If you ask me, Tom Scholz of Boston is the closest equivalent to Axl in the rock world, because Boston only releases one album per decade. Still, even they get their albums out eventually.
The big problem is that Axl is now caught in a vicious cycle. The longer he takes to make the album, the better he feels it has to be to justify the length of time he's taken to make it. He's setting himself an impossible task.
This is completely true and I've made the same comparisons within my mind, several times.