Spawned from the wreckage of 80's bands L.A. Guns and Hollywood Rose, Guns N' Roses first hit it big with the hard-rocking album, "Appetite for Destruction". This album sold 1.7 x 10^7 copies and featured 100% of the original lineup of Axl on vocals, Slash on lead guitar, Izzy on rhythm guitar, Duff on bass and Steve on drums.

Their fame grew and they soon released GN'R Lies, which was actually 50% previously released from their earlier 4-song EP. This album ventured into more acoustic territory with songs like Patience, which included a whistling solo. It sold 6 x 10^6 copies and featured 100% of the original lineup. A model of a chaotic system, Guns N' Roses soon became well known for not showing up for their own concerts. It has been shown that at the height of their career, there was a 55.89 percent chance that the band would be present at a scheduled Guns N' Roses concert (Bernstein, 1993).

In 1991 they released an ambitious double album, Use Your Illusion parts I and II, which took the band in a more grandiose, produced direction. These two albums combined have sold 2.6 x 10^7 albums to date. Featured on the recordings are two new members, Dizzy Reed and Matt Sorum. Steven Adler had been fired from the band, bringing the original member percentage to 66.667%.

Following this album, on the recommendation of the bassist, Duff, the group recorded The Spaghetti Incident, composed entirely of Punk covers. Izzy had left the band, bringing the percentage of original members to 50%.

Into the Fractal Dimension:
Soon thereafter, strange attractor Axl Rose fired the rest of the band and gained the rights to the band name, re-forming Guns N' Roses with a very bizarre lineup including the young avant-garde thrashmaster Buckethead on lead guitar. Therefore, Guns N' Roses now consists of 14.286% of the original members. Duff and Slash joined together to form Velvet Revolver (along with Matt Sorum, GN'R's second drummer), which hit #1 in March of 2004 with its debut album "Contraband", and has sold 1.6 x 10^6 albums to date. Velvet Revolver enjoys an original lineup figure of 60%. The release date of the Axl-led new Guns N' Roses album, "Chinese Democracy", has been repeatedly delayed. A duet album between Duff McKagan and his daughter Hilary Duff has been rumored to be in development, but has not yet surfaced.

Now, in the latest development, the band Guns N' Roses has inspired the Self-Similar Guns N' Roses Midi Synth, a sound research project by the authors of this site.