Use Your Illusion II

Overview

An "epic hard/art-rock double whammy," the Use Your Illusion albums were a stylistic turning point for Guns N' Roses (see Use Your Illusion I). In addition, Use Your Illusion II is more political than most of their previous work, with songs like "Civil War", a cover of Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door", and "Get in the Ring" dealing respectively with the topics of violence, law enforcement and media bias. The lyrics deal less with drug use than previous Guns N' Roses albums. Use Your Illusion I featured several songs pre-Appetite for Destruction while Use Your Illusion II featured more tracks written during and after Appetite for Destruction.

The band's cover of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" had been released almost a year earlier on the Days of Thunder soundtrack, while "Civil War" debuted at the 1990 Farm Aid concert. That concert included Guns N' Roses playing a cover of the U.K. Subs song "Down on the Farm", a studio version of which would later appear on the band's 1993 release of cover songs, "The Spaghetti Incident?". "Civil War" was released as a B-side to "You Could Be Mine". The song had been released on the charity album Nobody's Child: Romanian Angel Appeal, a fund-raising compilation for Romanian orphans.

"You Could Be Mine" was released in June 1991 and is used in the film Terminator 2: Judgment Day, though not released on the soundtrack album. The video uses Arnold Schwarzenegger, in character as the Terminator, with a loose plot featuring Axl Rose as its "target". However, he is saved from termination as he is deemed a "waste of ammo" by the T-800's lock-on system. The original subject matter of the song dealt with Izzy Stradlin's failed relationship with ex-girlfriend Angela Nicoletti.

The Use Your Illusion albums can be considered a single cohesive work, and certain elements of Use Your Illusion II underscore this intent. For instance, both albums have a version of the song "Don't Cry", and both have one cover song; "Live and Let Die" by Paul McCartney (Use Your Illusion I) and "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" by Bob Dylan (Use Your Illusion II). Each has at least one track sung by other members of the band: lead vocals are performed by bassist Duff McKagan on "So Fine", a song that was dedicated to punk rock musician Johnny Thunders, who died from a drug overdose before the recording of the album.

The song "Get in the Ring" finds the band lashing out at a career's worth of critics and enemies. Among those referred to by name are editors of several entertainment magazines. The industrial-flavored "My World", the final track, was written and recorded in three hours, with Rose claiming those in the recording room were on mushrooms at the time.

The band had some difficulty achieving the final sound, especially during the mixing stages of both albums. According to a 1991 cover story by Rolling Stone magazine, after mixing 21 tracks with engineer/producer Bob Clearmountain, the band fired Clearmountain when he tried to replace the real drums with samples. According to Slash's autobiography, "one afternoon we discovered a notepad of his where he'd notated all the drum samples he planned to mix in over Matt's drum tracks" the band decided to scrap the mixes and start from scratch with engineer Bill Price of Sex Pistols fame.

Slash has stated that most of the material for the album was written on acoustic guitars in a couple of nights at his house (the Walnut House), after several months of non-productivity. According to Slash "Breakdown" was one of the most complicated songs to record on the album; the banjo, drum, and piano parts were hard to synchronize and drummer Matt Sorum "lost it" a couple of times trying to get the drums just right. The song "Locomotive" was written in a house Slash and Izzy Stradlin rented in the Hollywood Hills following the Appetite for Destruction tours. The song shows the group dabbling in funk metal, and is the only song on either album where the phrase "use your illusion" appears as a lyric.

Artwork

Both albums' covers are the work of Estonian-American artist Mark Kostabi. They consist of detail from Raphael's painting The School of Athens. The highlighted figure, unlike many of those in the painting, has not been identified with any specific philosopher. The only difference in the artwork between the albums is the color scheme used for each album. Use Your Illusion II uses blue and purple. The original painting was titled by Paul Kostabi as Use Your Illusion and became the title of both albums. Both Use Your Illusion albums' liner notes include the message "Fuck You, St. Louis!" amongst the thank you notes, a reference to the Riverport Riot near there at the Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre in July 1991 during the Use Your Illusion Tour.

Reception

Use Your Illusion II received positive reviews, though some critics rated it lower than Use Your Illusion I. Rolling Stone critic Christian Wright wrote that the album's songs "range from ballad to battle, pretty to vulgar, worldly to incredibly naive", concluding that Rose "whips victimization, menace and struggle into one fluid, triumphant motion." Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune commented that both Use Your Illusion albums "represent a staggering leap in ambition, musicianship, production and songwriting" and "rank with the best hard rock of the last decade", while finding that II contains more "knockout punches" than I. Although deeming I the better record, USA Todays Edna Gundersen called II similarly "rebellious, ambitious and powerful". In NME, Mary Anne Hobbs panned both albums for their "dreadfully laboured feel" and "asinine" lyrics; as examples of the latter, she cited the "gratuitous sexism" of "Pretty Tied Up" and "slack political rhetoric" of "Civil War". Robert Christgau was unimpressed by II apart from "Civil War", which he designated as a "choice cut" in The Village Voice.

In a retrospective review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine described Use Your Illusion II as "more serious and ambitious than I, but... also considerably more pretentious", finding it a tedious listen due to its "pompous production and poor pacing" despite commending the "nervy energy" of certain songs. Ann Powers was more complimentary in the 2004 Rolling Stone Album Guide, calling it "spacier" than I while noting that "Yesterdays" and "You Could Be Mine" show that Guns N' Roses "can still focus to great effect". Both Use Your Illusion records were jointly ranked 41st on Rolling Stones 2010 list of the best albums of the 1990s.

It was the first time that two albums by one band or artist had entered the US charts at the number one and two spots and Guns N' Roses became the first to have the top two biggest selling albums on the chart since Jim Croce in 1974. The albums opened as the top two albums on the charts in Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

Track listing

("Civil War") Dylan ("Knockin' on Heaven's Door")

Personnel

• W. Axl Rose – lead vocals, piano, whistling, backing vocals, synthesizer, drum machine, keyboards, effects, art direction, design
• Slash – lead guitar, rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar, banjo on "Civil War" and "Breakdown", art direction, design
• Izzy Stradlin – rhythm guitar, backing vocals, lead vocals on "14 Years", acoustic guitar, coral sitar on "Pretty Tied Up", lead guitar
• Duff McKagan – bass, backing vocals, lead vocals on "So Fine", co-lead vocals on "Get In The Ring", percussion
• Matt Sorum – drums, percussion, backing vocals
• Dizzy Reed – keyboards, backing vocals

;Additional musicians

• Steven Adler – drums on "Civil War"
• Johann Langlie – drums, keyboards and sound effects on "My World"
• Isabella and Carmela Lento – backing vocals on "Knockin' On Heaven's Door"
• Howard Teman – piano on "So Fine"
• Shannon Hoon – co-lead vocals on "Don't Cry"

;Production

• Mike Clink – production, engineering
• Jim Mitchell – additional engineering
• Bill Price – mixing
• George Marino – mastering
• Kevin Reagan – art direction, graphic design
• Mark Kostabi – artwork
• Robert John – photography
• Allen Abrahamson – assistant engineer
• Buzz Burrowes – assistant engineer
• Chris Puram – assistant engineer
• Craig Portelis – assistant engineer
• Ed Goodreau – assistant engineer
• Jason Roberts – assistant engineer
• John Aguto – assistant engineer
• L. Stu Young – assistant engineer
• Leon Granados – assistant engineer
• Mike Douglass – assistant engineer
• Talley Sherwood – assistant engineer

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Decade-end charts

Certifications

References

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