the Fugees?

They had 6 studio albums. There are definitely more successful artists with less than that

Oh you have got to be trolling.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/cbe155ef.jpg

i've yet to meet someone who is just "yeah m8, lemme throw chinese democracy onto the playlist it's bangin sauce"

gnarls barkly has like 2 albums people know about

gnarls barkley is just ceelo green

also there is straight up only 2 albums

Nirvana immediately comes to mind.

They only had 3 studio album, only 2 of which were commercially successful at the time, and yet they are regarded by many as one of the most influential bands of all time.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

i've yet to meet someone who is just "yeah m8, lemme throw chinese democracy onto the playlist it's bangin sauce"

Well yeah... like 99% of famous artists are known by like one album, maybe 2, and the rest is only for the super fans

This is a joke right? Even if you don't count the 2008 album they still had 5 during their primary active period. While that isn't a lot it's enough to make the question of this thread impossible to comprehend.

GameReviews posted...

Nirvana immediately comes to mind.

They only had 3 studio album, only 2 of which were commercially successful at the time, and yet they are regarded by many as one of the most influential bands of all time.

Why are people only counting studio albums? Ridiculous.

Venixon posted...

Why are people only counting studio albums? Ridiculous.

Albums which never get wide distribution historically wouldn't be heard by many people. Now days everything is on the internet but it's pretty obvious?

Sublime?

Sex Pistols?

Venixon posted...

Oh you have got to be trolling.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/cbe155ef.jpg

One is effectively a double album and live albums don't have new material. The rest of those stats line up with what I said. Just because each of their albums *had singles* doesn't mean they ever got any significant radio play. I sure as shit don't hear anything other than the appetite for destruction singles anywhere, ever.

GameReviews posted...

Nirvana immediately comes to mind.

They only had 3 studio album, only 2 of which were commercially successful at the time, and yet they are regarded by many as one of the most influential bands of all time.

The hard comparison there is they're defunct. Hard to know if or how many more albums they would've produced over the following 30 years or so. Or if they'd still be touring.

OhhhJa posted...

Well yeah... like 99% of famous artists are known by like one album, maybe 2, and the rest is only for the super fans

Yes but not all "famous" artists are anywhere near the level of GnR. They are literally world famous and their music still gets heavy radio play and they tour a lot. But there are plenty of other bands who are slightly less famous who have hit singles from across multiple albums.

man101 posted...

The rest of those stats line up with what I said. Just because each of their albums *had singles* doesn't mean they ever got any significant radio play. I sure as shit don't hear anything other than the appetite for destruction singles anywhere, ever.

lolno

man101 posted...

The hard comparison there is they're defunct. Hard to know if or how many more albums they would've produced over the following 30 years or so. Or if they'd still be touring.

You're just going to have an answer for anyone pointing out how weird your question is aren't you?

he isn't wrong though, about nirvana anyways

something like tupac is the opposite, with the man having released more albums after his death than he did before

BlackScythe0 posted...

You're just going to have an answer for anyone pointing out how weird your question is aren't you?

How is that not a valid answer? Comparing a band that's been defunct for 30 years to an active one in terms of popularity and touring is literally textbook apples and oranges.
ParanoidObsessive posted...

lolno

Lolyeah. Even if you release ten albums and 30 singles doesn't mean any of them got a lick of airtime. GnR has 3-4 famous singles that non fans know. None of their singles in the past 20 years have hit any significant chart level outside a couple european countries.

man101 posted...

Lolyeah. Even if you release ten albums and 30 singles doesn't mean any of them got a lick of airtime. GnR has 3-4 famous singles that non fans know. None of their singles in the past 20 years have hit any significant chart level outside a couple european countries.

lolno

You're still missing the point of my dismissiveness. You keep saying that "they have like 3 singles that are widely known and popular, yet all of said singles come from their debut album", and that statement is objectively wrong. Speaking as a non-GnR fan who is one of the few people on this board old enough to have been listening to Top 40 radio for the entirety of their career, I'm in a unique position to tell you that you're basically full of shit.

I'm not talking about their multiple albums over the last 25 years, I'm talking about their career in the late 80s/early 90s. Their first THREE albums (four if you count Use Your Illusion I and II separately (but I won't) sold extremely well (all went multi-platinum). Their successful singles came from ALL THREE albums, and 6 charted top 10, while 2 others charted top 50 (and about 2-3 others used to get significant airplay even without officially charting). They got TONS of fucking airplay at the time, and even today you'll still hear any number of those singles still get airplay on any station that still plays music from that era (which I do, which is how I know).

No, it isn't just Welcome to the Jungle, Paradise City, and Sweet Child of Mine that gets any recognition today. Don't Cry, November Rain, and Knockin' On Heaven's Door still get pretty regular exposure, Patience still crops up from time-to-time, and even their cover of Live and Let Die gets played every now and then. And hell, I'm pretty sure I've heard Mr. Brownstone more in the last 10 years than I did when it was actually released (it wasn't a major hit at the time).

And that's deliberately ignoring You Could Be Mine, which benefited hugely from the Terminator 2 tie-in at the time, and still gets airplay now because of how big it was then.

They had TONS of airplay during that 5 year or so period from '87 to '92 (give or take), and nostalgia for that has fueled replays on "classic rock" stations right up to the current day. If you're not hearing them today, you almost certainly aren't listening to any stations that actually play 80s/90s rock, which sort of makes your observation meaningless.

Your entire premise is flawed right out of the gate, and literally nothing you've said since has really addressed that in any meaningful way.

Or to sum up - lolno.

At the end of the day who cares really? Every member of GnR is obscenely overrated in regard to their technical ability. Slash is an average guitarist who is treated like some kind of guitar god. Axl rose is a complete hack like many of the singers of that era. Duff mckagan is nothing special. Steven adler is the best member but still nothing amazing

OhhhJa posted...

At the end of the day who cares really? Every member of GnR is obscenely overrated in regard to their technical ability. Slash is an average guitarist who is treated like some kind of guitar god. Axl rose is a complete hack like many of the singers of that era. Duff mckagan is nothing special. Steven adler is the best member but still nothing amazing

Sounds like someone is harboring resentment towards success through mediocrity...

ParanoidObsessive posted...

lolno

You're still missing the point of my dismissiveness. You keep saying that "they have like 3 singles that are widely known and popular, yet all of said singles come from their debut album", and that statement is objectively wrong. Speaking as a non-GnR fan who is one of the few people on this board old enough to have been listening to Top 40 radio for the entirety of their career, I'm in a unique position to tell you that you're basically full of shit.

I'm not talking about their multiple albums over the last 25 years, I'm talking about their career in the late 80s/early 90s. Their first THREE albums (four if you count Use Your Illusion I and II separately (but I won't) sold extremely well (all went multi-platinum). Their successful singles came from ALL THREE albums, and 6 charted top 10, while 2 others charted top 50 (and about 2-3 others used to get significant airplay even without officially charting). They got TONS of fucking airplay at the time, and even today you'll still hear any number of those singles still get airplay on any station that still plays music from that era (which I do, which is how I know).

No, it isn't just Welcome to the Jungle, Paradise City, and Sweet Child of Mine that gets any recognition today. Don't Cry, November Rain, and Knockin' On Heaven's Door still get pretty regular exposure, Patience still crops up from time-to-time, and even their cover of Live and Let Die gets played every now and then. And hell, I'm pretty sure I've heard Mr. Brownstone more in the last 10 years than I did when it was actually released (it wasn't a major hit at the time).

And that's deliberately ignoring You Could Be Mine, which benefited hugely from the Terminator 2 tie-in at the time, and still gets airplay now because of how big it was then.

They had TONS of airplay during that 5 year or so period from '87 to '92 (give or take), and nostalgia for that has fueled replays on "classic rock" stations right up to the current day. If you're not hearing them today, you almost certainly aren't listening to any stations that actually play 80s/90s rock, which sort of makes your observation meaningless.

Your entire premise is flawed right out of the gate, and literally nothing you've said since has really addressed that in any meaningful way.

Or to sum up - lolno.

Arguing that more of their songs are popular because you hear random singles occasionally on dedicated 80s-90s rock radio doesn't support the argument that their later work is also widely well known. You're going to the one and only place that would ever still play those songs. I'm also not a GnR fan either and I have been periodically listening to generic rock/metal stations since the 90s and I couldn't even hum a part of any of the other singles you named after Knockin on Heaven's Door. Maybe I always missed it when they happened to play those songs or maybe the reality is they just don't get as much airtime as you think. The point is non-rock fans mostly only know the singles from Appetite for Destruction because they have transcended random era throwback radio play. I'm not talking about how well known they are among people who have actively been listening to their genre the entire time. I'm talking about the general public consciousness.

Yet all that is just nitpicking because I never argued they weren't well known. My original point was and still is that GnR has a small body of work relative to their success: They have released 4 albums of original material (5 if you're being generous and count a double album as 2) in 39 years with no major hiatuses. Even a comparable band like Metallica with a famously sluggish album release schedule in recent years has twice that many. Most rock bands who have been active continuously since the early 80s have anywhere from 12-20 albums. Their last album released 16 years ago, or nearly half their career ago.

Solid_Sonic posted...

Sounds like someone is harboring resentment towards success through mediocrity...

You're damn right i am lol. But I do truly believe they are overrated musicians. Steven adler is actually pretty good but as they say... average bands with a great drummer sound great... great bands with an average drummer sound average. At the end of the day, your band is only as good as your drummer