Use Your Illusion I poll

tough poll actually. i went with right next door to hell.

Going for "Live And Let Die". Not better than the original, but interesting in that they have managed to replace the orchestra with heavy guitar bits.

aww I kinda like "Dead Horse."

Really? It seems kind of subpar to me, and the fact that it was a video always seemed very telling about Axl's control of the band.

Anything except "November Rain".

well, like I said, there were so many videos for these albums that that doesn't really mean anything! and we all know Axl started swallowing the band whole by that point. I just like the chorus, even that acoustic bit is a little shaky.

eden

You guys are crazy...it's a tossup between:

Dust N Bones
Bad Obsession
Double Talkin' Jive
Coma

Just like the Trout Mask poll, answer to come.

Coma
Live & Let Die
Dust N Bones...
and I secretly love Don't Cry. Though I know I shouldn't...

I voted Don't Cry in a heartbeat. y'all are being too cool!

Baby MAYBE SOMEDAY!

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Don't Damn Me, people. Come on, this is easy!

"Don't Damn Me" and "Double Talkin' Jive" are the nadir of this album as far as I'm concerned.

don't damn me when i speak a piece of mind because silence isn't golden when I'm holding it iniside because i've been where i have been and i've seen what i have seen i put the pen to the paper cuz its all a part of me.

Wow. Just typed that without thinking and I haven't even thought about that song in over ten years. fuck

lol, i voted 'don't cry', can't wait for uyiII poll to vote for it's sequel/conclusion

Wow. Just typed that without thinking and I haven't even thought about that song in over ten years. fuck

That's eminem, right?

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Coma is terrible.

For once, the lurkers are correct.

"I call my mother. She's just a cunt now."

Ok, this album.

Two of my best friends and I went to Dallas in '91 to catch GNR at the Starplex. We were excited because it was going to be the first show after the riot in St. Louis.

They opened the show with "Right Next Door to Hell" which one of my friends got real psyched about, going "can you believe they wrote a song like that, and they're even playing it here in Texas?"

It wasn't until the album came out that he finally realized that the song wasn't really called "Rednecks, Go to Hell".

"Zap the sonofabitch again!"

Oh, I hate you Axl.

It took three years to get those albums out and all you were doing was playing with the flanger and saying things like "You dig what I'm sayin?" over Izzy's songs.

it really strikes me as funny these days how knowingly indulgent the Illusions are. there are strange bits that are neither use nor ornament (case in point: that suspended note at the end of Don't Cry or the litany of tough-guy asides -- "no more patience, maaaan" etc., what the fuck were all those about?), but more like a bizarre flexing of ego, a compulsion to aim larger than life for the sake of it. then there's stuff like You Ain't the First, which is meant to capture the hallmarks of an impromptu singalong, but at the same time is unabashedly showy about how audibly contrived it sounds. it's as if the band are devoted to inhabiting their celebrity, to living up to the flashy ideals of rock star decorum, whereas on Appetite they were rock stars without the pretence.

Don't Cry will always be frozen in time for me as the song of a certain specific kind of confused burgeoning hormonality and a useless crush on the older sister of my metalhead friend and wasting quarters playing video games at arnold's disc shop in the mall, where I bought the album

living up to the flashy ideals of rock star decorum, whereas on Appetite they were rock stars without the pretence.

see also: the Be Here Now thread.

no votes for Double Talkin' Jive? i think it could be my favourite these days. furious groove, great Stradlin lead vocal, terrific soloing, and that left-field flamenco outro from Slash that somehow fits right into place.

Yeah, I like that one so much better than most on this disc.

Double Talkin' Jive has always been one of my favorite. Izzy's second solo record 117 Degrees is chock full of great songwriting too.

Holy crap, Izzy has released 10 albums since that Ju Ju Hounds record.

i haven't heard any of them post Ju Ju Hounds. i'm a terrible fan!

I have 117 which is MUCH better then the Ju Ju Hounds record. Easy to see Izzy could have made GN'R records that would have been relevant through out the 90's. River is great too. Most of his albums didn't even get a physical release.

Right Next Door to Hell needs more love

i have my ticket for the 29th. I'm actually performing in a theatre piece so I thought I couldn't go but it's a collection of 10 minute pieces and we're allowed to leave after ours is done and mine's over at 8:30 every night. so stoked.

My first dance with a g-g-girl was to 'November Rain'. In hindsight, an eight-minute song probably wasn't the best choice for that rite of passage. Still strikes a chord, though.

'Coma' tears it up, though. Love that tune.

i feel like I like UYI 1 way way better than UYI 2

I disagree! they're about equal imo. plus I think "coma" kinda sucks

and "the garden" is the worst non-"my world" thing on either record

ahh no way re: "Coma". hearing it live was a blast last night in all of its "millions of jumbled parts" Frankensteinery. Axl screaming "what the FUCK is going on" always gives me chills.

"The Garden" is aight, the Alice Cooper bits are teh only parts I like really.

what's with all the funny voices

is it a 'thing'

was axl protecting his voice from touring fatigue or something

Double talkin jive deserved better

Like as if don’t cry and November rain are better guns and roses songs than double talkin jive, pretty much the only song on UYI with no horrible stadium bloat, what were you all thinking

Double Talkin Jive is one of the handful on this one I like.

what's with all the funny voices

is it a 'thing'

was axl protecting his voice from touring fatigue or something

― j., Thursday, February 27, 2020 9:49 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

IIRC the voices are a central topic of Eric Weisbard's 33 1/3 book (although I don't know that he shed any light on the whys). He makes frequent reference to low-voiced Axl as Deep Downer.

Is that book good ? I like that series but from what I understand this one doesn't really deal with this album per se.

I liked it buuuut I don't know if I'd recommend it. It's been a while but I think the gist is that they were important albums to him that he hadn't engaged with in a long while and then kinda writes as he's revisiting them.

Am feeling «Breakdown» today. Kind of underrated track.

Ah, wrong thread. Should have been in II.

I think "The Garden" is a good jam... it's certainly better than, say, "Back Off Bitch."

BACK OFFFF
BACK OFF BIIIIIITCH

Surprised that song even got 2 votes... it's easy enuff to skip, but it irritates me that they included it at all. It's an old song, there's nothing good about it musically or (god knows) lyrically... it just sits there like a turd on Side 2.

no votes for Double Talkin' Jive? i think it could be my favourite these days. furious groove, great Stradlin lead vocal, terrific soloing, and that left-field flamenco outro from Slash that somehow fits right into place.

Somewhat bizarrely, D. Fricke's original RS review (which I revisited last night) opined:

Slash’s classical-guitar break at the end of “Double Talkin’ Jive” comes out of nowhere and should have stayed there.

I wrote about these albums on Substack this week...

Guns N' Roses Goes To New Jersey

it shows at least rudimentary self-awareness.

I think Axl is extremely self-aware… that’s what makes many of the songs (and his contemporaneous interviews) particularly interesting.

(Also, well I’m not an expert in New Jersey-ology, I don’t think these albums really qualify, because there was literally no real follow-up or period of sales decline… the classic band just broke up)

That EP in '87 though where JBJ used the n-word.

I guess one difference is that the "classic New Jersey" has a more-of-the-same-stuff-you-liked-last-time feel about it, while these records were clearly supposed to be both a giant step for Guns 'n' Roses and a major "big statement". Since the only instrument on Appetite that wasn't guitar or drums was 30 seconds of synth on "Paradise City", they knew it was bold to reinvent themselves as Elton John or Queen.

I used to 'produce' my friend's shitpost albums when we were 12/13. Anyway one of them had a track which was just the last 25 seconds of Back Off Bitch playing out my CD player before my friend says the name of some footabll stadium. Anyway I mention this because I haven't been able to separately acknowledge the GNR song for 11-12 years now.

It may just be that I'm not from the US but the UYIs have never struck me as a very convincing a New Jersey because they have so many hits that people still listen to.

Fwiw, I agree w/unperson about Sorum’s drumming lacking swing, etc. I’m not sure how great a drummer Adler necessarily was (maybe he was?), but I do think they could’ve chosen a better replacement.

No coincidence it came out after CDs took over

Quite honestly I don't skip much on either

Kinda hoping for an eventual sleep time album for kids called Snooze Your Illusion

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/619nWTPToRL._AC_SY355_.jpg

Omg

I used to 'produce' my friend's shitpost albums when we were 12/13. Anyway one of them had a track which was just the last 25 seconds of Back Off Bitch playing out my CD player before my friend says the name of some footabll stadium.

Ha, I had junior high friends who claimed copyright on a new version of "Nighttrain," simply because they changed the lyric "flying like an aeroplane" to "flying like an arrow plane."

I realised tonight Miami Twice was UK TV's Use Your Illusion

I listen way more to my own curated distillations of UYI I & II than I do Appetite, the latter of which was pretty much spoiled by me through radio overplay before I ever bought it myself around 1999-2000 (when I was 16-18 years old). UYI definitely hurts from the loss of Adler’s natural groove, but I don’t think anyone could reproduce that - they tried with a bunch of other drummers before settling on Sorum, who whatever his deficiencies still replicates it more accurately than GNR’s current drummer.

The current reissue of UYI I has a newly-recorded orchestra in place of the synth strings on the original November Rain. I haven't heard it yet, so I can't comment on whether it adds to or detracts from the song, but I guess it's good to see Axl is still capable of grandiose, misguided bullshit.

Yeah, I mentioned that in my writeup — it sounds really good. That's about the only argument in favor of the reissues, honestly.

Oh fuck, sorry - I missed the link! I'm glad to hear that it sounds good, but it still rankles me that they would "special edition" a track like that.

I think it's essentially meant to "replace" the original track – as the new CDs aren't called out as special new editions or anything on the packaging (other than the shrink-wrap sticker; I mentioned this on another thread). I assume the original versions of the albums will be discontinued, and these remasters just sort of take their place.

Right, I meant "special edition" in the George Lucas sense of overwriting the material that is already known to fans.

Nah, they just replaced cheap orchestrations with a real orchestra.

Lucasing the track would be like adding an accordion solo and having background singers periodically singing "BLASPINKY"

“Coma” is still one of their few songs that I enjoy

xp "Where's Izzy?" vs. "Han Shot First"

Replacing "You Ain't the First" with "Trouble On the Way"

It may just be that I'm not from the US but the UYIs have never struck me as a very convincing a New Jersey because they have so many hits that people still listen to

The thing is though the most famous songs on the UYIs are “November Rain” and a couple of covers (why release two covers as singles?)

Their equivalents on Appetite in terms of fame and notoriety? Welcome To the Jungle, Sweet Child O Mine, Paradise City (and if you go on, Mr Brownstone, It’s So Easy etc). It’s a washout.

Have Don’t Cry, Estranged, Civil War, You Could Be Mine etc really endured in popular consciousness beyond the fact they were a big deal in 1991/92? I’d say not