You know you’re in a huge band when an iPhone autocorrects the spelling of your band name if it is unintentionally misspelled with an apostrophe before the “N.” Guns N’ Roses have BILLIONS, and not the show with Damian Lewis, Paul Giamatti, and Nelson Rockefeller, of public streams on Spotify alone. As of today, GNR is the 147th most popular artist on said platform. To put this in perspective, Fall Out Boy is #185 in the world, and they released an album this year, and Ignite isn’t even in the top 500, which is a crime against humanity. We ranked all six GNR studio albums below, and you are going to bitch till we’re in a coma:
6. G N’ R Lies (1988)
We don’t care if several members of Guns N’ Roses eventually defended a song on this LP after the fact, saying that it was misunderstood, racist and homophobic verbiage is NEVER ok, so this album HAD to be ranked last, and we don’t care if it has one of their ten best singles, “Patience.” Because we don’t have any “patience” (see what we did there?) for bigotry. There is a reason they left that song off future releases. Anyway, onto the fun stuff, which is unfortunately tainted with “Used to Love Her,” which is also offensive in a non-funny way, but way less so than “One in a Million,” “G N’ R Lies” is an album so wild that it includes the band’s initials in its name and that’s all we have to say about that.
Play it again: “Patience”
Skip it:
a) Diarrhea stain – “One in a Million”
b) Pissed jeans – “Used to Love Her”
5. “The Spaghetti Incident?” (1993)
Even though Guns N’ Roses’ fifth studio album “The Spaghetti Incident?” features a question mark in its title, unlike “G N’ R Lies,” there are few things questionable about this fun cover song LP except for its hidden Charles Manson song track, “Look at Your Game, Girl.” We’re quite curious as to what Quentin Tarantino, fan of both spaghetti westerns and writer/director of the underrated film “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood,” featuring both a fictionalized and truthful account of Manson and the late-Sharon Tate, thinks about this record which features GNR interpretations of songs by The Skyliners and Johann Sebastian Bach’s son, Albie, who surprisingly is not related to the singer of Skid Row, Sebastian Bach Mozart Rachmaninoff Ludwig Ludacris Beethoven. You likely got this CD in a bargain bin, or through Columbia House’s penny priced mail-order music club, but it’s worth at least one thousand times that!
Play it again: “Since I Don’t Have You” by The Skyliners
Skip it: The hidden track that should’ve never been found, “Look at Your Game, Girl,” by sicko/wacko/douchecanoe/ass goblin, Charles Manson
4. Chinese Democracy (2008)
We most certainly know that much about this album’s creation, costs, long-ass history, and often polarizing lore have been publicly and privately maligned since the mid-to-late nineties, and we are not making any predictable low-hanging fruit jokes about the delay. If the entire world only knew how good “Chinese Democracy” is, there would be far better and informed witticisms, and far more streams/sales for this record. Thankfully the band, even though most of its members had nothing to do with this LP, still plays songs from it live, and even the I.R.S., and not Irwin R. Schyster, father of the late, great Bray Wyatt, likely needs to audit newfound royalties from this studio album, which is Guns N’ Roses’ last as of now. In closing, special shoutouts are warranted for Bumblefoot, Buckethead, and Buckcherry for their outstanding musically dense work here!
Play it again: “Chinese Democracy”
Skip it: “Riad N’ the Bedouins”
3. Use Your Illusion II (1991)
“Use Your Illusion II” is a fantastic, yet slightly worse sequel to its prequel “Use Your Illusion I,” but sadly just isn’t on the level of “Sister Act: Back in the Habit,” in that the Whoopi Goldberg, Lauryn Hill, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Carrot Top film had no filler whatsoever. None. As you know or now know, Guns N’ Roses is forever marred with controversy, so the overly vulgar, if that’s a thing, song, if it could be called that, as it is more of a diss track, “Get in the Ring” could’ve been nixed along with several others here. One wonders if this LP and “Use Your Illusion I” were both reduced by more than a few songs to just one LP simply called “Use Your Illusion About Numbers That Aren’t Written In Roman Numeral Form” if said record would’ve been ranked at number one here! Don’t cry, alternates!
Play it again: “Estranged”
Skip it: “Get in the Ring”
2. Use Your Illusion I (1991)
“Use Your Illusion II” may have a better opening song in “Civil War” than “Use Your Illusion I”’s “Right Next Door to Hell,” but I’s closer “Coma” is easily the best final album track in Guns N’ Roses’ catalog, and if we’re being honest, is in their top ten tracks. Said inclusion alone is enough to make I > II, but “November Rain” put this album in an even higher regard. Speaking of said song, and we don’t care if it’s uncool to say this, “November Rain” is the best GNR single, music video, song, and sonnet of the band’s career and don’t damn us for saying such. Like we alluded to before, there is some filler over the course of I and II, but in a form of the perfect crime, the former just had less spoiled/bad apples. Live. And. Let. Die. Don’t cry, originals!
Play it again: “November Rain”
Skip it: “Garden Of Eden”
1. Appetite for Destruction (1987)
Guns N’ Roses’ “Appetite for Destruction” is one of the best rock albums from the 20th century, and has an insanely insane amount of mega-mega-mega-hit after hit after hit singles, and killer-killer-killer-death after death after death deep cuts, thus making it one of the best debut LPs ever… By far! Because of such, we are listing no “skip it” tracks here, but will personally shout out the OGNR five-piece: W. Axl Rose on lead vocals/whines, Slash on lead guitar/hat, Izzy Stradlin, who eventually quit the group four years later, on rhythm guitar/anger, Duff “Rose” McKagan on bass guitar/being tall, and Steven Adler on drums/other things, who was ousted in 1990. In closing, this album said a huge F.U. to other ‘80s peers who spent way more time utilizing hairspray than rocking out.
Play it again: Track 1-the end
Skip it: Being full from not breaking things