Use Your Illusion Song by Song Thread

It only gets better toward the end.

 

I think that Slash’s book was sometimes his version of events as informed by more subsequent events. I think Axl even addressed that obliquely in his 2008 internet chat / venting session. Lots of politics at play in some of those band members’ later accounts.

 

Amazing performance, not a surprise that it didn’t last in the live set!

 

That Indiana '91 footage is terrific. I am watching some of the other songs now. "Right Next Door to Hell" definitely improves in the live setting. But it's still the most generic rocker on the album, I suspect.

 

Melodically maybe but there’s a killer guitar riff and the intro is epic. I think they lead with it for the intro alone, even if it’s not the best piece of songwriting.

 

Re: “The Garden,” I love the sound of Alice Cooper in front of Slash’s guitar. Reminiscent of Alice’s peak 70’s era. I think the actual lyrics of those Cooper sung sections aren’t as good as they should be. Not weird enough or something.

I like a lot of things about this track. Slash sounds great, The Beatles influence is cool to hear. The backing vocals are pretty sweet. The mix is cluttered, though, and the drum sound is awkward, as is too often the case.

It’s almost great. If editing the Illusions down, this would go into the “maybe” column for me, but only because there are so many unequivocally great songs to consider.

It was nice to hear Alice as the pre-show music on the Not In This Lifetime tour.

 

Yes, Alice had Slash on Hey Stoopid. And it shows that Slash's guitar needs a voice with some grit, like Axl or Alice or Scott or Ozzy or even Eric Dover

 

Reading Bill Price’s account, it seems even more miraculous that any album was ever released at all...

 

I love this song. It's the band's 'Bohemian Rhapsody'.

 

Agreed. It showed the band was back in business after 4 years since their debut (and the Lies stopgap compilation).

 

Also a great song. Funny beginning, sounds like Shannon Hoon saying "No, I won't."^^

 

What a mess. Slash’s disdain for Izzy sure breaks up the persistent image of the “original” 5 only being torn apart by Adler’s firing and Axl’s ego - there were an awful lot of rough issues within this band, from pretty early on. Izzy’s quotes have the ring of unvarnished fact (from his perspective) to them. Nothing in the world could’ve kept the Appetite lineup together for longer than they were together.

 

IMO 'November Rain' at least should've been the closing title on Disc 1 Side 2.

 

Yeah, even though when Slash talks about Izzy now, he usually has some respect for Izzy's contributions to the band. That said, I always got the sense that while they repsected each other, Slash and Izzy never seemed particularly close. However, I think from those quotes, it was a combination of anger and trying to promote current Guns and pimp up Gilby.

 

I’ve always heard it as “No, I won’t” also.

 

Then again, I once heard a key line in one of the upcoming songs as “Sometimes I feel like I’m beating a dead wh*re,” and it’s been pretty hard to un-hear that ever since.

 

I don't know about that. I know people put AFD on a pedestal, and rightfully so, but there are some fantastic tracks on the Illusion albums that can stand alongside the AFD material. Locomotive is one of those tracks. It is a dynamic song.

 

The Garden

Alice Cooper. Ugh. Don't know why Axl couldn't have done all the vocals. Oh well.

This is a really cool track that, lyrically and sonically, leads in nicely to the next. Love the guitar parts, especially the intro. I think somebody mentioned that this song makes them want to sway like Axl, and I agree!

 

I think it's just that you had three strong personalities in one band, similar to The Beatles. The Beatles lasted as long as they did because of the fact that Paul and John had a long-lasting almost brotherly relationship that went back to a time prior to The Beatles, and they had been playing in groups together for almost a decade before they broke up. Izzy and Axl were friends prior to GN'R but I've never heard their relationship be described as brotherly. If anything, Axl looked up to Izzy (at least early on) in the way George looked up to John and Paul. He's the one who followed Izzy to LA, for example. The Beatles also operated in a much more controlled time and had more responsibilities to the record industry and such that they had to live up to whereas in the 90s, ego was catered to and indulged more easily. GN'R had more leeway and imploded quicker. Axl, Slash, and Izzy also weren't together that long before they were arguably as big as The Beatles. The core three of The Beatles had been together since 1960 and didn't explode until 1964, whereas GN'R had only been playing 2 1/2 years before Appetite exploded. Plus, it was different, you had things like MTV, a lot less privacy, different demands on a band because of different eras....

