Carnival of Soul

Music fans and journalists have made much of Tool’s Fear Inoculum dethroning Taylor Swift’s Lover to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 last week. The prog-metal stalwarts’ first album in 13 years moved 270,000 equivalent album units, another remarkable feat for a band that has always been enormously popular despite making virtually no mainstream concessions throughout its career. Fear Inoculum’s success has led some people to speculate about what other hard rock or metal artists could rocket up the charts with a new album. While there are a handful of candidates that could make a mighty splash on the Billboard 200, one would be all but guaranteed to outperform the rest by a long shot: Guns N’ Roses.

Based purely on past performance, this may not seem obvious. Think, if you dare, back to November 2008, when Guns N’ Roses finally released their much-ballyhooed Chinese Democracy. It marked the band’s first album of original studio material since 1991’s twin Use Your Illusion releases, and by the time work on Chinese Democracy commenced in earnest in 1997, mercurial frontman Axl Rose was the only original remaining member of the band. After approximately 1 billion personnel changes and costs reportedly exceeding $13 million—making it the most expensive rock album ever made—Guns N’ Roses finally released Chinese Democracy as a Best Buy exclusive at the tail end of 2008. All of their toiling earned them a No. 3 debut on the Billboard 200, selling 261,000 copies in its first week, ironically opening below Kanye West’s 808s & Heartbreak and Taylor Swift’s Fearless.

It may sound funny to say in an era when artists routinely top the charts with sub-six-figure sales, but Chinese Democracy’s opening week was nothing short of a catastrophe. The album plummeted 78% to No. 18 in its second week, and it eventually limped to platinum status in 2009 (which only means that it shipped 1 million copies in the United States, not that it sold them). Thousands of copies of Chinese Democracy languished in Best Buy’s bargain bin and used CD stores, and Guns N’ Roses’ much-anticipated comeback album got reduced to an industry punchline.

The marketing and release of Chinese Democracy was a textbook case of doing everything wrong; if I didn’t know better, I would call it intentional self-sabotage on Rose’s part. The singer did no press for the album’s release and disappeared from public for months after it came out. That’s to say nothing of the music itself, which traded the band’s signature cocktail of gutter-punk fury and Led Zeppelin-meets-the-Stones swagger for perplexing industrial rock gurgles that sounded like Queen filtered through Nine Inch Nails’ Pretty Hate Machine. Then, of course, there was the deal-breaking absence of inimitable lead guitarist Slash, rock-steady bassist Duff McKagan, sinewy rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin, and either of the band’s classic-era drummers, Steven Adler or Matt Sorum. As far as fans were concerned, Chinese Democracy wasn’t a GN’R comeback album: It was an Axl Rose vanity project that pissed on the legacy of one of rock’s biggest and best bands.

This abundance of damning context only serves for me to say: Things are different now. Rose, Slash and McKagan made nice and embarked on the ongoing Not in This Lifetime… Tour in 2016, which has since become the third-biggest concert tour of all time, grossing more than $560 million. The prospect of three core GN’R members reuniting onstage for the first time in 23 years propelled the band to selling out stadiums and headlining top-dollar festivals around the world, which they will continue to do at the end of this month through November. It’s a huge upgrade from the U.S. amphitheatres and clubs they played in support of Chinese Democracy, and proof that to fans, a rock band has a lot more to do with the members playing in it than its name alone.

The Not in This Lifetime… Tour, 10 years of hindsight and a renewed nostalgia for bombastic classic rock bands has also softened the public’s opinion of Chinese Democracy. Slash and McKagan’s willingness to play the bulk of the album on tour has helped many fans acknowledge that it’s not a legacy-destroying debacle, but a widely misunderstood curio that nevertheless includes some strokes of brilliance. GN’R fans who previously chose to write the album out of the band’s discography may be more willing to view it on the continuum now; instead of a jumping-off point for diehards, it’s a stylistic left-turn from which the semi-reunited band can bounce back. And with Slash and McKagan back in the fold, it’s practically a foregone conclusion that a new album—which Slash has effectively confirmed is in the works—would sound more like their glory days than Rose’s own excursions.

Just as Tool did with Fear Inoculum, Guns N’ Roses would surely enjoy a massive debut with a new album thanks to a handful of factors. First and foremost, a new album in 2020 (which is a generous forecast given this band’s reputation for tardiness) would mark the first album of original studio material from a semi-original lineup in 29 years, dwarfing Tool’s 13-year gap between 10,000 Days and Fear Inoculum. They would also be capitalizing on the momentum from their globe-spanning tour, which is now approaching its fourth year. And while rock is decidedly not experiencing a mainstream revival at large, there is a renewed interest in classic hard rock bands as the number of artists who are still fit to tour and release albums dwindles.

With all these factors in mind, it doesn’t seem outlandish to imagine a new Guns N’ Roses album moving 500,000-plus units in its first week. This is, after all, the band that caused widespread pandemonium with the midnight releases of Use Your Illusion I and II, which debuted in the top two spots on the Billboard 200 with 685,000 and 770,000 copies, respectively. This is also the band that scored the bestselling debut album of all time with Appetite for Destruction, which is certified 18x platinum in the United States. Coupled with their robust merchandising (all the better for merch/tour/album bundles) and impressive streaming numbers, GN’R are poised for a massive comeback album, should they ever choose to release one. Hopefully they do it in this lifetime.

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