Axl Rose

Singer Axl Rose emerged with Guns N' Roses just when rock needed him, with late-'80s music dominated by safe pop-metal and synthy dance music. GNR reshaped hard rock in their image on their 1987 debut album, 'Appetite for Destruction,' which sold 33 million copies and spawned three hit 10 singles, including the timeless 'Sweet Child O' Mine.' But the band took almost four years to release a pair of follow-ups. Then there would then be a 15-year gap between the 1993 covers album 'The Spaghetti Incident' and 2008's 'Chinese Democracy,' by which time Rose was the only original member still left in the lineup. These days, Rose continues to front an updated edition of Guns N' Roses with keyboardist Dizzy Reed (who joined in 1990) as the only other longtime member. When the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012, the ever-mercurial Rose elected to stay away.

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