Use Your Illusion 1 & 2

To this day I'm still trying to figure out which songs are clunkers and filler. Every number has always clicked with me except for Estranged, which is a mess, and the covers, which are boring. Also the alt lyrics take of Don't Cry was kind of a head scratcher. It's not like Axl was ever some amazing poet or lyricist in the first place. But in-between the singles (which I'm officially burnt out on) are winners like Locomotive, Coma, and Back Off Bitch. I admit Coma is a little weird though haha.

The only 2 songs I don't particularly care for are both on UYI 2.

'Breakdown' (mostly because of the goddamned banjo) and 'My World' with it's industrial and rap leanings. The alt version of 'Don't Cry' was probably unnecessary, but as it is, I don't mind it. The rant in the middle of 'Get In The Ring' sounds silly and dated to me now, but the song's still good.

UYI 1 is fine just the way it is.

MetalGuy71 wrote:

The rant in the middle of 'Get In The Ring' sounds silly and dated to me now, but the song's still good.

That is probably my favorite part on the whole thing.

And to the Corporal's question as to the filler and clunkers, I personally don't really think many of the tunes are clunkers or filler. Most of them, in their own right, are pretty good songs. But for me, jamming everything into one double album is just too much.

So therefore it made me not really listen to the whole as much. And at 16 songs each, each of the albums in itself is much longer than I personally like a single album to be, and some of those 16 songs are long on their own.

The only double album I can thing of, aside from live albums, that truly deserves to be a double album is Springsteen's The River. All the others I'm familiar with feel like the band just felt compelled to throw everything they had come up with at the listener. Even Quadrophenia would've better served if fat had been trimmed.

Lari wrote:

UNCLE SAXON'S KICKASS CDS wrote:

Never heard 'em, except for the radio singles.

Same.

I heard them, but I prefer the singles.

ZombieHavoc wrote:

MetalGuy71 wrote:

The rant in the middle of 'Get In The Ring' sounds silly and dated to me now, but the song's still good.

That is probably my favorite part on the whole thing.

And to the Corporal's question as to the filler and clunkers, I personally don't really think many of the tunes are clunkers or filler. Most of them, in their own right, are pretty good songs. But for me, jamming everything into one double album is just too much.

So therefore it made me not really listen to the whole as much. And at 16 songs each, each of the albums in itself is much longer than I personally like a single album to be, and some of those 16 songs are long on their own.

The only double album I can thing of, aside from live albums, that truly deserves to be a double album is Springsteen's The River. All the others I'm familiar with feel like the band just felt compelled to throw everything they had come up with at the listener. Even Quadrophenia would've better served if fat had been trimmed.

Yeah one of the things I agree with is the overlength. Not a fan of long albums. Blame Van Halen for that.

corplhicks wrote:

ZombieHavoc wrote:

MetalGuy71 wrote:

The rant in the middle of 'Get In The Ring' sounds silly and dated to me now, but the song's still good.

That is probably my favorite part on the whole thing.

And to the Corporal's question as to the filler and clunkers, I personally don't really think many of the tunes are clunkers or filler. Most of them, in their own right, are pretty good songs. But for me, jamming everything into one double album is just too much.

So therefore it made me not really listen to the whole as much. And at 16 songs each, each of the albums in itself is much longer than I personally like a single album to be, and some of those 16 songs are long on their own.

The only double album I can thing of, aside from live albums, that truly deserves to be a double album is Springsteen's The River. All the others I'm familiar with feel like the band just felt compelled to throw everything they had come up with at the listener. Even Quadrophenia would've better served if fat had been trimmed.

Yeah one of the things I agree with is the overlength. Not a fan of long albums. Blame Van Halen for that.

The Wall! 

Boris2008 wrote:

The Wall! 

Well, I can't really speak to how that works as a double album. I've heard it. It's one of my dad's favorite records. But aside from Piper at the Gates of Dawn, I don't really care for Pink Floyd.

I pretty much like all the songs, the only ones i dont care much for are 14 years, So Fine, and you aint the first (my world doesnt count as a song IMO). The only thing i dont care for are the spoken word bits (that weird phone call in knockin on heavens door, axl's rant in get in the ring, the monologue at the end of breakdown, etc), as they distract from the song.

Like some have said, I think you could have easily paired these albums down to one. I rarely listen to either one these days, as they just don't have the staying power of the first album.

Damn, pretty much everyone is in agreement here. I've heard so much negative opinion on these albums that seeing this is a shock. In a good way.

Every criticism raised here is valid, but in some ways, UYI is kind of a period piece.

I read once that Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk" album is "a cocaine album" with drug use totally influencing damn near every aspect of the piece in this trainwreck-y way. UYI was one of the last "We're throwing money at this until it blows up worldwide" record label Hail Mary passes and I think the excesses of the album reflect it. Yeah, objectively, that doesn't make for a classic album, but it's very much of its time - like LinnDrum on early 80s albums. Not always the best creative choice, but a sure thing if you want to relive an era.

So, for me, UYI is imperfect and has a lot going against it, but it puts me back in this mentality of early 90s mainstream hard rock. You know, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and all that.

Also worth throwing out there are the music videos. Now I know a lot of people here are marginally older than me so the perspective may be different, but when I first saw them at the age of thirteen, I gotta say they did something HUGE to me. Yeah the narrative is incoherent (completely nonexistent n Estranged) but the visuals killed me. GnR performing at the Orpheum? Cool. Shots of the Rainbow? If only I could get in! The band performing on top of a building with helicopters swarming around? F*ck the Beatles and F*ck U2. Axl a psychotic nut? That explains so much, no wonder he's a genius. Slash soloing outside a rural desert church in high [helicopter] winds? Holy shit. Slash jamming on top of a grand piano? Put that on my bucket list. SLASH RISING UP FROM THE OCEAN MY GOD. That kind of thing.

corplhicks wrote:

Also worth throwing out there are the music videos. Now I know a lot of people here are marginally older than me so the perspective may be different, but when I first saw them at the age of thirteen, I gotta say they did something HUGE to me. Yeah the narrative is incoherent (completely nonexistent n Estranged) but the visuals killed me. GnR performing at the Orpheum? Cool. Shots of the Rainbow? If only I could get in! The band performing on top of a building with helicopters swarming around? F*ck the Beatles and F*ck U2. Axl a psychotic nut? That explains so much, no wonder he's a genius. Slash soloing outside a rural desert church in high [helicopter] winds? Holy shit. Slash jamming on top of a grand piano? Put that on my bucket list. SLASH RISING UP FROM THE OCEAN MY GOD. That kind of thing.

Yeah I thought the videos were cool, too. Weird Al used to some times play videos and the voice over them, like make the musicians talk, and he did one for November Rain (or Don't Cry, maybe? I forget--It's Don't Cry where they are on the rooftop, right?) that killed me and it still cracks me up whenever I think about it. Probably obvious or juvenile jokes/voiceovers, but they were so funny to me.

Fat Freddy wrote:

I got "II" at a thrift store about a year ago and it's OK, but not a frequent player. I'll get around to picking up "I" eventually cuz my O.C.D. will not allow me to have only half the set.

I finally got a used copy of "I" over the weekend so my collecting O.C.D. is now officially chilled out...

Fat Freddy wrote:

Fat Freddy wrote:

I got "II" at a thrift store about a year ago and it's OK, but not a frequent player. I'll get around to picking up "I" eventually cuz my O.C.D. will not allow me to have only half the set.

I finally got a used copy of "I" over the weekend so my collecting O.C.D. is now officially chilled out...

Enjoy. A great album indeed.