Eric Weisbard - Guns N Roses Use Your Illusion I and II

Use Your Illusion I and II

Praise for the series:

It was only a matter of time before a clever publisher realized that there is an audience for whom Exile on Main Street or Electric Ladyland are as significant and worthy of study as The Catcher in the Rye or Middleman.... The series, which now comprises 29 titles with more in the works, is freewheeling and eclectic, ranging from minute rock-geek analysis to idiosyncratic personal celebrationThe New York Times Book Review

Ideal for the rock geek who thinks liner notes just arent enoughRolling Stone

One of the coolest publishing imprints on the planetBookslut

These are for the insane collectors out there who appreciate fantastic design, well-executed thinking, and things that make your house look cool. Each volume in this series takes a seminal album and breaks it down in startling minutiae. We love these. We are huge nerdsVice

A brilliant series...each one a work of real loveNME (UK)

Passionate, obsessive, and smartNylon

Religious tracts for the rock n roll faithfulBoldtype

[A] consistently excellent seriesUncut (UK)

We...arent naive enough to think that were your only source for reading about music (but if we had our way...watch out). For those of you who really like to know everything there is to know about an album, youd do well to check out Continuums 33 1/3 series of books.Pitchfork

For reviews of individual titles in the series, please visit our website at www.continuumbooks.com and 33third.blogspot.com

Also available in this series:

Dusty in Memphis by Warren Zanes

Forever Changes by Andrew Hultkrans

Harvest by Sam Inglis

The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society by Andy Miller

Meat Is Murder by Joe Pernice

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn by John Cavanagh

Abba Gold by Elisabeth Vincentelli

Electric Ladyland by John Perry

Unknown Pleasures by Chris Ott

Sign O the Times by Michaelangelo Matos

The Velvet Underground and Nico by Joe Harvard

Let It Be by Steve Matteo

Live at the Apollo by Douglas Wolk

Aqualung by Allan Moore

OK Computer by Dai Griffiths

Let It Be by Colin Meloy

Led Zeppelin IV by Erik Davis

Armed Forces by Franklin Bruno

Exile on Main Street by Bill Janovitz

Grace by Daphne Brooks

Murmur by J. Niimi

Pet Sounds by Jim Fusilli

Ramones by Nicholas Rombes

Endtroducing... by Eliot Wilder

Kick Out the Jams by Don McLeese

Low by Hugo Wilcken

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Kim Cooper

Music from Big Pink by John Niven

Pauls Boutique by Dan LeRoy

Doolittle by Ben Sisario

Theres a Riot Goin On by Miles Marshall Lewis

Stone Roses by Alex Green

Bee Thousand by Marc Woodsworth

The Who Sell Out by John Dougan

Highway 61 Revisited by Mark Polizzotti

Loveless by Mike McGonigal

The Notorious Byrd Brothers by Ric Menck

Court and Spark by Sean Nelson

69 Love Songs by LD Beghtol

Songs in the Key of Life by Zeth Lundy

Forthcoming in this series:

London Calling by David L. Ulin
Daydream Nation by Matthew Stearns
Peoples Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm by Shawn Taylor

and many more

Eric Weisbard

2007

The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc
80 Maiden Lane, New York, NY 10038

The Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX

www.continuumbooks.com

Copyright 2007 by Eric Weisbard

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publishers or their agents.

Printed in Canada

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Weisbard, Eric.
Use your illusion I and II / Eric Weisbard.

p. cm. (33 1/3)
eISBN-13: 978-1-4411-2480-7

1. Guns n Roses (Musical group) Use your illusion I. 2. Guns n Roses (Musical group) Use your illusion II. I. Title. II. Title: Use your illusion 1 and 2. III. Title: Use your illusion one and two.

ML421.G86W45 2007
782.421660922dc22

2006035971

Chapter One
Sunset Boulevard: The Metal Years

Chapter Two
UYI and I

Chapter Three
Suck on That

Chapter Four
WAR Stories

Chapter Five
Get in the Ring

Welcome to the season of the blockbuster. On August 13, 1991, Metallica released Metallica, their Bob Rockproduced sell-in, with Enter Sandman detonating the MTV Video Music Awards. On November 26, Michael Jackson bought number one for Dangerous with the soon circumcised final section of the Black or White video. In-between, a scad of once and future giants of pop music released albums in time for Christmas. Pearl Jams Ten (August 27) and Nirvanas Nevermind (September 24) portended grunge. Garth Brookss Ropin the Wind (September 10) proved, thanks to the newly installed SoundScan, which measured actual sales rather than the rock-weighted guesses of store clerks, that country music was its own behemoth. MC Hammers pop-rap Too Legit to Quit (October 21), successor to the ten millionselling Please Hammer Dont Hurt Em, sold a quick three million and then not a copy more after people actually heard it. Mariah Careys Emotions (September 17) was indifferent for her (three million at first, five in all), huge for anyone else. And U2 cemented their status as the most enduringly beloved band of rocks second generation with an album whose title seemed like a media stunt: Achtung Baby.

But the weirdest blockbuster of them all that fall was Guns N Roses Use Your Illusion I and II, released on September 17, a pair of 75-minute CDs with virtually the same cover sold separately in an act of almost colossal arrogance. GNR had a right, though. Their first album, 1987s Appetite for Destruction, had been certified eight times platinum in 1991, on its way to an eventual fifteen. Rock was still the biggest musical genre, hard rock was still the biggest kind of rock, and GNR were the biggest hard rock band of their day. The first single from Use, You Could Be Mine, appeared first on the Terminator 2 soundtrack, and the video featured the movies unstoppable machine men. Consumers were supposed to be equally unable to avoid Use Your Illusion, which like all post-Thriller blockbusters of that time was planned to play out over several years, relived in multiple single releases and videos, tours, spinoff products, and press provocations. And on one level, it worked: the albums instantly claimed the top two chart positions, ultimately sold seven million copies apiece in the US alone, and spawned videos as leviathan as November Rain.