Guns N' Roses - "Use Your Illusion I"

The difficult second album for Guns N' Roses was more difficult than most. Their first album, 1987's "Appetite for Destruction," was a monster that made the GN'R one of the biggest bands in the world. The recording was troubled, particularly Axl Rose is incredibly hard to work with, numerous fights and massive substance abuse took the group till 1991 to release their ambitious "Use Your Illusion I&II" albums. Essentially these are a double album but released as two single disc CDs. Pretty good marketing considering, instead of getting people to buy a double album for $25 they got them to buy two single discs for $15-$18.

Anyway to the album, Part 1 is certainly the harder rocking of the two. The problem is that on some of the songs the Guns sound like they are trying to be the fierce band that they once were like they are wearing a mask. On their first album they fully felt real here sometimes it seems like they are trying too hard. Axl in particular said he wanted the second album(s) to be different from the first, which is fine but he did not seem to know how to make them different. He also seems to feel that he needed to take up the mantle of the spokesperson of the generation writing faux social commentary and trying to send a message which really does not work. All in all it seems the group does not really know what it wants to say and thus recorded a bunch of music that jumps all over the map.

Izzy Stradlin' actually comes up with some of the best songs "You Ain't the First," "Double Talkin' Jive" and "Don't Cry." Axl's "November Rain" a nine minute piece that features a whole symphony orchestra is a powerhouse and one of the best songs of the decade. "Back off Bitch" and "Don't Damn Me" are other gems. There is a decent harder edged cover of McCartney and Wings' "Live and Let Die" but it seems odd that GN'R would cover a Wings song, come on a Wings song! it just does not match.

There is also half an album's worth of filler and lousy songs, "Coma," "Dead Horse," "Bad Apples," "The Garden" and "Garden of Eden (featuring Alice Cooper)."

Overall the guitars are constantly awesome, Slash and Stradlin' don't disappoint. Axl's voice sounds awesome as always. There are a number of strong even excellent songs but the album is messy and cluttered. Jumping all over the place this is one of those albums that will benefit from iTunes, that way one can buy the half album or so that is really good and let the rest go. In reality "Use Your Illusion I&II" had only enough good songs to make one killer album yet as the pair stands they are two flawed albums with brilliant moments among the clutter.