Rhino UK are proud to present “Singles Box”: a clamshell card box containing the first ten UK-issued singles in their original picture sleeves. What makes this particularly special is the two singles which are exclusive to this box set: These unique inclusions are the projected fourth single - “Still Ill” (which was pressed only as DJ promo “A” label) but was ultimately passed over and replaced by “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” along side the Dutch release of “The Headmaster Ritual” housed in it’s black & white “cowboy” sleeve – the rarest commercially issued Smiths’ single in any territory.

The box is completed with four contemporary badges, a poster featuring the single artworks as well as an authentication certificate that contains a unique redemption code for mp3 downloads of the tracks.

In 1991, Guns N' Roses were the biggest band on the planet. Four years after its release, their swaggering debut album, Appetite For Destruction, was still in the album charts. The band set a new record with Use Your Illusion I & II – two albums released simultaneously – when they went to number one and two in the US charts. Seventeen years on, four of the five original members have gone and the story of the band's singer, Axl Rose, his monstrous ego, and his attempts to finish the most expensive album of all time have become legendary.

Described by The New York Times as "the recording industry's most notorious white elephant", Chinese Democracy is Guns N' Roses' long, long, long-awaited follow-up to the Use Your Illusion albums. Due out tomorrow, it's been 14 years in the making and has run up a reported £7m in studio bills. In that time Rose has hired and fired four managers, eight producers and at least 20 musicians. Chinese Democracy was originally due to appear in 1996 but was delayed, according to Rose, due to the departure of long-standing band-mates Duff McKagan and Slash. Rose claimed they left of their own free will, they said Rose began treating them like session musicians.

In 2000, Rose invited Rolling Stone magazine to his Malibu mansion to preview a dozen new tracks and a release date was set for later in the year, but nothing materialised. In 2004, the band's bassist Tommy Stinson said the album was "almost done"; Rose told fans on his website they'd be better off waiting for the resurrection of Christ.

So great has been the feeling that the album would never see the light of day that earlier this year the soft-drink company Dr Pepper promised a free soda for everyone in America if Chinese Democracy was released before the year was out. Whatever bright spark came up with that one will no doubt be clearing their desk in the morning. The musical landscape has been transformed since Guns N' Roses bestrode it like a tattooed, leather-trousered Colossus. Television talent shows now dictate what's in the charts; the record industry is facing extinction; hard rock has been in, then out, then in again. In making the world wait for 17 years, we could yet find that Axl Rose has timed it to perfection.