Also, Axl had mental problems to an extent that John never did. Izzy had an "I don't give a crap" attitude beyond that of Paul or George. Slash had a passive aggressive ego that was much more toxic than any leader delusions Paul might've had.

A lot of GN'R's breakup has been blamed (I believe rightfully so) on Doug Goldstein, their manager who replaced Alan Niven in 1991. Niven's interest was GN'R - the band. Goldstein was a guy with no managerial experience whose main interest was placating and indulging Axl. It was the Alan Klein situation, only magnified.

I think if you really look into GN'R's breakup there are quite a few similarities with The Beatles, except take every issue The Beatles had, magnify it, and make the whole environment more toxic....

Also, The Beatles never had to worry about a new, competing sound...It would be like if The Beatles were facing a threat from Punk Rock at the end. Grunge and Industrial were not only things that fascinated Axl long before they hit the mainstream (he was calling Faith No More 'the future of music' as early as 1989, and trying in the same year to get Jane's Addiction signed to Geffen. He also was blasting Pretty Hate Machine as soon as they came out), but they were an entire scene which Axl desperately wanted to be accepted by and be a part of. It wasn't just about bandwagon jumping for Axl - if you read stuff, he really, really put a lot of stock into what bands like Faith No More and Nirvana felt about him, and the rapidly changing musical scene really messed with his head and sense of place in a lot of ways. He truly wanted to be ONE of them and being sensitive, and egotistical, he could neither get why they so hated him nor could he accept it. It dealt a big blow to him that these guys viewed him as a flake and everything that was wrong with music.

John never seemed bothered by changing times....

Look at how rapidly their career moved. The Beatles had several albums as a band before they got to the White Album. GN'R basically skipped from their debut to having their own version of The White Album, complete with literally solo songs being simply performed by the rest of the band. It moved very very fast and honestly, way too quick for even a band of sane people to remain together.

 

Yep. I think also that Axl had some ever-changing larger project in mind, more abstract than the albums. It heavily involved the big-production videos, and the UYI tour documentary that was never finished (and we’ll never see). The much-criticized ‘theme parties’ on the tour were filmed, and were possibly done for the sake of filming. Maybe this was akin to Dylan’s Renaldo & Clara film project, based around the Rolling Thunder tour, but also involving dramatized/staged events.

All these things were part of some bigger unfinished project. The rest of the band weren’t much involved in this. I don’t think Axl communicated much about it with them, partly because he wasn’t able to articulate it fully, partly because it was half-baked & kept shifting. Axl seemed to have it all in his head, but it kept changing, until it never became solid. Like Smile, but minus the music. It seems that it was something grand & multi-media. We’ll never know much about it, other than the fragments that remain.

Izzy leaving, the riots, the backlash & criticism, the rise of grunge, the breakdown in Axl’s personal relationships, the way the drugs and booze had eaten away at the band - it could’ve all been just a vast series of frustrations that destroyed whatever this grandiose vision was, and which may have only made Axl more caustic & isolated after it all failed to coalesce as envisioned. “Live your life like it’s a coma,” indeed. It’s no wonder this version of GNR disintegrated after losing momentum.

 

On a more nuts & bolts level: Bill Price has said that when he became involved in mixing, twenty tracks were already written and recorded, while ten others were written and recorded later, some not even started until after the tour had begun. It would be very interesting to know the order that the tracks were recorded - I suspect we’ll never know for sure, but there are some that we can place.

Anyone wanna take a stab at what songs were part of the earlier twenty, and which ones came later?

 

Wow, that pretty much says it all right there. Didn't know he had so little time. To get that many songs recorded in so little time is a great feat and the criticism that is heaped on Matt is simply unfair. I mean yeah, we can all hear the extra swing that Steve's drumming had, and that is not just down to time but is part of Steve's style. It's great and AFD certainly benefits from it. But maybe Steve shouldn't have effed up so badly that the band needed to replace him. And to judge Matt solely on the UYI albums is wrong, as his sound outside of these albums is certainly not the same. There is plenty of swing apparent on an album like Libertad.

Finally, the mixing of these two albums surely has Axl's fingerprints all over them. Possibly Slash as well, but less so. Certainly Matt would have had much less influence at the time.

 

thanks to this thread, I listened to the album for the first time in many years.

