Artist: Guns N' Roses
Label: Geffen Records
Release: 1991
Length: 76:04
Rating: 3/5
»Use Your Illusion I« is the third studio album from the City of Angels rockers going by the name Guns N’ Roses. The record came out in 1991 and is the first of two albums released at the same time. Fans of the band had already been able to hear most of the songs well before the records dropped, since the tour promoting them had kicked off a few months earlier. That same year, the “guns and roses” crew started writing a new chapter in their history at the Rock in Rio festival in Brazil, where new drummer Matt Sorum made his debut, having replaced Steven Adler during the making of the record. The tour, which shook the world between 1991 and 1993, took touring to a whole new level, with shows that ran around three hours on average and were made possible by a technical crew of 80 people. Besides the huge numbers, the tour was also marked by plenty of scandals and late starts, most of them caused by Axl Rose. The tour found its epilogue with a show in Argentina, which was also the last gig of the original lineup.
The album hit an excellent number two on the American Billboard chart and sold 685,000 copies in its first week. The record and its follow-up, UYI 2, hold a special place in the band’s history, because with them the band dropped the signature “glam rock” of their debut album, Appetite For Destruction, and shaped their own “Gunsy” rock, which stands out for its mix of different styles, carried by the band members themselves, who are all very different from one another stylistically. The record is an interesting fusion of different genres, with songs that bring in elements of blues, classical music, punk and even country alongside the rock. The cover art is a modernized take on Raphael’s Renaissance School of Athens, painted by Mark Kostabi.
The record has sixteen songs that swing wildly in quality, so they don’t all reach the same level. “Dust N’ Bones” sits in second place on the album and is sung entirely by rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin, who wrote it together with Slash and Duff McKagan. With its riff and its roar, the song is tailor-made for “bikers” and is about not taking life too seriously, because not everything is depressing, black and pointless. The studio version is also the baptism of fire for new keyboardist Dizzy Reed, who is still in the band today. “Dust and Bones” is followed by the James Bond movie theme “Live and Let Die”, third on the record. Even though it’s a cover of an original written by Paul McCartney and his late wife Linda, the band managed to present the slow, post-Beatles ballad in a completely new light. The Guns version is more dynamic, and Axl’s unbeatable piano and Slash’s guitar bits just put the “icing on the cake”. It’s undoubtedly a cover that even Paul himself wouldn’t be ashamed of. The relaxed vibe of the previous two songs carries on with the sad, confessional “Don’t Cry”, which appears here in its original version. On UYI II the lyrics are different, because Axl Rose felt the older version had become a bit distant from his life at that point. The song was born out of two broken hearts, as Axl and Izzy poured out their souls after breaking up with their girlfriends. It’s also the first song written during the Guns N` Roses era. The band took the ideas for its promo video from Del James’s short story Without You. The video is also the first part of a planned trilogy of videos, which, besides that song, was supposed to include the videos for “November Rain” and “Estranged”. The plan ended up fizzling out a bit, though, since singer Rose split up with Stephanie Seymour, who played Elizabeth from the story in the first two videos. Because of the breakup, the video for “Estranged” is something of a product of Axl’s imagination. “Bad Obsession” also holds an important place on the record, coming in seventh. The song is a collaboration between Izzy Stradlin and West Arkeen and describes the problems of bad habits (meaning drugs) that had plagued the band since the very beginning. Nasty heroin habits also took out drummer Steven Adler shortly before the studio rehearsals began, and Matt Sorum stepped in successfully. Guitarist Stradlin is also the sole writer of “Double Talkin’ Jive”, which came about because of a very peculiar incident. During one of the band’s breaks from recording, Izzy found a human head and shoulder in a nearby dumpster. The incident also shaped the lyrics, which open with the line »Found a head and an arm in a garbage can«. The melodic song ends with a romantic guitar solo by Slash, with elements of Spanish flamenco. With the next song, “November Rain”, the band sails into completely different waters again, piano and orchestral ones. The piano chords are pretty simple, but the drum lines are identical to a song by Elton John and Nigel Olsson. The cinematic video cost the band a million and a half American greenbacks, putting it among the ten most expensive music videos of all time. Despite all that money, it isn’t the priciest, though, since the epic visuals for “Estranged” cost the band a good four million dollars. Second to last on the list is “Don’t Damn Me”, in which Axl and the rest of the band settle scores in words for the first time with their critics (the showdown peaks with the song Get In The Ring), who had been twisting their eccentric statements into something milder so they’d be fit for public consumption. The album closes with a more than ten-minute description of what it’s like to be in a coma. The song, which has the simple title »Coma« and no chorus, describes Axl’s fourteen-day sleep in a coma and what went on around him. It’s very autobiographical, a reflection of the singer’s problems and of a suicide attempt he made with sedatives. Thanks to its strangeness, this song only adds to the artistic value of the record, since nobody had done anything like it before.
