KNOCKING on heaven’s door in hopes of producing the most expensive album of all time is the dream of every artist, band or musician.
Yet, do many of these musical acts actually live to produce the most expensive studio album?
Legendary hardcore rockers Guns N’ Roses rose to prominence in the late to mid-80s and revolutionised rock and roll with their best-selling hits, Sweet Child O’ Mine from the Appetite for Destruction album, their first record-breaking album in 1987 and November Rain from their Use Your Illusions 1 album in 1991.
Did the band also produce the most expensive studio album to date?
Verdict:
TRUE
Lead singer of the band, Axl Rose, had racked up USD13mil to get the record in shape and that included salaries of USD11,000 a month for each musician, USD25,000 a month for the “recording software engineer” and USD50k a month for the studio.
Chinese Democracy itself was a long-awaited album in the making as the band shifted and parted ways, and only having Axl Rose and keyboardist Dizzy Reed as its original member by 1997 didn’t quite do much justice for the band as the album didn’t quite live up to its glory days when the original members were still part of the act.
However, while the album made it to number two on the UK album charts, it only sold 350,000 copies in the UK.
In the United States, Chinese Democracy debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 and was certified platinum.
References:
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/
https://www.radiox.co.uk/
