The Use Your Illusion albums: In Hindsight

[Michir]

Looking back with hindsight, how do you view the UYI albums, especially the way they changed GN'R's sound? For example, songs like Coma, Estranged, Locomotive, Breakdown and November Rain, which are utterly different from anything found on AFD and Lies; Matt Sorum instead of Steven Adler; The addition of Dizzy Reed as the sixth Gunner and with him the introduction of keyboards and organ into the band. Singles like YCBM, Don't Cry and other lesser known songs like Perfect Crime, The Garden, Double Talkin' Jive, Dust N' Bones, 14 Years....

In hindsight, looking back over 22 years, what are your views on the UYI records? Are they the favorite GN'R albums of anyone else? Does anyone think if the Axl/Slash dominated GNR had stayed together, could they have outdone the UYI albums in scope or grandiosity?

[classicguns4life]

They are utterly amazing. Appetite is without question their masterpiece, but I've heard it so much. I prefer the Illusions, and somehow no matter how many times I hear them they still feel fresh. That was good rock music and even if its bombastic it still sounds so awesome. Every song is a winner, and I don't feel I'm exaggerating. There were epics, there were short rockers, there were introspective songs. The album means a lot more seeing as it was their last of original material for the classic band. I still don't think those two albums get the credit they deserve, either in the mainstream music world or on these board. IMO, I've always thought you aren't a true GNR fan until you like every song on those albums. Obviously everyone has different tastes, but those albums are the next step and once you start coming around to those after Appetite, you have fully absorbed the greatness of this band. They made themselves legends with only 4 hours of officially released original material and UYI is responsible for over half of that.

[MYWIFEMYLIFE]

UYIs are way bigger than AFD, which is considered the best debut album ever. In every way. I remember listening to both albums in my double decker tape with the same order for months. I was amazed with how gorgeous AFD was , but it's the UYIs made me a real Gunner and changed lots of things for me in life.

[Kapitch_77]

I still view UYI 1 as one of the best rock album ever (better than AFD), the songs were great and the production is incredible.

They're great but if I would have to say something negative about these albums though, I would say that Axl could've put a little break on certains sound effects and a little less piano on certain songs would have been fine too. Also, I'm not sure but I think it was Paul McCartney who once said something along the lines of: I don't make songs that I can't perform live because what would be the point? Like I already said the songs on the albums are great but obviously some songs are almost impossible for Axl, even in his prime, to sing regularly live.. I'm thinking about Coma, Perfect Crime and maybe a few others... As a fan I would've like to hear them more often but they were just too hard to do live.

[classicguns4life]

I still view UYI 1 as one of the best rock album ever (better than AFD), the songs were great and the production is incredible.

They're great but if I would have to say something negative about these albums though, I would say that Axl could've put a little break on certains sound effects and a little less piano on certain songs would have been fine too. Also, I'm not sure but I think it was Paul McCartney who once said something along the lines of: I don't make songs that I can't perform live because what would be the point? Like I already said the songs on the albums are great but obviously some songs are almost impossible for Axl, even in his prime, to sing regularly live.. I'm thinking about Coma, Perfect Crime and maybe a few others... As a fan I would've like to hear them more often but they were just too hard to do live.

There's some truth to them being difficult to reproduce live, but they played nearly all of that album on the tour, and most of it very frequently. So yeah, some songs only made sporadic appearances, but it was 30 songs so that was to be expected. Every show was heavy with Illusion material so I don't know what else you could have wanted from them. Coma is near impossible, yet they still played it 4 times. Dead Horse is crazy hard, as is Breakdown and Locomotive, yet all of those were performed at least a few times. I don't think it was as much they were hard to do as the band was not always on board with each song. But you can't say they didn't try all of those songs out.

Also, I understand McCartney's comment about that. Yet its also hilarious to think of that and then think of the last 4 years of the Beatles career where they specifically made music they didn't have to worry about recreating live. So he's not really one to speak, or at least not entirely relevant to this discussion based on that.

[MEXzilla]

Fantastic albums, those albums are the reason why GnR are my favorite band of all time.

[ARBeast]

I loved the Illusion records. I thought they were an excellent response to Appetite because it's like that with bands. You want another appetite, but you don't want it to sound like appetite ya know? I thought it was a great way for the band to evolve. A lot of rock songs mixed with some incredible ballads.

Every song was a #1 hit in my mind..

[themadcaplaughs]

I used to be one of the guys that pondered endlessly about them. Why do people not seem to give them the recognition they deserve? What if Axl has eased up on the keyboards and random sound effects? What if Matt Sorum's drums did not suffer through production that made them sound like a Phill Collins record? What if the best material has been whittled down into one album?

