if you were to do some sort of poll, or survey, asking which was the single most bloated, ego feeding, overproduced album of the 90s, most likely you would get the answer Be Here Now off of Oasis. except, look you see, it wasn't actually that bad; instead rather good. what that most probable answer does offer, however, is a glimpse at just how far from the collective consciousness the double Use Your Illusion albums off of Guns n Roses have fallen. well, yeah, ok, them and Second Coming.
just over a year or so ago (at time of writing) there was a half decent attempt at some fanfare and a reasonable stab at creating excitement about the Use Your Illusion albums getting re-released. more better efforts were made around the previous re-issue of Appetite For Destruction, but then that had the advantage of being a very good album, and at least some effort was put into the re-release. in many respects it did feel like they went and gone done Use Your Illusion special editions as they felt compelled to, but no, no one has thus far put out a Second Coming anniversary edition or what have you.
upon their release i did, to be fair, go and have a gander at the re-issues, down at HMV. it was with no surprise at all that i found the "extras" were (sigh) live recordings that at most would get played once. also, the sets were priced at a ridiculous (even allowing for HMV standards) £18 or so each. that would have been nearly £40 for two albums it would be unlikely i would wish to hear again, with some live stuff that held no interest. so no, i didn't get them. of course i have them now (hence this post) as the price, in just over a year, has fallen to a reasonably sensible £7 (well £6.99) each. as in it was possible to buy both for less ("fewer") than the cost of one on original release. those poor, poor people who got lured into purchasing when they came out.
no, to be fair, they didn't immediately seem like ludicrous, overblown rubbish at the time. on release, when i was, what, 19ish or so (!!!), it did seem ace that a band were releasing 2 (two) double albums on the same day. back then, you have to recall, people had to actually go and buy the music they wished to listen to. or, yeah, tape it off of a mate. which kind of leads to the problem here. after trying to listen to each album once (and saturation point arrived fast, as i recall), one made a decision to simply make a ninety (90) minute tape (actual) of the "best" bits. doing so ended with you having quite a lot of the tape available to you all blank. oh.
with some luck, and this luck requires you being interested, if you click on the above image you may get to see a larger version of the pic, showing the tracklisting for each of the Use Your Illusion albums. leaving aside the ho hum, hit and miss albums, a look at the live selections is very ho hum. quite surprised to see they skipped a decent marketing opportunity and declined to include any live cuts from the Appetite For Destruction album, but then i suppose that would have left we, the people, being reminded of how superior those songs were. are.
looking back, Geffen records has (had) a lot to answer for. they took (ostensibly) the two biggest bands of the end of the 80s, Guns n Roses and The Stone Roses, gave them a (frankly) ludicrous amount of money and told them to do "whatever". Axl insisted on a double double album, Stone Roses went off to Wales and considered sounding like Led Zeppelin to be the way to go. at any point them, the record label, could have stepped in and said "no", but did not. how on earth it ever seemed to be a good idea to allow bloated egos to become more bloated is a surprise.
since i am having a good moan, above is an issue with the Appetite For Destruction special edition thing which irks me. for some reason they insisted on declaring one song included, Shadow Of Your Love, as a big deal as it was "previously unreleased". except it wasn't. as you can see next to it, the song was used as a "b side" for the Live And Let Die CD single. no, also, it really isn't a good song.
but but but but but but surely it's not so that all of the Use Your Illusion albums are a disaster. gosh, golly, f*** no, it is not so. heavily buried across the two albums one can find enough material to cut down to a single, regular album length record that is at least worthy of being classed as by the same band what what Appetite For Destruction. sure, it may well not be that ballads are what made them famous, or for that matter made them "the most dangerous band in the world", but don't overlook just what astonishing songs November Rain and Don't Cry are. just too much dross around them on the records, to be sure.
from what i can ascertain, here in the present day it is so that many fans are paying a lot of money to watch the remnants of the band desecrate the corpse of the band, whilst Axl, Duff and of course Slash are very much enjoying the rewards of desecrating the corpse of the band. i think i tuned out for good when it turned out someone thought it might be wise to let Duff sing.
yes, my copies of the Use Your Illusion re-releases are still in their plastic (or cellophane) wrappers. it may well be that they remain so, for i am in no rush to hear then. honestly, whenever i put on the rather poor 'greatest hits' disc, i find myself skipping the Use Your Illusion tracks until i just give up and put the tape (disc) of Appetite For Destruction on. it's all one really needs.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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