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 Could this be it? After being lost in the studio for 14 years, Axl Rose seems ready to finally release his oft-delayed opus, Chinese Democracy, this November. Yes, the cover will say “Guns N’ Roses,” but the album is purely Axl’s folly. At a reported cost of over $13 million, it’s the most expensive record ever made.
 

The band’s classic lineup began work on the project in 1994. Guitarist Slash, bassist Duff McKagan, and drummer Matt Sorum bailed soon after, and ever since, a revolving cast of producers and musicians (including Dave Navarro, Buckethead, and Queen’s Brian May) have helped Axl birth this recorded beast. We’ll see whether or not it was worth the wait. We’re a long way from GnR’s big-haired “Welcome To The Jungle” heyday.
 
Assuming Democracy really does come out, Axl will leave a small but elite club of famous musicians who lost their albums in the studio forever. It seems like it’s a rite of passage for some auteurs to lose their minds in the studio while making singular artistic statements. No pain, no gain (or rock ’n’ roll).
 
Here are five legendary recording projects that never saw the light of day.

THE WHO’S LIFEHOUSE
In 1969 Pete Townshend was riding on a rock-opera high with Tommy and was looking for a follow-up. So how do you top the tale of a deaf, dumb, and blind pinball wizard? Simple: a story about a collapsing world where “the only experience that anybody ever had was through test tubes,” according to Townshend. Not exactly a future VH1 staple. Not surprisingly, the project gave its creator a nervous breakdown. All was not lost, however. Songs from the aborted project resurfaced on Who’s Next.

THE BEACH BOYS’ SMiLE
OK, technically Brian Wilson finally released this legendary lost album in 2004 with the help of the Wondermints. However, it’s cheating. Why? The tracks were rerecorded from the original 1966-67 sessions, The Beach Boys aren’t playing on them, and with all due respect, Wilson hasn’t been at the top of his game for a while. The original SMiLE was intended as a follow-up to Pet Sounds, probably the most influential yet commercially underrated album EVER! Wilson intended the new album as a “teenage symphony to God” and ran up a $50,000 price tag trying to finish it. The project began with the single “Good Vibrations” but ended up being shelved due to Brian’s increasing drug use and descent into mental illness.

NEIL YOUNG’S HOMEGROWN
Neil Young has shelved more albums than probably anyone else in rock. When Homegrown was completed in 1975, Neil invited a bunch of friends over to his place to celebrate and listen to the finished tracks. Blame it on a fate or too much homegrown, but there was another batch of recordings on the reel as well. Neil liked those better and ended up releasing Tonight’s The Night instead. Some of Homegrown would find its way onto his next two solo albums, Zuma (“Pardon My Heart”) and American Stars ’N Bars (“Star Of Bethlehem”), among others.

THE BEATLES’ GET BACK
This is the most famous “lost in the studio” record of all time. In 1969 The Beatles were sullen, splintered, and slowly falling apart. Paul McCartney thought it would be a good idea to make a back-to-basics-type album without the studio tricks that had come to define their mid-’60s recordings. Sounded good, until the part about filming the whole thing for a documentary. You know the rest: the band’s disintegration was captured for the film Let It Be, and the recordings were shelved, only be reinterpreted by producer Phil Spector and his “Wall of Sound” as a soundtrack-of-sorts to the film. In 2003 McCartney oversaw a remix called Let It Be… Naked, which brought the recordings closer to the original vision. Closer, but…

PREFAB SPROUT
One of the great unsung British bands, Prefab Sprout has been making brilliantly melodic pop music since the ’80s. Their fans will tell you that leader and songwriter Paddy McAloon not only writes masterful songs, he also writes a LOT of them. Few have seen the light of day. He reportedly has concept albums about Michael Jackson and the history of the Earth locked up somewhere.

 See images of rock auteurs lost in the studio in our FlipBook.

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