However, somewhere in the last five or six years, I've learned to love them just for what they are. In my eyes, the album is like The Wall by Pink Floyd. It's an album that is flawed at the core and imperfect, but its high points are so great as to make it worth the low points.\

As it is, there are songs that are downright embarrassing ("Back off Bitch," "My World," "Get in the Ring," Shotgun Blues") and other great songs ruined by odd production choices and sounds ("Pretty Tied Up" and "Breakdown") but ultimately the highlights of the album make it all worth it.

As someone else said, everyone likes Appetite for Destruction, but really listening through and enjoying Use Your Illusion I and II seems to be the sign of a slightly more devout fan.

[rockerman]

What I loved about that era of GNR post UYI release and tour was that they had grown musically and were playing some sophisticated sounds while retaining the harder rock edge. They could produce sounds from different genres and put thier stamp on them with thier own sound. Even the covers were brought to fresh interpretations while not removing the essence of the songs. I spent the 90's with UYI's as the primary music that I listened to and compared other bands with. No single one band or artist achieved that level of enthusiasm and for good reason...most of the grunge/numetal/ rap/industrial sounds simply sucked in message and scale of the music.

The tension that was manifest in the albums were an x factor that cannot be faked or replicated to the same remote degree that it was.

Had CD dropped 10 years sooner and the momentum of GNR continued on- then UYI's would have been the experiment albums instead of CD.

[rocknroll41]

I love the UYI's. Neither of the two of them are masterpieces the same way AFD is but they are still amazing records nonetheless. However, I feel like the whole project would've been better off as just two LP's sold in one set. In order for this to work, tho, you would still need to have two CD's cause the total time would still be above 74 minutes. They could've still be sold in one package, tho. It would've been a bit more expensive, but I'm sure it still would've sold a lot. And they could've just used a handful of the songs that wouldn't of made the final cut as b-sides.

Edited October 28, 2013 by rocknroll41

[bigcountry]

I love the UYI's. Neither of the two of them are masterpieces the same way AFD is but they are still amazing records nonetheless. However, I feel like the whole project would've been better off as just two LP's sold in one set. In order for this to work, tho, you would still need to have two CD's cause the total time would still be above 74 minutes. They could've still be sold in one package, tho. It would've been a bit more expensive, but I'm sure it still would've sold a lot. And they could've just used a handful of the songs that wouldn't of made the final cut as b-sides.

UYI had to be 2 albums, I really beleive in order for a band member(s) to get a song on it they had to give ground and let another member(s) song on the album. I guess what I mean is there are Axl songs, Slash songs, Izzy songs. In all honesty the albums where very fragmented with songs going in all directions due to the struggles inside the band and there passion for THERE own ideas. Is that a bad thing NO!! They pushed each other and got the best out of each other.

To me UYI I is my favorate of the two. Coma is just a killer song, everyone even Axl at one point said it was Slashs baby but with out the badass lryics and vocals Axl laid down on that song it would not be what it is. This comment is not pro slash or axl is just shows how the pushed each other to get the best

UYI II Again a solid album but really could do without "Get in the Ring, Don't Cry (alt) and MY World" I also wish they would have recorded KOHD stripped down without the back up singers and such, and recorded more in the AFD style, Ritz 88. Civil War is just spine tingling.

The 2 albums where heavy on ballods but at the time those songs where very big hits for the band and masterpeices by both Axl and Slash. Of the 3 in the trilogy Estranged is IMHO the best ballod GNR has ever put out, it doesn't get the recongnition it diserves by the masses, I mean come on Don't Cry and November Rain are very good songs but Estranged is a step above.

One thing I have always thought was badass about GNR they could take a cover song and turn it into a hit, LALD and KOHD they where probably bigger hits for GNR than the orginal artist and I thought some of the songs of the TSI where very good covers.

Edited October 28, 2013 by bigcountry

[rocknroll41]

I love the UYI's. Neither of the two of them are masterpieces the same way AFD is but they are still amazing records nonetheless. However, I feel like the whole project would've been better off as just two LP's sold in one set. In order for this to work, tho, you would still need to have two CD's cause the total time would still be above 74 minutes. They could've still be sold in one package, tho. It would've been a bit more expensive, but I'm sure it still would've sold a lot. And they could've just used a handful of the songs that wouldn't of made the final cut as b-sides.

UYI had to be 2 albums, I really beleive in order for a band member(s) to get a song on it they had to give ground and let another member(s) song on the album. I guess what I mean is there are Axl songs, Slash songs, Izzy songs. In all honesty the albums where very fragmented with songs going in all directions due to the struggles inside the band and there passion for THERE own ideas. Is that a bad thing NO!! They pushed each other and got the best out of each other.