I always liked UYI2 better than volume 1 . The thing that stood out to me while listening to this was how weird the mix is. It sounds so lopsided with Slash's guitar blaring out of the right channel, with barely anything going on in the left channel. Anyway, here are my thoughts on all of the songs so far.

Right Next Door To Hell
A great opening track in theory. The bass sounds amazing, but that drums sound somehow more 80s than AFD, which did come out in the 80s. Either way, it's a short rock song that's to the point, but it seems to run out of steam with that ending part tacked on. ( but I always liked the line, "no bad kids just stupid ones")

Dust N' Bones
Again, another cool song in theory. "GNR does a dirty bluesy Stones tune." This one never really did connect with me and Axl's demon voice in the chorus is just totally out of place.

Live and Let Die
It's a pretty straightforward cover, and I will admit that I knew this one long before the Wings version, which sounded weak in comparison. Still, I think this and Knockin' On Heavens Door should have been kept as a standalone single or something.

Don't Cry
I have many great memories to this song from when I was young. The lyrics are cheesy as hell, but the recording itself is fantastic. This is one of the songs where the increased budget of this album really shines through. It's a very 90s sounding version of the ultimate 80s cliché: the power ballad.

Perfect Crime
Like a lot of the "hard rock" songs on these two albums, I have always thought that this one sounds forced. You're Crazy was probably the weakest song on AFD, so I'm not sure why they didn't learn their lesson that speed was not the band's greatest strength. This song also highlights another issue with these albums that has always bugged me; the key change/new riff during the guitar solo. It's a cool idea I suppose, but it's very overdone as it keeps happening in song after song.

You Aint The First
I know this song has many critics, but I think it's great. Very fun, and actually sounds like a band enjoying each others' company.

Bad Obsession
I have always found this song to be painful to get through, but many of my friends loved it. It's like a bad cover of a song that didn't exist yet (and didn't need to). Axl's affected vocals are too much, and that harmonica is just grating. I think even Slash, easily the star of the two albums, is running low on ideas for this one.

Back Off Bitch
I think I was 12 years old when I got these albums, and even then I thought this song was childish. The verses actually have a pretty cool melody, but the chorus is just embarrassing. "World's most dangerous band"... right

Double Talkin' Jive
That drum sound... ouch. "Let's record Matt in a school gymnasium, that's what rock n' roll sounds like." I really like this song, but it seems 50% finished. Even when the rest of the band kicks in after the intro, they sort of sounds unsure of themselves. Either way, very, very cool solo from Slash in the outro which makes the song in itself.

November Rain
This song has every right to be known as the epitome of a band losing itself to its own success, but I love it. I'm sure a lot of it has to do with my own memories from middle school dances and such, but even when you break down the recording, it's huge. There's so much going on in this song, and everything just works perfectly. I've never heard a live version that's even come close to capturing what's on this recording - not even Slash can nail those solos a second time. As an aside, one thing I've never quite understood is given the fact that the band had a seemingly endless budget, and that they were working on this album for years, why didn't they use a real orchestra here? The synth strings on the song are even more dated than the drum sound and adds a weird Celine Dion kind of vibe to the song. I'm sure Axl has his reasons.

The Garden
This is another song that has some really great production happening. Very psychedelic and very modern sounding compared to a lot of the other songs on the album. The verses are fantastic, the solo is nuts, and of course, Shannon Hoon once again adds the icing on the cake. It's the choruses, however, that always dragged this song down to me. Alice Cooper's "sinister" vocals are laughable, and the chorus riff itself seems like something a junior high garage band would throw out to impress the guy selling them cigarettes (not speaking from personal experience...) Funny that for the best rock band of the 80s, it's the rock songs on this album that they seem to have the hardest time pulling together.

 

The Garden of Eden:

We come to The Garden of Eden, written by Axl and Slash, it's another fast paced rocker.
The song starts with some little ripping guitar from Slash, with Axl narrates over it, and then he starts singing at :10, he's doing okay, Slash does a nice solo at 1:50, has a nice flair to it, but other than that, the drumming is as bland as ever, the band doesn't gel as well as they have on previous songs, the song lacks any real hooks or a strong melody to hook you in, this sounds like a song the band banged out to fill up time. This is one I'd put on the cutting room floor.

 

Live Bootleg: