Use Your Illusion I - Guns N' Roses (Cassette 1991)

The Use Your Illusion albums by Guns N Roses were the follow-up albums to the massively successful Appetite For Destruction and should have been the ones to cement their status as a major rock band. Instead, they unfortunately turned out to be the band's swan song (Or at least, the swan song of the original GNR lineup).

Now as I noted previously Use Your Illusion II was a great album that gave us quite a few great and even classic songs, despite the presence of a few duds (for further info my review of UYI II is at http://www.epinions.com/content_76888116868). Use Your Illusion I is not as consistent as II. The problem with it is that it features a few songs that were too generic for their own good. So one gets the sense that the band would have been better off pulling a few of the better songs from I, replacing the weaker efforts on II with them and sending the rest to the recycle bin. In this age of CD-R's a compilation of the best of the two Illusions is probably the way to go.

While UYI II was loaded with epics, UYI I has quite a few shorter songs. And some of these songs sound frankly tossed-off. The first two in particular, the generic punkish hard-rocker "Right Next Door To Hell" and the Aerosmith sounding "Dust N Bones" are more or less filler.

Things pick up after that with the much-heralded cover of the Paul McCartney James Bond theme "Live And Let Die". Instead of interpreting it differently, as they did with the cover of Bob Dylan's "Knocking On Heaven's Door" from UYI II, they perform this one as fairly faithful to the source material. And they do it quite well, although it does not match up with the original like the Dylan cover did.

The power ballad "Don't Cry" is next. This one is the original version, the one that got a lot of radio/MTV airplay and is easily the better of the two. Axl Rose's wailing vocals carry the emotion of the song quite well and the guitar solo from Slash is terrific.

The short, punkish hard rocker "Perfect Crime" is another toss-off, as is the Beatles imitation "You Ain't The First". Things pick up again on the sleazy blues-rocker "Bad Obsession". This is an example of what made so many of GNR's songs so much fun from the wailing guitar riffs to the harmonica to the innuendous lyrics.

The band makes another misstep with the weak AC/DC soundalike "Back Off B!tch". Sorry Axl and co, we already have an AC/DC. The short boogie rocker "Double Talkin' Jive" earns points for its obviously gangster-movie inspired lyrics ("Found an arm and a head in da garbage can") and its short running time.

Next we have what is definitely the certifiable classic from UYI I and definitely the closest the 1990s came to a "You Can't Always Get What You Want". Yes, I am referring to "November Rain". Everything about this song is perfect, from the great piano fills to Axl's heartbreaking lyrics and Slash's blistering guitar solos. The song is one of my all-time favorites, even though hearing it brings back a certain memory. When I first heard the song back in 1992, I had just gone through a breakup of sorts with my first girlfriend Robyn. At the time I heard it, I was thinking back on her and feeling sad about it. The song made me feel better, yet nowadays whenever I hear it she comes to mind. Thank you Robyn!

The next 6 songs are overall more consistent than the first half with only one real piece of filler (that being Dead Horse ). The Garden is best described as a piece of horror psychedelia that is made even more interesting by Alice Cooper s guest vocals. Garden Of Eden and Bad Apples are probably the two songs that sound the most like Appetite For Destruction.

Don t Damn Me is Rose offering another rebuke to his critics, although it sounds a lot better than the weak attempt at it on UYI II Get In the Ring .

Coma is the longest song on the album at 10:31 and is definitely one of the classic Guns N Roses tracks. This is an epic song and it s definitely on the level of Estranged and November Rain . A high note for the album to end on.

Use Your Illusion I is, as I noted earlier, not on the level of its counterpart or Appetite For Destruction. There are quite a few good songs on here as well as a couple outright classics, so it s worth picking up. Just don t go in expecting an album on the level of the two previously mentioned ones.