Use Your Illusion and its sequel are an important milestone in the history of rock music, since they contain masterpieces that will inspire plenty of rock generations to come and still get played often on many radio stations today. Besides that timelessness, their cult status shows in the fact that, despite mixing numerous genres, the band stayed true to the hard rock that launched them onto the scene. The lasting popularity and the masterful blend of genre elements with the original “Gunsy” sound are overshadowed, though, by the key reason the record matters so much. Together with its sequel, it’s the last studio album of the original lineup (»The Spaghetti Incident« is a covers collection) and also the last one the band released for the next seventeen years. The only thing that bugs me about the final shape of the record is that it has some “low-quality filler” wedged in between the masterpieces mentioned above, stretching it out for no reason. It would certainly have been interesting if the band had put out one record instead of two and kept the “extras” in their archives.
Lineup
W. Axl Rose – vocals, piano, synthesizer and choir arrangement on “November Rain”, backing vocals on “Dust N’ Bones” and “The Garden”, acoustic guitar on “Dead Horse”, keyboards on “Live and Let Die” and “Garden of Eden”, sound effects on “Perfect Crime” and “Garden of Eden”
Slash – guitar on “Back off Bitch”, slide guitar on “Bad Obsession”, acoustic guitar and slide guitar on “The Garden”, dobro on “You Ain’t The First”, classical guitar on “Double Talkin Jive”, acoustic guitar on “November Rain”, backing vocals on “Right Next Door to Hell”, “Dust N’ Bones”, “Back off Bitch” and “Garden of Eden”, talkbox on “Dust N’ Bones”, six-string bass on “Right Next Door to Hell”
Izzy Stradlin – guitar, backing vocals, acoustic guitar on “You Ain’t The First”, lead guitar on “Back off Bitch”, vocals on “Dust N’ Bones”, “You Ain’t The First” and “Double Talkin’ Jive”, percussion on “Bad Obsession”
Duff McKagan – bass, backing vocals, acoustic guitar on “You Ain’t The First” and “Double Talkin’ Jive”
Dizzy Reed – keyboards, piano, clavinet on “Bad Apples”, backing vocals on “November Rain”, “Garden of Eden” and “Bad Apples”, organ on “Dust N’ Bones” and “Don’t Damn Me”
Matt Sorum – drums, percussion on “Dust N’ Bones”, “Double Talkin’ Jive”, “The Garden” and “Coma”, backing vocals on “November Rain” and “Bad Apples”, choir arrangements on “November Rain”
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Shannon Hoon – backing vocals on “Live And Let Die”, “November Rain”, “The Garden”, “Don’t Cry” and “You Ain’t The First”
Johann Langlie – programming on “Live And Let Die”, “November Rain” and “Garden Of Eden”, sound effects on “Coma”
Michael Monroe – harmonica and saxophone on “Bad Obsession”
Reba Shaw – backing vocals on “November Rain”
Stuart Bailey – backing vocals on “November Rain”
Jon Thautwein – horn on “Live And Let Die”
Matthew McKagan – horn on “Live And Let Die”
Rachel West – horn on “Live And Let Die”
Robert Clark – horn on “Live And Let Die”
Tim Doyle – tambourine on “You Ain’t The First”
Alice Cooper – vocals on “The Garden”; backing vocals on “Dust N’ Bones”,
“Double Talkin’ Jive” and “Garden Of Eden”
West Arkeen – acoustic guitar on “The Garden”
Bruce Foster – sound effects on “Coma”
Production
Mike Clink & Guns N’ Roses
Track List
1. Right Next Door to Hell
2. Dust N’ Bones
3. Live and Let Die (Paul McCartney & Wings cover)
4. Don’t Cry” (original version)
5. Perfect Crime
6. You Ain’t the First
7. Bad Obsession
8. Back Off Bitch
9. Double Talkin’ Jive
10. November Rain
11. The Garden (featuring Alice Cooper and Shannon Hoon)
12. Garden of Eden
13. Don’t Damn Me
14. Bad Apples
15. Dead Horse
16. Coma
