Using Your Illusion, Correctly!

Avid fans of hard rock and Guns N’ Roses aficionados cannot deny the impact and brilliance of Use Your Illusion I & II. And for as long as they have existed, there have been debates about which is the better collection of songs. Use Your Illusion I boasts a more aggressive and at times psychedelic quality to it while Use Your Illusion II has more of a blues feel. Both albums suffer (or excel?) from their own excess. Diehards, myself included, will tell you that to truly get the most out of these albums you should listen to them back to back in their entirety. Oh, and forget that the song “My World” ever existed.

But what about the rest of us that don’t have the time to devote to some band that once ruled the world? True, there is a compilation out titled Use Your Illusion but it features mostly singles, is sold at K-Mart (Hell), and edits out all the expletives. No thank you. A collection like that cannot give you the full range of material on these great albums. Instead, I’ll try to compile the essential cuts from both albums into a version that can be conveniently placed on an 80 minute CDR.

I present to you:

Use Your Illusion (78 Minutes 19 seconds)

1. Civil War (The band’s biggest “political statement” serves as an ominous opener, whistling included.)
2. Right Next Door To Hell (The bassline just kicks you in your gut and never lets go.)
3. Dust N’ Bones (Stradlin wrote this rocker about one bad dude. Great lead work and piano melodies on this one.)
4. You Could Be Mine (The single featured in T2 is downright sinister.)
5. Don’t Cry (Original) (Call me a sap, but the original sports better lyrics.)
6. 14 Years (By far, one of the jumpiest piano lines I’ve ever heard.)
7. The Garden (This is GNR’s foray into brutal, but dreamy psychedelica and it works.)
8. Estranged (Slash earns his keep in this huge ballad.)
9. November Rain (The ending solo. ‘Nuff said.)
10. Garden Of Eden (Great use of studio trickery, there’s TONS of sound bites here.)
11. You Ain’t The First (An underrated bluegrass influenced number. Acoustic and caustic like GNR do best.)
12. Get In The Ring (Axl attacks everyone that’s bad mouthed the band. Vulgar in every way and I love it.)
13. Double Talkin’ Jive (The song has some great flamenco guitar work towards the end.)
14. Coma (Epic closer. The song borders on prog-rock complexity.)

Why these and not others?
The idea was to give listeners a wide sampling of the various styles found on the two discs as well as the big name songs. Plus, I wanted to emphasis the ones that had the tightest arrangements. For that reason, Use Your Illusion I highly outnumbers its sister album contributing 9 tracks to II’s 5. However, let’s get into the tracks that had to be cut.

“My World”: Axl’s “surprise” bonus track is 1:26 of industrial beats, bad rapping and creepy samples of girls moaning. Oh, and Axl gives us his best Hannibal Lecter impression. Pass.

“Bad Apples”: I hate the bassline on this song. The hook is ok until they repeat the title. Then, it’s all over.

“Live & Let Die” and “Knocking On Heaven’s Door”: Covers on an album are never a good idea. Even if these covers are incredible.

“Don’t Cry (Alt. Lyrics)”: The lyrics simply aren't as powerful..

“So Fine”: So Forgettable.

“Perfect Crime,” “Back Off Bitch,” “Shotgun Blues,” “Pretty Tied Up,” and “Don’t Damn Me”: Too similar to songs like "Garden Of Eden." We needed variety and so these tracks were cut.

“Bad Obsession”: Again, too similar to other material on our version. The dynamics could have been better in the song too. It was a hard cut to make however, as I love the harmonica and overall instrumentation within the song itself.

“Breakdown”: This is an example of not having a really tight arrangement. The song meanders around for its whole running time. Great music, but sloppy when compared to the others.

“Yesterdays”: One of the weaker, but catchy songs on either album. Lyrically, it lacked the GNR theatrics that we know and love. It’s just too saccharine.

“Locomotive” and “Dead Horse”: Time. Ultimately these were the hardest to cut because I loved them both but I needed to make room for other songs and so, they got the axe.

So there you have it. While I cut many songs I enjoyed, I think this version of Use Your Illusion is sleeker, more compact, and certainly a great way to introduce new people to these incredible albums. And if all else fails, you can put it in your CD collection as a placeholder for Chinese Democracy.