Use Your Illusion I by Guns N’ Roses

Review written by Slash1987

Use Your Illusion Part I is the third album released by legendary rock band Guns N’ Roses. As its title teases, this album was released alongside its second part in 1991, becoming one of the best-selling rock albums for quite a long time. Guns N’ Roses is known as one of the biggest rock bands still today even though they haven’t released an album or any good singles since 2008.

Most people would also agree that their best work lay between the years of 1987 and 1993. The main people you need to know about in this band are Axl Rose, one of rocks most controversial lead singers, and Slash, who is regarded as one of the best guitarists by multiple organizations including The Gibson Guitar Company. Then finally Duff McKagan who has been the bassist for the band since day one. There is also Izzy Stradlin who left the band shortly after the album’s release due to drama. During the recording of this album, they switched drummers from Steven Alder to Matt Sorum due to drug misuse. If you are unfamiliar, at this time in history Guns N’ Roses was labeled as The Most Dangerous Band in The World due to their explicit lyrics and messages, drug mishaps, and overall sex and rock-driven attitude and image.

The album consists of 16 songs ranging from slow sad melodies to this violent and at some points even offensive abrasive sounds. Some of the songs in this album are “Right Next Door To Hell,” “Live And Let Die,” “Back Off Bitch,” “Garden Of Eden,” and “Don’t Damn Me.” Just by looking at the titles you can probably see the rainbow of tones and feeling these songs have. Starting off. “Don’t Cry” is a soft and heartfelt song about recognizing there’s something wrong and that it may lead to the bitter end. The vocals in this song build up in intensity each time the verse comes back. You can really appreciate the emotion that Axl can bring with his voice even if you may not be a fan of that raspy type of singing. With every Guns N’ Roses song, Slash brings a guaranteed killer solo. This one being one of his best with the solo matching and complementing the emotional build-up this song has built into it. The main riff that plays out throughout the song is simple but more than effective. Much like everything else in this song, the riff gets more emotional as the song goes on with Slash adding some more free-styled deviations from the riff.

The next song I’d like to talk a little more about is “Bad Obsession.” As you can guess this song is about addiction and the inability to function without substances or even a person. Michael Monroe makes a guest appearance on this song adding a background riff with a harmonica, complementing Slash’s well-off enough main riff. The vocals brought by Axl are bombastic and bring a quality that makes it feel almost as if you were swinging. I find this funny because on stage Axl is known to do a “snake dance” where he much like this song swings his body to the music. The reason I say this song could also be about a person is because Axl first says, “But I can’t stop thinkin’ ’bout seein’ ya one more time” in the first verse and then throughout the rest of the song he says, “But I can’t stop thinkin’ ’bout doin’ it one more time,” giving this song a meaning to a wider range of people.

Finally what I believe to be the best song on the album by far is “November Rain.” If you were around in the 90s then you may remember this music video playing nonstop on MTV. The song is a piano-based rock ballad that has a crazy run time of 9 minutes, and if you see them play it live expect it to be almost 30 minutes. It starts with a slow open by Axl on piano then diving into this beautiful orchestra ensemble. The lyrics for me, are beautiful and almost poetic: “When I look into your eyes, I can see a love restrained, But darlin’ when I hold you, Don’t you know I feel the same?” Despite feeling restrained unrhymed, the way in which Axl sings it makes it very poetic you could even read it with the same tone and get a similar effect. This being a longer song, we are treated to a total of three Slash solos. The first starts mid-song and then is broken up by a small burst of verses. The second solo starts immediately after that almost giving the impression that Slash is picking up where he left off like he is a physical entity within the song. After that it finishes off with some more vocals; much like “Don’t Cry” there is a slow build-up to the climax. You can also hear the emotional distress in Axl’s voice with every word he sings. The song ends as the orchestra winds down, until Axl plays a new fast riff, faster than anything that’s been in the song so far. Then returns the orchestra and the rest of the band with this almost death march feel. Finally, the final epic solo of the song hits us. “Don’t ya think that you need somebody?, Don’t ya think that you need someone?, Everybody needs somebody, You’re not the only one, You’re not the only one” is repeated over and over again, like a chant. While the intensity of emotion rises within Slash’s playing so does the intensity of the verse until it finally ends. One of the things I love about this song is the story it tells, and what can make this song even better is listening to “Don’t Cry” before this and then “Estranged” from Use Your Illusion Part II. Doing this you will see that all three of these songs illustrate one large story.

This album holds a special place in my heart, for I see it as the album of my childhood. Each one of these songs I can link a specific memory to, whether it was crying over a girl or fishing with my dad. I believe that this album is not only Guns N’ Roses’s best work, but some of the best work to ever come out of rock culture. This album was created at a time where bands had to either transition into the new era of punk rock or they would ultimately die. After that, the band broke up violently, reemerging with completely new members sometime in the 2000s, only for everyone to be scrapped and for three of the original members to rejoin. GNR was one of the ones that made it well after the 80s, before they later fell off for a few years. Nowadays they are working towards a comeback album, hoping to even fix broken bonds. Slash has found plenty of success with his own bands (his current being Slash featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators); while Axl has covered as AC/DC’s lead vocalist for a bit, he really has done nothing outside of Guns N’ Roses. Given the state of his Mickey Mouse voice, hopefully he doesn’t go down with the ship.