To me UYI I is my favorate of the two. Coma is just a killer song, everyone even Axl at one point said it was Slashs baby but with out the badass lryics and vocals Axl laid down on that song it would not be what it is. This comment is not pro slash or axl is just shows how the pushed each other to get the best

UYI II Again a solid album but really could do without "Get in the Ring, Don't Cry (alt) and MY World" I also wish they would have recorded KOHD stripped down without the back up singers and such, and recorded more in the AFD style, Ritz 88. Civil War is just spine tingling.

The 2 albums where heavy on ballods but at the time those songs where very big hits for the band and masterpeices by both Axl and Slash. Of the 3 in the trilogy Estranged is IMHO the best ballod GNR has ever put out, it doesn't get the recongnition it diserves by the masses, I mean come on Don't Cry and November Rain are very good songs but Estranged is a step above.

One thing I have always thought was badass about GNR they could take a cover song and turn it into a hit, LALD and KOHD they where probably bigger hits for GNR than the orginal artist and I thought some of the songs of the TSI where very good covers.

very well said. Regardless of my opinions towards UYI, I have to admit, this was very well said and got me thinking that maybe the UYI's really aren't so bad as two records

[TombRaider]

Timeless classics. Best GnR albums ever. Hands down.

[wasted]

I think that it took me twenty years to really digest it.

At first I was more of a YCBM, RNDTH, DNB, Bab Obsession, Double Talkin Jive, Back of Bitch, Get in the Ring kind of guy. I distinctly remember putting RNDTH, Perfect Crime, Shotgun Blues, Garden of Eden on a tape and just play those songs over and over in the car driving really fast.

For me it was literally only when Live Era came out that I started to think Estranged, I get what this is more now. Same with Yesterdays, Breakdown, Coma, Locomotive, Nov Rain and Don't Cry took me longer, I still don't get it, Don't you cry who gives a shit. Somewhere around 2004 I had another run through Estrnaged, Locomotive, Pretty Tied Up. They played UYI 1 in a gym I went to all the way through. I just felt I really knew it inside out, that was probably 2005. When they came out I was like whoa too many songs, but now I look at them and they don't look so big. After Live Era I didn't listen anymore. Sometimes I played RNDTH, YCBM, DNB or 14 Years.

I think it's good to leave stuff behind then when you go back in 5 years time it might surprise you.

Right now, everytime I listen to CD, it congeals more and maybe TIL and Prostitute are what stick out the most. It's almost like one song. I think from getting Estrnaged in 2000 it was much easier to enjoy Cacther and TWAT off the bat and now I'm good to go on TIL and Prostitute. It's not really stuff I'd listen outside of GNR, but Axl makes it accessible. That might not be true I listen to Evanescence some and the odd Broadway musical like Cats.

[magisme]

My 2 favorite albums. I listen to them as much or more than I listen to anything else.

[bacardimayne]

A 7 and an 8 that both could have been 9s with some work.

Edited October 28, 2013 by bacardimayne

[wasted]

Right now all I can listen to is YCBM or 14 Years.

RNDTH and DNB now and then.

[J Dog]

Love them both. That's a lot of songs to not have many filler/not so good songs. If you could count them as 1 album, I think it can hold it's own against some of the other all time rock classic albums.

[Axl_Fetish]

Amazing then and Still amazing now. All I can say is: surround sound, in the car, turned up to 11...

[Appetite1989]

Inmy opinion AFD always was the more simple album. It's been my favourite ever since but I can't ignore the fact that UYI were better musically. The structure of the songs are not as straightforward as AFD songs and it has more of a bombastic sound. AFD represents the club days to me and uyi is where they hit it big with the stadium tours and horn sections on stage etc.

[RussTCB]

I think both UYI albums are ri-goddamn-diculous in quality. I still listen to both regularly. We have a weekly music night at our house and there are people of all ages that come every week. One of the older guys wanted to hear Civil War last week, so I played Breakdown while I had the album out. That started a bunch of the younger people talking about how they'd never heard anything like that from GN'R and they really liked it. I grabbed UYI I and spun Coma after that and again everyone was talking about how awesome it was. The material on both LPs stands the test of time and it's amazing to get to watch someone else hear it for the first time.

[Carburetta]

I get that Gn'r surpassed Appetite with the Illusion records (no mean feat), I'm in pretty much amazement at how fresh they still sound. Simply put, they're brilliant. Both albums are on my iphone and I rarely skip a song, I only have two Appetite songs on my iphone, Anything goes and Think about you.

[Broskirose]

Some of GNR's absolute best material...and some of their absolute worst.

[RussTCB]

Some of GNR's absolute best material...and some of their absolute worst.

Shotgun Blues was already mentioned....

[Hollywood Gunner]

Man i still remember ppl campin out to get those... and thatll NEVER happen for any other band, or musician.ever again