Inside Guns N’ Roses’ History-Making ‘Use Your Illusion’ Albums

[Wooody]

The comments are hilarious. Some guy saying it was a "spotty album". All these years later and some people still don't get the brilliance of UYI...

That's because those albums were full of "fillers"... I mean if u look at those albums after 20 years, you know you just needed 1 album with this core songs:

You Could Be Mine
Civil War
Live and Let Die
Don't Cry
Estranged
Double Talkin' Jive
November Rain

plus 2-3 other songs of your choice

i mean I like all the fillers when i listen to them, but i won't listen to those songs again and again... (shotgun blues, bad apples etc...almost once in a lifetime)

AFD had only a couple of fillers (anything goes and you're crazy fast version...imagine that album with ycbm and maybe don't cry, songs that were already written) that's why is  considered epic..

I think you are greedy.

Its not that the albums have fillers. By definition, a filler is a bad song within an album that has a couple of hits.

UYI's didnt have hits. They had epic,, out-of-this-world monumental songs that will stand the test of time when the monkeys will rule over the earth.

The rest of the songs while not epic, are absolutely terrific.

I you think Back off Bitch. Shot Gun Blues, You aint the first, etc as fillers, you're not that big of a fan.

If you think  Anything Goes and You're Crazy are fillers you are crazy too. 

I think the only filler song in the UYI's is My World. But that's not even a song, so its not really a filler. 

[Buckeye]

Here's my thing on the "GNR should have made the UYIs just one album" argument.  Many people say that, but my next question to them is always which 15 songs would you put on that one album??  And everybody's 15 song list is always different - sometimes radically so.  Sure, perhaps a song like Don't Cry is always on the list, and My World is never on the list, but for most of the 15 people are all over the board.  A song like Coma is one of the favorites to some, and hated by others.  To me, this supports the idea that GNR got it right the way they did it.  It's an eclectic mix of songs in different styles (one of GNR's great strengths), and different people prefer different tracks. 

[The Wight Gunner]

The comments are hilarious. Some guy saying it was a "spotty album". All these years later and some people still don't get the brilliance of UYI...

That's because those albums were full of "fillers"... I mean if u look at those albums after 20 years, you know you just needed 1 album with this core songs:

You Could Be Mine
Civil War
Live and Let Die
Don't Cry
Estranged
Double Talkin' Jive
November Rain

plus 2-3 other songs of your choice

i mean I like all the fillers when i listen to them, but i won't listen to those songs again and again... (shotgun blues, bad apples etc...almost once in a lifetime)

AFD had only a couple of fillers (anything goes and you're crazy fast version...imagine that album with ycbm and maybe don't cry, songs that were already written) that's why is  considered epic..

I think you are greedy.

Its not that the albums have fillers. By definition, a filler is a bad song within an album that has a couple of hits.

UYI's didnt have hits. They had epic,, out-of-this-world monumental songs that will stand the test of time when the monkeys will rule over the earth.

The rest of the songs while not epic, are absolutely terrific.

I you think Back off Bitch. Shot Gun Blues, You aint the first, etc as fillers, you're not that big of a fan.

If you think  Anything Goes and You're Crazy are fillers you are crazy too. 

I think the only filler song in the UYI's is My World. But that's not even a song, so its not really a filler. 

I'm in the minority I know, but I like My World

[sky dog]

I always looked at the Illusions as a boxset. I'll bet most fans wish Axl would have done the same thing with the Chinese Democracy Sessions...just release it all and move on. 

[(t)]

I'm in the minority I know, but I like My World

I do too.

[allwaystired]

If there'd been a double album, it wouldn't have been as special. Nobody had released two different albums on the same day before. Double albums, yes.

And if you could only afford one album per week or whatever, you would still end up with something instead of nothing....





/jarmo

That's how it worked for me - it was a while before I could afford to go back and buy UYI 1 after I bought 2.

Going back to the perception thing I brought up before, I think people were kinder to Mellon Collie than they perhaps should have been, based on it being one album. Two separate releases would have highlighted its weak moments more - of which there are quite a few.

While UYI was a unique release, and garnered attention that way, I think it's being two separate releases leads people to focus more on its weaker moments than they would otherwise, and hence criticize it more. It could also be argued though of course that more focus is brought to things on it that might have got 'lost in the mix' otherwise.

I find it really interesting how simple things like this really can alter how an album is received. Tracklistings are another one - it's fascinating to think how both the UYI albums might have been viewed by us all if they had been sequenced differently.

[inlikeflynn420]

Here’s my memory of the release of UYI. I had both cassettes reserved at the record store. I had to go to Memphis by bus (like a 15 hour bus ride) for a court date that might have ended in jail time. It was a few days after the release, so I decided to save the first listening for my bus ride. The day I was to leave a girl I liked who I partied with a lot  begged me to leave one of the cassettes with her for the weekend. She was pretty hot and I thought it would help my chances, so I relented. After listening to the other cassette on my Walkman (I forget which one I kept) I regretted giving her the other one. The guy next to me on the bus asked me what I thought of the cassette. I told him about the other tape and how I wished I had it. Turns out, he had both tapes, and his Walkman had 2 inputs for headphones (I didn’t even know that was possible!). So, we plugged in and rocked out, and I got to listen to both of them after all.

And it didn’t help me with the girl, btw. But we did continue to party together. That chick could smoke a lot of pot (& she usually had some!) 

[Edicius]

Wait, so people are complaining about the Illusions albums having too much filler (which I completely disagree with, but I love every GnR song so you can’t go by me on that) and then comparing them to The White Album? 

The White album is absolutely full of filler and completely over rated in my opinion. There are some great songs on it, but as an album it’s bloated. Nowhere near as good as Sergeant Pepper. Certainly not as good as either of the Illusions albums.

[russkwtx]

I take issue with the statement that in 1990 (!!) the band was already imploding. I don't think so. What then were the next 3 years of almost non-stop touring worldwide?

[PermissionToLand]

I take issue with the statement that in 1990 (!!) the band was already imploding. I don't think so. What then were the next 3 years of almost non-stop touring worldwide?

I mean, it was a dicey proposition that could have fallen apart at any moment from the day it was formed, simply due to the members' attitudes and drug use.

As far as UYI, I would say there was definitely filler, but nobody can agree on what it was. I can't see any value in You Ain't the First, Dust N Bones and 14 Years beyond maybe being bonus track novelties. But some people actually like them. Blows my mind, but I know a lot of my favorite songs were left as bonus tracks by several bands.