So why is Guns N’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion I on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
I feel compelled to kick off this edition of the best 1,000 albums ever with a little story.
I was friends with a guy in high school who was, let us say, really into Guns N’ Roses. When the “November Rain” music video was unleashed on MTV, everyone I know seemingly watched countless times – and I know I did.
One thing that sticks about this friend was a comment that he made about a specific moment in the “November Rain” music video. The moment is when we see guitarist Slash outside of a rural church, with a dusty, desert landscape around him. He’s wearing an open black leather jacket with no shirt on underneath (dark sunglasses hung over one of a number of gold chains) and of course he’s wielding his Les Paul guitar, which he uses to launch into one of a number of tasty solos during the epic nine-minute song.
The comment that my friend made about Slash was this: that he would give ten years of his life to be as cool as Slash was at that specific moment – outside of that church in some dusty, rural area – in the “November Rain” video.
I personally don’t find Slash – or Guns N’ Roses, or the “November Rain” music video – to be that cool, but yes, sure, it’s all pretty cool. The music is what endures for me, and “November Rain” is one of G N’ R’s very best.
While the two-edition beast known as the Use Your Illusion albums are no doubt bloated in some respects, they do include incredible songs of hard rock and rock ballad brilliance, including “Don’t Cry” and the cover of Paul McCartney’s “Live and Let Die.”
All told, nothing in Guns N’ Roses’ catalog – and the same is true for the vast amount of music catalogs – quite holds up to the level of Appetite For Destruction, but Use Your Illusion I – particularly when paired with II – represents G N’ R at its zenith, Apex Mountain as Bill Simmons’ movies podcast, The Rewatchables, might describe it.
And then came the fall.
I’ll quote myself from the Use Your Illusion II (#238 of best 1,000 albums ever) piece with regard to my feelings about “Don’t Cry”:
“Don’t Cry” is a flat-out masterpiece – beautiful and slightly haunting. I’m tempted to “ding” it ever so slightly as it appears on both Use Your Illusion albums (with different lyrical arrangements forming the difference between the two versions) but I’ll forgive it as I love the song that much to this day.
“Live and Let Die” takes a “big,” eclectic, wonderful McCartney original (with Wings) and cranks it up bigger, stranger, harder rocking. This thing is big time, bombastic early ‘90s rock n’ roll.
“Bad Apples” has stayed with me over the years – it’s one of the Guns’ catchiest ever rock tunes and a great representation of how tuneful and hard rocking this band can be at their very best.
Some stats & info about Guns N’ Roses – Use Your Illusion I
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Hard Rock, Heavy Metal, SoCal Bands
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4.5 out of 5 stars
- When was Use Your Illusion I released? 1991
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #231 out of 1,000
Guns N’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion I on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from Guns N’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion I that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Everybody needs somebody, you’re not the only one.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.