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

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

Studio album - Hard Rock



About the Act:

Take two men with slightly odd stage names: Axl Rose and Tracii Guns. They were each in a band whose name was based around their stage name: Hollywood Roses and L.A. Guns. When the bands kind of merged, it seemed logical to call that band Guns 'n' Roses, so they did. Tracii Guns left shortly after, to be replaced by Slash, the well-known guitarist of the band. That was 1985.

According to the brief details on Wikipedia, they have been active from 1985-present. Reading the history, though, things are much more complicated than that. Members have come and gone, there has been a lot of trouble with alcohol and drug addiction. They were effectively inactive for a long time from about 1993, and eventually brought out another studio album (their sixth) in 2008. Do they exist at the moment? It's not clear.

However, from 1987 to 1991 they were very active, producing smash-hit albums, going on sell-out tours, and earning a reputation as "the most dangerous band in rock". They are from L.A. and they are somewhere on the edge between hard rock and heavy metal. They have had more than their fair share of controversy, including by including a song by Charles Manson on one album, accusations of misogyny and homophobia (the first is possibly justified, the second, probably not) and lots of in-band legal and personal problems. And drug problems.

About the Album:

Unusually, this album was one of a pair, released by the same band on the same day. Imaginatively, the other album is called "Use Your Illusion II". The pair of albums jumped to the top of the billboard charts, an almost unique achievement.  The albums were supported by the "Use Your Illusion Tour" by the band, one of the longest and highest grossing tour in rock history, which was also beset with incidents. The "Use Your Illusion" albums were the band's third and fourth studio albums.

My History with this Album:

None

Review:

So it's heavy rock, and some of the tracks I quite enjoyed. "Bad Obsession" is quite a nice blues-rock number. The cover of "Live and Let Die" is fun. The flamenco guitar at the end of "Double Talkin' Jive" is good. The rest leaves me a bit cold I'm afraid. Musically it's OK, but for some reason lacks the bite that hard rock needs. Maybe I'm not playing it loud enough. Axl Rose can undoubtedly sing, but in my jaded frame of mind, he sounds whiney. I think, to be honest, I would either embrace this and rock out or would kind of not really get into it, and I seem to be of the latter persuasion. Are there reasons. Well, yes, really. First and foremost - the lyrics. Cliche is pretty heavy, and then it is peppered with obscenity, and it faintly whiffs of misogyny. Certainly they are not happy boys, and there is quite a lot of vitriol. I think that, and Axl's high whine are the main flies in the ointment. They seem like a parody of a rock band. 

Musically it's OK, competent, but somehow lacking in that X-factor that makes it exciting. If I were given a choice of listening to this, or to one of Def Leppard's classic albums, I would go with Def Leppard any time.

5/10



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