Review Summary: An ambitious endeavor that pairs some of Guns N' Roses' best moments with some of their worst. Luckily, the good far outweigh the bad.
It is 1990. Guns N’ Roses, now made famous by their best-selling landmark album
Appetite for Destruction, undertake what would become their most ambitious endeavour. While a part of the band argues they should stick to their hard rock roots, Mr. Rose had different plans. He wanted to bring Guns to a new artistic level, and so the new record would be infused with new musical genres, among which classical. It would be more epic, and so it would be better. What happened was that the band, having more than enough inspiration, ended up writing enough material for two albums. Hence, it was going to be two albums instead of one, coupled as if they were brothers:
Use Your Illusion I & II. Unsurprisingly, after their initial success, combined with the ambition of the project, Guns N’ Roses’ new albums became a tremendous success, with Part II managing to slightly outrun Part I.
The red-covered first part of the set is the harder-edged of the two, lying more rooted in the
Appetite hard rock than its brother. The contrast between the fierce red and mellow blue seems fittingly placed, although the band claimed it is just a coincidence that the albums turned out that way.
And Guns’ new venture did instantly bear some very tasty fruit. The furious, Appetite-ish
Right Next Door to Hell builds tremendous power with its low and clear bass line, and remains short but utmost effective. The same can be said about
Perfect Crime,
Garden of Eden and
Don’t Damn Me, although they are inferior to the album’s opener. And when Stradlin handled lead vocals on both
Dust N’ Bones and
Double Talkin’ Jive with his low, laid-back voice (which sharply contrasts Rose’s wail), it yielded some of Guns’ very best moments.
Back off Bitch and
Dead Horse get going a bit slower, and are the last successful moment that works with Appetite-logic.
The fewer mellow efforts are in almost all cases well worth the effort. The massive, epic, beautiful ballad
November Rain remains the centrepiece of these, being fully orchestrated and exceptionally well-performed. Rose plays a calm piano intro and sings like he means it, the build up is nothing short of incredible, with the orchestration doing miracles for the track. As it happens, Slash takes the effort to play 3 solos in the almost 9 minutes the track covers, all moving and melodic, and they might just be his three best.
You Ain’t the First, which incorporates folk elements, and
Live and Let Die (originally by
Paul & Linda McCartney), are both pretty decent, but the other standout softer moment is the excellent power ballad
Don’t Cry, on which Rose is near as heartfelt as he is on
November Rain.
But at a length of 75 minutes,
Use Your Illusion I is bound to have filler. Luckily, the amount is still very bearable, and the good outweigh the bad.
Bad Obsession, which makes interesting use of both harmonica and saxophone, doesn’t keep the interest up because of the repetitive vocals.
The Garden is a failed collaboration with
Alice Cooper, its lyrics being very annoying, and Cooper’s presence not really working particularly with a Guns N’ Roses track.
Bad Apples doesn’t belong to the greats either. It has the same standard hard rock structure as the other tracks, but Rose’s vocal presence is annoying and the guitars sound too messy and generic. The album’s closing epic,
Coma, is often seen by fans as an underrated track, but doesn’t really care to express the actual content of its subject. While it is supposed to concern waking up from a coma, there is no proper build-up, preventing an idea that wasn’t too shabby growing out into a proper song.
Still,
Use Your Illusion I is, together with
Appetite for Destruction and
Use Your Illusion II, an essential Guns N’ Roses album. Sometimes, it takes the band to new artistic highs, and sometimes it rather takes them to lows. It is lengthy, it contains some filler and annoying moments, but it also created some of the best moments the boys ever created. Don’t hesitate to get it.
Essential listening:
Right Next Door to Hell
Dust N’ Bones
Don’t Cry
Double Talkin’ Jive
November Rain
Dramatis Personae:
- William Bruce ‘Axl’ Rose, Jr. ~ Lead Vocals (except 2 & 9), Backing Vocals, Keyboards, Sound Effects, Synthesizers, Choir
- Saul ‘Slash’ Hudson ~ Lead and Rhythm Guitars, Acoustic Guitar, Slide Guitar, 6-String Bass, Backing Vocals, Voice Box
- Michael Andrew ‘Duff’ McKagan ~ Bass Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Backing Vocals, Choir
- Jeffery Dean ‘Izzy Stradlin’ Isbell ~ Rhythm and Lead Guitars, Lead Vocals (2 & 9), Acoustic Guitar, Backing Vocals, Percussion, Choir
- Darren Arthur ‘Dizzy’ Reed ~ Piano, Organ, Backing Vocals, Clavinet, Choir
- Matthew William Sorum ~ Drums, Percussion, Backing Vocals, Choir
- Richard Shannon Hoon ~ Backing Vocals
- Johann Langlie ~ Synthesizers, Sound Effects
- Matthew McKagan, Jon Trautwein, Rachel West, Robert Clark ~ Horns
- Tim Doyle ~ Tambourine
- Matti ‘Michael Monroe’ Fagerholm ~ Saxophone, Harmonica
- Stu Bailey, Reba Shaw ~ Choir
- Vincent Damon ‘Alice Cooper’ Furnier ~ Vocals
- Aaron West Arkeen ~ Acoustic Guitar
- Michael Clink ~ Nutcracker
- Bruce Foster ~ Sound Effects
- Susanne Filkins, Patricia Fuenzalida, Rose Mann, Monica Zierhut-Soto, Michelle Loiselle, Diane Mitchell ~ Bitches
